By Ewen Callaway of Nature magazine
New descriptions of Australopithecus sediba fossils have added to debates about the species' place in the human lineage. Five papers published today in Science describe the skull, pelvis, hands and feet of the ancient hominin unearthed three years ago in South Africa.
The papers reveal a curious mix of traits, some found in apes and earlier Australopithecus fossils, and others thought to be unique to Homo erectus--the tall, thin-boned hominin that emerged around 2 million years ago in eastern Africa and colonized Europe and Asia--and its descendants, including modern humans.
This mix of features has left palaeoanthropologists unsure of how A. sediba relates to other ancient human relatives. Lee Berger, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, whose team discovered A. sediba, proposes that A. sediba may have evolved into H. erectus, but many other researchers are sceptical of that claim.
Au-spicious beginnings
Berger's 9-year-old son Matthew happened on the first A. sediba fossil in August 2008, while the two were exploring Malapa, a collapsed cave system not far from the Sterkfontein and Swartkrans sites, which have also yielded a wealth of ancient human remains. The fossil turned out to be a collar bone. The team went on to find more than 220 bones from at least five individuals, including infants, older children and adults.
The researchers concluded that the fossils represented a new species of hominin, which they named after the Sotho word for wellspring -- sediba. The species' small brain and limb proportions matched those seen in the genus Australopithecus, whose most famous representative is the 3-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as Lucy. Other palaeoanthropologists argue that A. sediba should have been placed in the genus Homo because of its modern features, including its hand and pelvis.
"That is exactly what you'd expect when you find a very transitional form: 50% of the field saying they're right, it's an Australopithecine, the other half saying, put this in the genus Homo," said Berger during a conference call announcing the new A. sediba papers.
Mixed messages
At around 420 cubic centimeters, A. sediba's puny brain compares to those of other Australopithecus specimens and chimpanzees. But a high-resolution synchrotron scan of the brain's impression on the skull shows enlarged frontal areas that are normally associated with humans and linked to higher cognitive abilities, such as planning.
A. sediba's pelvis also looks wider than those of other australopiths, raising doubts about the idea that the human pelvic shape evolved to accommodate large-brained babies. "Whatever is driving a relatively human-like shape of the pelvis, it is not a big brain," says Berger.
The orientations of its leg and ankle bones suggest that A. sediba walked upright, and its nearly complete ankle resembles that of a human. But its long arms, and some features of its feet and shin bones, are similar to those of a chimpanzee. Taken together, these features suggest that A. sediba was adapted for both bipedalism and tree-dwelling.
Attached to those ape-like arms are human-like hands with strong thumbs perfect for gripping. "That hand is the most human-like hand outside of Homo sapiens or Neanderthals that's been discovered," Berger says. The researchers have not reported stone tools associated with A. sediba, but Berger says the hands suggest it would have been capable of making and using them.
Berger says this hotch-potch suggests that A. sediba is a direct ancestor of H. erectus. Alternatively, he says the new fossils may mark a late-surviving species of Australopithecus that went extinct.
Cool reception
"They're obviously fabulous fossils and I'm cautiously receptive to their big picture overview of it" as a predecessor of early Homo, says Dean Falk, a neuroanatomist at Florida State University in Tallahassee and the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. However, she would like to see the brain's impression in the skull compared to those of many other Australopithecus species before accepting that its brain shape resembles that of a human.
Donald Johanson, a palaeoanthropologist at Arizona State University in Tempe, would also like to see A. sediba thoroughly compared to other ancient human fossils, in particular those of earlier Homo species, such as Homo habilis. "It is possible it's another sprig on the evolutionary tree," he says of A. sediba.
Bernard Wood, a palaeoanthropologist at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., is also sceptical. "It's perfectly possible that A. sediba is an ancestor of Homo," he says. "Do I think it's likely? No, I don't."
But Wood says the species' unique mix of primitive and modern anatomy, particularly its foot, underscores the difficulty in determining whether any fossil represents a direct human ancestor or an evolutionary dead-end with some human traits. "I think we had this crazy notion that our morphology and our behaviour were so special that they couldn't have conceivably evolved more than once," he says, adding that the papers "will make identifying human ancestors a hell of a lot more difficult today than it was yesterday."
Berger's team is still excavating Malapa, and have plans to describe remains of other individuals from the cave. They recovered material surrounding some of the fossils that may represent preserved skin and soft tissue, something never before seen in human fossils this old.
Instead of keeping tight-lipped about that material, Berger's team has put out an open call for help from other researchers in determining whether the material really is skin and, if so, what it might have to say about ancient humans. The project is in its infancy, but Berger says they may detail the work and its conclusion online before official publication.
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202 Comments
Add CommentOK, to any creationists reading this - save the drama for your mamma. Science is self-correcting. Science has never laid claim to absolute truth. All scientific theories are incomplete. They get more complete, and - more importantly - more useful, as new evidence is obtained. Sometimes, theories even get discarded for better and more useful ones. If religion did that, there would be no religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA science that claims no truths cannot correct anything just as a religion that claims no truths cannot correct anybody. Your idea of science is irrational and unpractical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReal archeology:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.squidoo.com/noahsarkfound and http://www.archive.org/details/The_Search_for_the_Real_Mt_Sinai
Absolute truth is the purview of the hucksters and sideshow barkers of superstion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReal science does not pretend to have all the answers, unlike the multitude of superstitions claiming to direct men's actions for the betterment of their souls while enriching their clergies pockets far more than their adherents' spiritual existence. There is no place in science for "...and then a miracle happened." True science is an ongoing process. This means, among other things, that a certain maturity of mind is required, allowing for acceptance of an answer that begins with "To the best of our knowledge..."
Frankly, I do not care what you believe. Show me what you can prove (without the miracle of faith), form an hypothesis from that. Work that hypothesis, adapting and improving it as required to fit new factual discoveries, and you are engaged in science. Anything less is superstitious twaddle.
Science is worthy of scholarly attention. Superstition, no matter what comfort or feelings of security it may bring you, simply is not.
The splitters seem to have taken over the debate on human ancestry with every new popuation discovered being placed into a new species. The possibility that there was sufficient gene flow between some of these populations to classify them as a single species also needs to be considered. The recent genetic evidence of inter-breeding between H.sapiens and H.neanderthalensis demonstrates just how misleading the fossil record, considered alone, can be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we do consider the present array to be separate species then the question becomes which characteristics were inherited and which developed in parallel amongst the later Australopiths and the early members of genus Homo. Regardless, the big picture of genus Homo emerging from genus Australopithecus would seem certain.
If you were inclined to test your assertion, you will find that Christianity is one religion that HAS changed in significant ways over the years. Better you should avoid such statements.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is certainly worth keeping in mind that 'species' is a human concept, not exactly a natural one, and there really are many variations on that theme. Archeology/Paleontology are always going to leave certain questions unanswered since we can't know the genetics, behavior, nor even many of the physical features of ancient life forms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hate to break up a good fight, but have you ever considered that religion evolves too? While we freely investigate the complexities and interactions of the various branches of ape and man, if you look at the evolution of religion you have no friends. The strict scientist denies any roll of mysticism in modern life, yet it flourishes. The religious zealot refuses to believe that his religion is different than the original religion that founded his cult. Man wants answers and purpose in life and religion adapts to the changing pressures and needs of those not fulfilled by science. The scientist has been thwarted too often in the past by religious dogma and wants to be unhampered. Somehow these two factions have to work together and work out a truce. The "pure science" as conducted in the Nazi concentration camps has to be held in check by the more "moral" science that values life and human experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonally, it seems science and religion occupy separate spaces. Is there a role for science in spirituality or vice versa? It's just not necessary as neither can trump the other. I do object to those who use phrases such as 'settled science' and who don't understand the scientific method or the meaning of 'theory'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour so right. Not even a Photo Shopped picture to speak a thousand words. Science has been wrong for decades, even lying to you, ie. pigs teeth, carbon 14 dating, made up skeletons of several different species trying to "fool you." I don't know how the universe was made nor do I care. What I do know is there are laws of physics such as "matter is neither created nor destroyed" and "energy is neither created nor destroyed." Both are abundant beyond measurement. So I ask you, where did they come from? My argument is we cannot describe it other than to say it exists. That is the same thing I say about God, He just exists living outside of time, that He made everything to his pleasure and He is bigger than all matter and all energy combined. Yet he cares about me! Oh and he never once changed his story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarbon 14 is funny, the carbon in your body is as old as time, dating you would result miscellaneous dates in dates from in the future to millions of years old. My suggestion is stop putting your faith in people who have none and put it in the only possible solution to what you see and feel. You can keep dreaming coming from an ape but you are more likely to become an ape since the universe tends from order to disorder (that is another law of physics).
Hummm Struble, I'm pretty sure that 2+2=4 is absolute. Maybe so's gravity. Theories often are pretty much religion, kinda like anthropogenic global warming. What cha think?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI login here to read articles about science. I'd login to "Christianity Today" if I wanted to read about the
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"evolution" of religion or Noah's Ark. If you must proselytize, take it elsewhere, and please research carbon 14 dating, isotope halflives, and entropy if you intend to intelligently comment on them.
Yawn...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery single thing you have said about science is so incredibly wrong I don't know where to begin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy must we endure a chorus of religious opinions for each article about human origins? Worse, hearing again that old canard that "science is wrong".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich is preferable - an institution believing in unchanging truth based on "revelation" and "faith" or one constantly challenging, testing and examining evidence, readily admitting past mistakes?
This is an exciting time for human origin investigations. New scientific tools have enabled us to examine things previously thought impossible.
Sorry b4eternity but you have been raised or brainwashed at an older age to be quite wrong in your facts you are presenting. Not only are you wrong, but, you are grossly misleading anyone who would read you post and take it as "fact". Not to worry though, I highly doubt anyone would take your rant to seriously, as, most people who tend to be of the scientific mindset are somewhat rational and are all ready beyond the point of believing in a "god" as you do because they know how utterly crazy and nonsensical that is. You are quite condescending to the scientific crowd who *knows for a fact* that carbon 14 is reliable enough to date fossils and such to a point where one can put a fair amount of faith in the geological fossil record and the such. This is very *basic* knowledge in the field; it shows your lack of any real scientific knowledge. Granted, there have been quite a few archeological "frauds" over time (mostly do to a single persons issue with race, wanting a certain race to be found "first")but the discoveries that are more certain are amazing and push the knowledge of mankind's origins even further; I am sorry you refuse to understand that and choose to put your faith in myth. Oh, and btw, faith based religions have had quite a few frauds as well, the crusades are one example, thousands of people were killed in the name of "god". I think carbon-14 comes out the winner here, not a whole lot of death and some accurate enough readings that enable up and coming minds to explore their ancient origins to an even greater extent as time goes on. I am sorry these facts bother you, but, in the end Scientific findings will remain and not go away, at a point they will be proven even more true and then you will have to adapt your views to fit those new findings. Take care.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry b4eternity but you have been raised or brainwashed at an older age to be quite wrong in your facts you are presenting. Not only are you wrong, but, you are grossly misleading anyone who would read you post and take it as "fact". Not to worry though, I highly doubt anyone would take your rant to seriously, as, most people who tend to be of the scientific mindset are somewhat rational and are all ready beyond the point of believing in a "god" as you do because they know how utterly crazy and nonsensical that is. You are quite condescending to the scientific crowd who *knows for a fact* that carbon 14 is reliable enough to date fossils and such to a point where one can put a fair amount of faith in the geological fossil record and the such. This is very *basic* knowledge in the field; it shows your lack of any real scientific knowledge. Granted, there have been quite a few archeological "frauds" over time (mostly do to a single persons issue with race, wanting a certain race to be found "first")but the discoveries that are more certain are amazing and push the knowledge of mankind's origins even further; I am sorry you refuse to understand that and choose to put your faith in myth. Oh, and btw, faith based religions have had quite a few frauds as well, the crusades are one example, thousands of people were killed in the name of "god". I think carbon-14 comes out the winner here, not a whole lot of death and some accurate enough readings that enable up and coming minds to explore their ancient origins to an even greater extent as time goes on. I am sorry these facts bother you, but, in the end Scientific findings will remain and not go away, at a point they will be proven even more true and then you will have to adapt your views to fit those new findings. Take care.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry b4eternity but you have been raised or brainwashed at an older age to be quite wrong in your facts you are presenting. Not only are you wrong, but, you are grossly misleading anyone who would read you post and take it as "fact". Not to worry though, I highly doubt anyone would take your rant to seriously, as, most people who tend to be of the scientific mindset are fariley rational and are all ready beyond the point of believing in a "god" as you do because they know how utterly crazy and nonsensical that is. You are quite condescending to the scientific crowd who *knows for a fact* that carbon 14 is reliable enough to date fossils and such to a point where one can put a fair amount of faith in the geological fossil record and the such. This is very *basic* knowledge in the field; it shows your lack of any real scientific knowledge. Granted, there have been quite a few archeological "frauds" over time (mostly do to a single persons issue with race, wanting a certain race to be found "first")but the discoveries that are more certain are amazing and push the knowledge of mankind's origins even further; I am sorry you refuse to understand that and choose to put your faith in myth. Oh, and btw, faith based religions have had quite a few frauds as well, the crusades are one example, thousands of people were killed in the name of "god". I think carbon-14 comes out the winner here, not a whole lot of death and some accurate enough readings that enable up and coming minds to explore their ancient origins to an even greater extent as time goes on. I am sorry these facts bother you, but, in the end Scientific findings will remain and not go away, at a point they will be proven even more true and then you will have to adapt your views to fit those new findings. Take care.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissorry folks, not sure why that came up 3 times and no option to erase the other two or I would! Sorry, what a long winded post I have..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReligion hasnt changed at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe people believing in it has. There are many religions many people believing what ever they like from the bible or koran or whatever leaf you read.
Science is peer reviewed, with current therories that fit all the known pieces, as new pieces emerge new theories are written that push further these limits of understanding.
Wow, really good post. You nailed it so well in such few words.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW: Per definition(Webster's), politic's is a religion.
Why do we consider the present human beings belonging to the same specie although the have got huge anatomic differences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do we consider the present human beings belonging to the same specie although they have got huge anatomic differences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1000 years is but a day to the lord..thusly 365000 years is but ONE year to God.. ONE MILLION yreas is just over THREE years to God..do the math all you scientists .. and as a reminder.. Christ is preached of contention..but he is preached none the less. 2011 years and no other name save Jesus still garners the attention he has recieved. God still rules!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is right albeit challenging. For example, to teach that Einstein's Theory of Relativity is true only to have it begin to disintegrate inside of 100 years is daunting for many. But that is a very common occurrence in science. On the other hand facts are facts. http://www.squidoo.com/noahsarkfound,http://www.archive.org/details/The_Search_for_the_Real_Mt_Sinai.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJayl76, is your statement on absolute truth true? I agree that science is constantly evolving, and that this is a good thing. On a basic philosophical level, however, saying there is no absolute truth is kinda self-refuting. Also, incidentally, there are quite a few of the "clergy" who don't make any money at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo problem...as your poets say...to err is human
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do creationists even come here with their nonsense arguments that have been debunked time and time again?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere was a statement that religion is evolving. Evolution in religion is just response to general awareness that religion has no factual or logical basis and has to be re-interpreted to make any sense. Religious evolution is never based on new facts, unless you consider the fact that people are no longer believing the current interpretation. That would be the factual basis for religious evolution.
If there was an all powerful supernatural deity that wanted us to believe in him he could easily convince us.
No problem...as your poets say...to err is human
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy must people feel that they must discredit the opinions of others. Whether you believe the biblical story or you believe in evolution. There is no reason to not accept that both sides may be right (or wrong). Our understanding of the universe continues to increase through our scientific endeavors. And it may be that in time we discover "god". Of course, we may could disprove the existence of a "god" entirely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is easy to ignore the possibility of a greater being, accepting science as producing the only answers. Remember, that the Bible is as complete as the men who recorded it could make it. Their understanding of their world was limited and thus their accounting within the Bible. It does not make it an impossibility.
You will accomplish far more by keeping your senses open to the world around you than by deciding you know the truth. Today's facts are tomorrow's disproven theories.
Theory of Evolution
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheory of Creation
Theory of Relativity
From the dictionary:
the·o·ry
noun, plural the·o·ries.
A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
Synonyms: idea, notion hypothesis, postulate.
Evolution is just a religion like Christianity, Atheism and Global Warming. They are all ideas preached at people. Basically Christian "scientists" and Evolutionary "scientists" are just Cryptozoologists. They are all searching for something no one can prove exists. Do I have a belief of how we came to be? Yes, but I can no more prove it, than you can prove God or evolution. They are all Theories. Otherwise one would be called "Fact". They all need faith. Stop arguing over which one is real. Neither one can be proven.
As much as non-religious people love to ignore our Constitution:
Amendment 1 says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Did you see the second half of the first line?
"or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
So you, nor ANYONE, can prohibit someone from freely exercising their religion, at all. There is no restriction for schools, public places, anywhere.
If you don't like it, push your representative to try and get the constitution changed. But that is the LAW for now.
This is good for both evolution and christianity since they are both religions. However, the fact they push evolution in school is forbidden by the constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". So this should also be taken up by our representatives to stop this blatant violation of the constitution.
It's time people are finally honset and start treating all these things as what they truly are.
Science loves the idea of evolution because it doesn't require humans to believe they came from somewhere and are under influance to act in a particular fashion. It takes all the responsibility off of the human race. So, it is an easy idea to shove down kids throats. On the otherside religion can use the ideas of creation to force humans to believe they have to follow are certain way of life. It is a form of mental slavery and helps control humans.
Both are the same, only the people pushing them are different.
I think those bones belong to a chimp and because of your small brains, you religious sideshow freaks also belong in the chimp family. All humans belong on one tree and that tree is not the ape tree and religion doesn't have a damn thing to do with it...apes evolve from apes and humans evolved from humans. When a certain group of people in America started feeling inferior to another group, they started screaming 'racist' and demanded to be discovered first (like the one commenter said), so everything shifted to Africa and all the knowledge gathered up to then was rewritten or hidden so it would reflect that humans, somehow, managed to get out of there and have sex among themselves for tens of thousands of years, but somehow managed to mysteriously convert their ape like appearance to human. Now why would they want to do that??? The humans in Africa stayed in Africa because there was a lot of food there and it was easy to acquire. Weren't they happy with the way they looked, so they changed their appearance to look like something they didn't even know existed. Get real, all humans can't be that stupid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a big difference in humans of the southern hemisphere and humans in the northern hemisphere because they are two different human species, but still human...compatible since they are humans, yet different enough to tell the difference. There are three human species on this planet right now, and you can recognize each species just by looking at their bones...everyone knows that. So why are we looking at ape bones and trying to say that they are human just because they are shaped about the same? Trace these three human species back and you will find that they did not start from the great ape, but from their own DNA.
The bible is the truth and the truth never needs to be changed. I still find it incredible that we see things being created all the time. In fact that is what we do we create things. Science finds thousands of new species every year but cannot find one that has evolved from another. Science has yet to prove the theory and I will continue to gaze in wonder of God's creation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShow me what you can believe without the certainty of truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen someone has faith in science, it's called "to the best of our knowledge." When someone has faith in religion, it's called "superstition." The reality is that no one (no matter how deluded) can escape the necessity of faith.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is painfully tiring listening to the same nonsensical sophomoric arguments trying desperately to paint "science" and "religion" as incompatible. Arguments that on the whole are unconvincing and have been dismissed a thousand times before.
Individuals who have contributed meaningfully to modern "science" throughout the ages have always had a religious (biblical) worldview).
William of Ockham, Jean Buridan, Nicholas of Cusa, Michael Servetus, Francis Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, Boyle, Leibniz, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Gray, Pasteur, Kelvin, Max Planck, Michael Polanyi, Stanley Jaki...the list goes on and on.
There is nothing scientific about an atheist/ agnostic/skeptical/secular worldview. This view of the world should have died long ago with the ignorant ancient Greeks who invented it.
Yet even if one were to rise from the dead, still some would not believe.
Ho hum.
"Sometimes, theories even get discarded for better and more useful ones. If religion did that, there would be no religion."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSounds like you just described the religion of Islam. It's called the law of abrogation.
Further related- when something is constantly changing is that a variable or a constant: stable or unstable...?
Do you build a home on SHIFTING sands or SOLID ground?
So what you are saying is that truth is a superstition? Your incapacity for faith undermines your reason. I have more respect for the philosophers of old who tried to rationalize two truths, one for science and one for religion than the "modern scientists" that believe in no truth in religion or science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTruth never changes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been in science for over 25 years and went to graduate school at a large public university. I've even had to answer questions on evolution during my oral defense. Unfortunately for me, however, I am one of those brainwashed non-rational types who hasn't yet evolved past the point of believing in God. I would just like to say to all of you who clearly have superior intelligence and scientific knowledge, if you don't believe that evolution has some serious scientific issues then you don't understand biochemistry, molecular biology, or even basic chemistry. I've worked with scientists more intelligent than anything I've seen on this message board that do believe in God. One thing I have learned as I've gotten older is that the more I know the more I realize that there are a lot more things out there that I don't know. But ragnar88, I do understand half-lives having worked with quite a few radioisotopes. You obviously don't. Just remember that no matter how smart you are, there is always someone out there smarter than you who may not believe just like you do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet they teach it all as fact in school. The big bang, the evolutionary ladder, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you can look at the human species and believe that we are the result of some cosmic burp, then you wouldn't believe in God even if He stood right in front of you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuperstition is the irrational belief in ominous significance of a particular thing or circumstance. As such an eclipse as an omen of doom can be as superstitious as a bone in a pile or a bump on a head. Science once called this superstition "phrenology".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's because religion is about faith and does not rely on experimentation to be proven. Unfortunately some people have the incorrect notion that all Christians (specifically Hollywood movie versions of creationists) believe that the earth was created in 7 24-hour days and that the earth is only 7 or so thousand years old. That is a fallacy perpetuated by the media. Creationism says that this is not an accident, that there was intelligence behind the act. That that act took millions...even billions...of years does not negate an intelligence was behind it. A good cook often lets his creation simmer for a time before he adds his final ingredients. Matter of fact, if time is, as some theories claim, merely an creation of man, then any time frame we understand would mean nothing to a supreme being. And as for evolution. If I were designing a being that I wanted to be able to adapt to it's changing environment, then evolution to a degree makes perfect sense. Now, that all life from humans to the garden slug to a The Larch came from one single cell accident of chemical reactions is actually a laughable notion. Anyone who dismisses creationism (not the silly media/movie version but the actual belief) as a possibility just because no one was there to document it, shows a lack of intellectual honesty and true curiosity, which is what I thought science was all about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's because religion is about faith and does not rely on experimentation to be proven. Unfortunately some people have the incorrect notion that all Christians (specifically Hollywood movie versions of creationists) believe that the earth was created in 7 24-hour days and that the earth is only 7 or so thousand years old. That is a fallacy perpetuated by the media. Creationism says that this is not an accident, that there was intelligence behind the act. That that act took millions...even billions...of years does not negate an intelligence was behind it. A good cook often lets his creation simmer for a time before he adds his final ingredients. Matter of fact, if time is, as some theories claim, merely an creation of man, then any time frame we understand would mean nothing to a supreme being. And as for evolution. If I were designing a being that I wanted to be able to adapt to it's changing environment, then evolution to a degree makes perfect sense. Now, that all life from humans to the garden slug to a The Larch came from one single cell accident of chemical reactions is actually a laughable notion. Anyone who dismisses creationism (not the silly media/movie version but the actual belief) as a possibility just because no one was there to document it, shows a lack of intellectual honesty and true curiosity, which is what I thought science was all about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@strubie: it's a great point that science has never laid claim to absolute truth. how could it? of course, many scientists have done so, just as many people of many religions have held their cosmologies or other beliefs as absolute truths. It's worth noting, though, that most (if not all) faiths do, indeed, change over the years. The reforming tradition is alive and well in modern religion/spirituality. For some reason, (money) progressive expressions of faith don't get all the press that reactionary ones do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are not even *close* to the same, you are just selectively making it look that way from your post. Evolution has way more factual evidence behind it then any myth-like concepts that faith based religion is based on; you really cant see this?? You obviously have not studied the field at all (I am an archeology major, so, a little ground to stand on here) because there is TONS of evidence out there (and its REAL! You can see it! Do not need "faith" to make believe it is real) and like most people just make really radical (and , sorry to say, stupid) ideologies off off your limited knowledge, that might fly on some other site, but this is "scientific America", why even bother making yourself look like a fool on here???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, funny how you forgot to mention any MODERN SCIENTIST in your list, for example, Richard Dawkins; hardcore atheists and amazing evolutionary scientists. Naturally, as people learn more and put the pieces of the puzzle together myth-bassed religion will get eradicated and only the more logical parts will remain, religion (like it *ALWAYS* has) will adapt itself to science over time, not vice versa.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with everything except your last sentence. Please be open minded about things. It will benefit you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, you sort of prove that you are full on nonsense, how can you know that everyone posting on here is not as intelligent as your peers?? How do you know how honest our posts are, if we are lying or not (you sound like you are) etc... you really are not using your *basic* scientific reasoning (all those 100 level classes you supposedly took where they teach you the scientific method in detail)to make conclusions, you *cant* know how intelligent we all are, and based on that, how can you possible compare us to your really smart colleagues. Granted, I am an archeology major with evolutionary biology minor at the University of Arizona (ranked extremely high in these fields, one of the top schools in the country for these studies) so maybe I am a bit biased, but I am not that young and have been in the field for ALONG time . I never said I was the smartest, best etc.. you are implying that old one, but thanks for your elderly knowledge , I will keep it in mind. Sure evolution studies are not perfect, but yeah, I will pass on the very hard to prove mythical religions. You *must* have heard (WAY back in your early years in school) the saying "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" well, there is way more proof for evolution then the myths of any religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, if religion didn't do this there wouldn't be holy wars. Except when a religion gets put down it's because of a new prophet or a king who wants a divorce.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter living more than 50 years on this luscious, vibrant, and challenging planet, I am forever humored by the absolute certainty different religious faiths, and at times their followers, have for their specific and often narrow, not to be challenged, views. Religions, like science should be forever evolving from the collection of knowledge gained from experience and/or discovery. Not one religion that graces this world has absolute knowledge. And not any one science has discovered the mysteries to our origin, and I hope we never do. The mystery to man’s existence; his never ending quest for knowledge, and the joy of each discovery are his duty and reward. To be absolute in one’s truth, is to have reached the destination of one’s journey, and the one with the belief of absolute right, has reached fulfillment and therefore no longer has purpose or needs to exist. For one to believe in the miracle of life one only has to look to the miracle of cell differentiation. I have developed a great spiritual belief, and I believe life on this world evolved from the primordial soup. Who or what set the wonders of the universe in motion, will forever challenge man’s curiosity. To know cheapens our purpose. So I ask, “If matter and energy required a God for creation, then what created God?”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt will take some sort of huge scientific discovery or some great revealing of a truth to reconcile this eternal debate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWill anyone agree that; the very fact we are alive, aware, and conscious of our reality is truly amazing?
Anyone?
Your senses feed your consciousness and your imagination, and scientifically, none of them are capable of absolute truth. So your hypostasis is irrational.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther, what you think you know that is absolutely true, you read or heard from someone else - probably before you reached the age of critical judgment - and they had no clearer avenue to the Big T than you do.
We're all capable of nothing more than probabilities. Suck it up.
I will absolutely not suck it up scribbler!!! And my senses inform my intellect absolutely. From what I learned from my father, this is called common sense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately you are evidence "Common Sense" has become less common.
actually, scribbler is right, your consciousness does not experience reality directly, it must rely on the senses to inform it of what is happening in the reality in which it exists, and since the senses can be fooled (just look at hallucinogens) that means you cannot take the information your senses provide as absolute truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAllow me to correct myself. One could take their senses as absolute truth, but this would be naive, seeing as how there is positively no way one can prove that their senses are not lying to them at any given point in time. However, it is unreasonable to question whether or not something is real every time we sense something, so we operate on the assumption that everything is most likely real. This to me is perfectly acceptable, and how I myself operate on a day to day basis. BUT, assuming that the things you are sensing are most likely real and assuming that the things you sense are the absolute truth of reality are two very different things. So to say that your senses inform your intellect absolutely, well that simply makes me believe that I shouldn't put too much stock in your intellect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI based my assessment of your intelligence on the dribble that you were posting. My point was that in 25 years in the scientific field I have worked with some really intelligent scientist some of who believed in evolution and some in God. In my experience, the level of someone's intelligence did not preclude them to one view or the other. Your post strongly implied that the more intelligent you were the more likely you were to not believe in God. Right there you told me all I needed to know about your intelligence or lack thereof. I thought Arizona was a better school than that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll of our senses are electrical signals interpreted by our brains. All matter is (in its purest form) information. The tangible properties that our brains are interpreting are mathematical information, therefore, are reality is a nothing more than a simulation on an infinite scale.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSmile, the Matrix has you. ;)
Religion bashers should try to look at it from the opposite perspective: I’ve seen a Model T, a 57 Chevy and an Infinity G30. I can tell that the latter evolved from the former examples. I cannot tell, but can surely deduce, that the original model was engineered. Clearly, living things have built-in mechanisms for perpetual re-engineering. I can accept that some folks believe this process to be happenstance. Why is it so difficult for some to see that it is just as plausible that this is the result of intelligent design versus accidental metamorphosis? Belief in science as the be-all and end-all is fine but it does little to prove that science doesn't just describe the mechanics of life rather than the inadvertent cause of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sure people tell you this all the time, and you probably actually never come back to these sites to read the responses, and when you do, you simply dismiss them and go on dispelling your nonsense information, but just in case you can be reached.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) pigs teeth. I'm assuming you are talking about the visual demonstration of how pigs teeth have clearly and steadily evolved over time. We have shown that changes have happened in a steady and predicable way, We can now accurately model and predict changes in future successive lines based on any starting point in the chain. If you chose to ignore this, thats your problem.
2) C14: the carbon in your body is largely C14. as that is a very stable isotope of carbon. when C14 decays it quickly becomes *not* C14, and in fact can quickly become *not* carbon. radioactive decay has been accurately measured for just about every isotope and been found to be *incredibly* reliable.
3) Law of conservation of energy: if you don't care how the universe began, then why are you using it as an argument. The current theory we have meets all of the requirements, and while complex and above most people's understanding, it works. You will have just as much difficulty explaining where "God" came from when putting forth the theory that "God" created the universe. Simply stating that God is omnipotent and always existed, is just as problematic as a us saying "the universe always existed it was just a lot smaller back then".
4) law of entropy: to assume that an ape is less evolved than a human is bold assumption. both humans and apes are equally highly adapted to their particular environments. just because they cant understand higher math, doesn't mean you can benchpress 700lbs. Entropy in our universe is clearly at a low enough state that order is easy to find, so systems that promote order and actively weed out disorder are an easy assumption. to state that things can only become less orderly is a mistake.
Carbon-14 dating does not give you the age of individual carbon atoms. As you have so eloquently stated, to do so would not be useful. Rather than giving you the age of carbon atoms, this method of dating measures the ratio of Carbon-14 and Carbon-12 in the sample being dated. Carbon-14 is constantly being formed in the upper atmosphere. Living beings are constantly exchanging Carbon atoms with the environment through metabolic processes, so they are constantly taking in traces of Carbon-14. When an organism dies, it's metabolic processes cease to function and it no longer incorporates Carbon-14 into its tissues. Carbon-14 is unstable and decays into Nitrogen with a half-life of 5,730 years, which means that half of the sample will have decayed during that time. Therefore, as time goes on and the organism is no longer taking in Carbon-14, the Carbon-14 content of that organism will slowly change into Nitrogen. Since the rate of this decay is known, the age of the sample can be determined by calculating the ratio of remaining Carbon-14 to stable Carbon-12. Again, this process measures the age of the sample by calculating the ratio of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12, and not the age of individual Carbon atoms. The accuracy of this method has been confirmed by various means, including comparisons with ages known from historical sources. The ages calculated in Carbon-14 dating have been found to deviate from actual ages by up to 5%, which can be corrected by fitting the data to calibration curves. Carbon-14 is limited in scope and can only be used to date objects within about 50,000 years, after which time the carbon-14 content becomes too low to measure. In order to date older objects, it is necessary to use other dating methods that involve unstable isotopes with longer half-lives, such as Uranium/lead dating.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe theory of evolution is patently ridiculous on the face of it.If there was any validity to it at all we would be digging up fossils of birds with paws,tigers with monkey tails,hyenas with a bird's beak and a human nose,elephants with horses hooves and an aardvark's snout.I have read every thing I could find on evolution over the years with an open mind as I approach everything.Don't fall for this BS that you're uneducated and backwards if you believe in divine creation. I would be more than willing to sit for an IQ test alongside any idiot who believes in evolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStruble,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou cannot co-opt "science" (and what a broad term that is!). You do not own "it". You do not represent "it". In essence, anyone who delves into any field, seeking further truth may be considered a "scientist".
An advanced degree does not make one smarter than he was before he earned it. He is still the same man. He has only learned some things that he did not know. Many of those things will be disputed or overturned in one's life cycle. An intelligent man will weigh new knowledge against old and make a decision as to which seems more rightly to embrace. An educated person of less intelligence will stick with what he learned in college.
Neither can any sane person assert that any one who believes in a Supreme Being is, by definition, lacking in intelligence and worthy of scorn.
Why do you feel compelled to ridicule persons you do not know? You must have an agenda, otherwise you would have no reason to bring that senseless topic into a discussion by learned people of this quality.
I have been following developments in many fields for over fifty years. I am decently educated and reasonably well-read, yet I understand that my entire store of knowledge of this world is puny. Many of my betters have professed the same thing.
Humility is merely the acknowledgement of truth, when it comes to "science"
You are no "scientist".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHucksters? What about the global warming scam devised and implemented by those "scientists" to milk governments for money? They are exposed.
Hucksters? What about the "scientists" who demanded and received monies from governments for "stem cell research"? Many of those have been caught red-handed trying to make different forms of life come into existence by mixing human and animal cells, just to "see what happens". When exposed, they claimed that they were trying only to find cures for diseases. Right!
Hucksters? You find just as many charlatans in "science" as you do in the "organized religion" or any other field of endeavor. A bad apple will continue to rot, no matter what they do for a living.
By the way, as I told "Struble", you do not own "science" and you do not represent it.
Who are you to think that you are superior in intelligence to anyone?
Gee, you are so smart, poppelwell!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just don't see how anyone ever lived before you came along to educate us all.
I noticed that you slandered the Crusaders, yet you gave a pass to the inhuman Islamic murderers that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou also neglected to mention that slaughterer Stalin, who killed 20,000,000, was an atheist, like yourself.
As usual for people of your ilk, you assume an intellectual superiority due to your having embraced atheism, and feel the need to remind others of how much smarter you are then those who do embrace a Faith.
Wow, with all you master minded atheists out there toiling away at "science", why haven't you conquered disease, erased poverty, ended war and fed the world?
Just what do you do, besides congratulate each other on your self-proclaimed mental superiority to religious people?
I guess that "science" hasn't taught you to operate a keyboard.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo much for your mental superiority to religious people.
"Down in flames", or in the vernacular of another age, "hoist on your own petard".
Have you ever created a being?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen you are not great either, are you, by your own standard.
I would just like to add to this discussion that the Big Bang Theory itself what created by a Catholic Priest right around the second world war, Lemaître is his name. There are several good books about it; The day without yesterday being the one I read.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou all might benefit from watching the movie Inherit The Wind, where they made probably the best point on all of this. In the closing scene of the movie, the actor Spencer Tracy, as lawyer Henry Drummond, picks up both a science book and the bible, put them together and under his arm. The point, and my point, being that there is plenty of room in the world for both religion and science. The mistake is to assume that there isn't.
with such low brow posts as your own (anyone who corrects someone spelling or what not on the net is most likely using that because they have no other argument on hand, I mean really, its a lame low blow) and you *completly* took my argument with the crusades out of context (big surprise) , I was comparing carbon-14 dating to the crusades (yeah, sort of far fethed compasions, but you seemed to miss that completly). I was comparing the *VALIDITY* of the two which seemed to fly right over your head (though it was *very* obvious upon re-reading my first post). It was not about atheism vs religion what-so-ever but I am not stunned at all that your warp and turned it into that so you could feel as if you had the upper hand. So really, why should my spelling or grammer come into play when you can not even extract my core ideas to form an argument against me; good luck next time. I am pretty much done with this post, I proved my point and the rest is religious non-sense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthat last post was targeted at ANOTHERVOICE
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, think what you will about my "dribble" , I guess it was important enough that you would respond with another paragraph of nonsense. There are curent studies all over the place (use the net and other resources) that are somehwat proving that higher intelligence lines up with atheism *most of the time*. This is what is currently being taught in most universities when these sort of subjects come up. So, as a-hole as this sounds the up and coming generation of scientists tend to follow these studies (even though some are still faith-based students, but, majority are not and that will grow) so all in all this will be common thought as time goes on as the up and comers will out number the old and dying, sorry if this upsets you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand also, for the record, I am not implying that the results being formed from these studies are for the better or worse for society (I do think that religion is extremely important for certain types of mindsets, not so much for others) only time will tell that much, but, still , its hard to argue with what is starting to be discorvered through these various studies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisif you knew your scientific history you would be grossly surprised on how many "mad scientists" experiments went on during the enlightenment era that led rise to a ton of current findings that we live by day in and day out. Certain sceintist were even killed as witches and what not due to the bizarreness of these experiments (the 26 charter alphabet is one of many examples out there)...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyour impotent intellect is underwhelming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNon-locality of sub atomic particles causes quantum physics much trouble and actually alludes to a universe with holographic properties. The observation of speed of light slowing in general along with the general slowing of time also help to take the steam out of Einstein's THEORY of Relativity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArcheology based on fact confirmed by record: http://www.squidoo.com/noahsarkfound, http://www.archive.org/details/The_Search_for_the_Real_Mt_Sinai
ya, I figured something really basic along these lines would be your response, very predictable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRon White, the "archeologist" who made you Noahs ark link discoveries is considered a huge fraud in the real archeology community. The guy is a self-made archeologist , so that alone is a sigh right there. Also, here is some links to Christian websites that refute this guy :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.tentmaker.org/WAR/
http://www.tentmaker.org/WAR/baumgardner_letter2.html
and, some normal science related sites talking about this fraud and his fake noah ark find:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/06/ron_wyatt_collosal_fraud.php
http://www.newdaynews.com/openhouse/index.cgi/noframes/read/40649
I have worked in the Archeology field (with Christians as well, though not many) for years and Ron Wyatt is considered a fraud by all of them, along with many other self-called "archeologists".
The evidence stands on it's own merit. Fact is fact. Idiots can knock a bond salesman or a fork lift operator as ill trained to be scientists, but that only proves an idiot an idiot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis site also confirms the artifacts along with the Bible's commentary:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.noahsark-naxuan.com/Slide1.htm
None of this (or any of Wyatt's discoveries) was ever proven fraudulent. Just amplified skepticism by devout atheists or others with different dogs in the hunt.
http://www.squidoo.com/noahsarkfound
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is the real Mt Sinai in Saudi Arabia where the Bible says it is:
http://www.archive.org/details/The_Search_for_the_Real_Mt_Sinai
What are the chances?
http://www.archive.org/details/sanfordstaabFootprintsoftheMessiahpart2
Well, still stands that real archeologists who are trained to be as *non biased* as possible while being professional archeologists still stand strongly in opinion that he is a fraud. Sure, you cant prove him wrong but that does not by default make him right. The following comparison I am going to make is what quite a few archeologists use in to compare what you are saying to a general audience : most people think the earth is round, but yes, a select few think it is flat even though it has been proven wrong. Give it time and this claim will end up in the same category. Finding Noah's ark is a huge claim , yet, very few professionals (actually, none, find me one out there) take it as even close to fact, why would that be?? Are they *all* wrong? Wyatt is not a a professional, he is a hobbits trying to prove something he strongly believes in correct so he is also biased. A biased armature trying to be a professional (who should be non-biased int he first place). A fraud by all counts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan you please, for the love of God, paste a site that is not by a fraud *and* a Christian. It would help you argument a whole lot if you supported your claim of Noahs Ark with links from NON BIASED professionals, every one so far has roots in Christianity which would be considered a HUGE driving force for these claims. Your most recnet site is by David Allen Deal, once again, another fraud. This guy is known throught the archiological world as a firm supportor of the "Michigan Tablets" which are a *total fraud* and have been PROVEN to be,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"studies of professor of anthropology Richard B. Stamps of the Michigan Historical Museum indicate that the artifacts were made with contemporary tools"
Yet he STILL claims they are ancient beyond belief. Please stop posting amateur hobbyist claims and send me some *true* scientific proof for any of this rubbish. Real scientific claims get published in certified science journals, this is one of the main rules for scientist, your ideas have to be reviewed by your piers and published in a journal to be considered legit. So, until you can stick by those lines with your "proof" you are just an amateur hobbyist with some asinine point to prove.
Oh shush. No one asked you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSometimes "settled science" becomes unsettled. Happens all the time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can read the articles and not read the comments. Don't be so intolerant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny entities different from life on earth, and existing in another form altogether, would be amused to know you have said they don't exist. Your view is highly provincial, in that you conclude that because visible life on this planet is a certain way, all life everywhere must be that way. How so? Why can't there be what we refer to with the ancient term "spirit" -- existing in something other than physical form? There can.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way , you stand by "None of this (or any of Wyatt's discoveries) was ever proven fraudulent. Just amplified skepticism by devout atheists or others with different dogs in the hunt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.squidoo.com/noahsarkfound"
But Michigan Tablets have been proven wrong OVER AND OVER again, so you are 100% wrong in your post. I hope you learn to fact check in the future, you kinda fell face first into that one. According to your logic and old joe who wants to be an archeologists can just go make a bunch of nonsense up and because it cant be proven wrong (or, even in your case it *was* proven wrong) someone will believe it because they are a a sucker.
You are incredibly nasty and mean-spirited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLadia, you are taking my comments so far out of context that I can not even piece together what parts you are trying to explain with your new-age babble. I am not talking about the spirit whatsoever ,I am talking about physical things from the past. I never once said other entities outside life on earth are not real?? I have no idea how you got that at all. And further more, are you the Earth bound speaker for these other forms of life? How do you know how amused or not amused they would be from anything I do? Are you certain they even know what "amused" is? What do they look like? how do they mate? do they speak? can they even comprehend "speak"? This can go on forever and its just pure guesswork and mental masturbation , I am trying to be very logical (scientific like) in my approach to everything I post on here, the spiritual side needs to stay out of it because that is not the subject what so ever!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand sorry in advance if I am mean spirited
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo answer your last question:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod is self-existent, always existed, no creator. He is the uncaused cause necessary for the existence of anything else.
Ummmm, well, what do you have left, when science has run out of stuff -- evidence and guesses --?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen there is no treatment for *your* illness?
God, maybe? Couldn't hurt. Might help.
.
Good on you, Strubie. As Einstein acknowledged, he stood on the shoulders of many physicists and their work before he came along!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood on you, Strubie! As Einstein noted, he stood on the shoulders of many physicists who worked before he did. Now, we try to come to a unified theory between Einstein’s relativity and quantum mechanics. When that happens, the theory will relegate Einstein’s relativity to a special case. Just as relativity relegated Newton’s mechanics to a special case.
Note that we still use Newton’s mechanics to guide satellites to Mars, etc.
James Rebel
Typical hack. Never said anything about Michigan tablets either way. I said That Ron Wyatt was never proven wrong. Ron Wyatt had nothing to do with Michigan tablets. There is a plethora of info out there good or bad, but most of what is linked to that site is above your reproach or the reproach of any evolution bent journalist accusing fraud without evidence. Saying that something is wrong (even though it has solid proof) because it flies in the face of accepted science that is really still unproven theory is typical from twisted evolutionists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRebuilt to specification: http://arkvannoach.com/cms/en/photos
The earth is shaped rather like an oblate ellipsoid; it is not round, as you incorrectly stated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn your anguished quest to shout down spiritual persons as stupid or unlearned, you embarrass yourself. Your ambling, aimless anti-religion rants do not serve you, or anyone else, well.
Have you ever considered other that people can think, too? Put another way, do you think that all persons not in a "scientific" occupation are dullards?
Really, Ragnar, you should consider another forum, where such heated emotionalism is more in keeping with others....maybe one for bitter and unconsolable atheists only.
Lose the hatred. There is no reason or call for it.
And I too am being logical, in that I do not dismiss arbitrarily the reality that we may be in the midst of a reality we have no faculties to perceive. When I say "spirit," that is not new age. I am talking about beings so totally other from us in makeup that we cannot perceive them with our physical senses. And if we cannot perceive them, then our knowledge of the universe is very limited and we just should not be so self-assured about things. Science is just beginning actually. Did you ever watch Star Trek? I understand that is fiction, but is it really? Is it possible that this universe is not at all what it seems to us? I find it disheartening that modern scientists say if we cannot perceive it with our senses, or work it out with mathematics, then it just isn't there. I know we cannot make up tales about unicorns and fairies and elves. I am not talking about that kind of thing. I am talking about entities that may exist in bodies totally other than ours, who can materialize and dematerialize -- as in Star Trek. If we were able to imagine that in a quasi-serious manner in that program, is it so far fetched? I don't think so. That is why I am always amazed at scientists who say there is no super intelligent being out there who created everything. Really? You don't find that possible? We don't have to appeal to any religion or holy book for this discussion. It stands on its on, and I am extremely serious. Science is just way too provencial and anthropomorphic these days. It needs to think out of the box just a tad. I don't mean it needs to go on impossible flights of fancy into fairytales. But it does need to think a little bigger than it currently does.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was replying to someone else who was calling people names.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo be clear. I was referring to Ron Wyatt, his Ark research, nor his other research ever being proven fraudulent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe most amazing FACT from http://www.noahsark-naxuan.com/Slide1.htm (it is not Wyatt research) are glide path outlined with drogue anchors, the comparison of the Ark to the Titanic, discussion of building technique, and the ancient village found next to the Ark landing site. I don't know about Michigan Hebrew tablets and I have not been interested in that find either. The real thing described by the Bible is the focus of the presentation. The Michigan tablets? Who cares?
Final post : No one in the profesional archological community gives ron whyte any credid at all, he is a hack. He has never been published once in a certified scienitifc journal because when evulauated by a group of his peers they think everything he does is utter nonsense, end of story, he will never be accepted to anyone outside of extremely delusional Christians, but, *whats new*. We will agree to disagree and that pretty much applies to the whole scientific community , I feel fair saying the entire archaeological community would agree to disagre with you. Like I said, find *ONE* creatable scientific journal that gives Ron some credit, you will find none and CANT show me any so hmmmm, this seems so incredibly silly at this point..... Everyone who works at Scientific American would also agree that you need to be publish in a real scientific journal to be creditable , its such a well known entry level concept that you deny which blatantly shows how much off a fool you are. Its also pretty lame how you troll scientific forums, I would feel like such a loser if I was posting this in a christian forum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoh, and *of course* you would not mention the Michigan tablets but you did post a webpage that you said is *100 percent correct* and the author of the webpage backs the Michigan tablets (a christian based fraud as well), not only does he back them, he is the primary source for the subject (pretty much the only one who still holds onto it as fact, even the people who discovered them in Michigan admit they are made up) so, basically you are saying that you are just posting random sources for the hell of it and have no idea what they are coming from, zero research at all, totally untrustworthy.. I honestly dont think it is possible at all for you to be any more incorrect then you already are unless you are preaching to the delusional type.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Ohio Decologue and the Michigan tablets are completely different. I had never heard of the Michigan Tablets, but a quick search reveals controversy for both. Neither appear to have been debunked, but rather hotly contested by those who feel that they do not belong. Kind of similar to the many finds of soft dinosaur tissue. Dinosaur bones are now understood to actually be bone rather than mineralized facsimiles and many contain soft tissue. However, ardent opposition persists based solely on the inconvenience posed to their THEORIES.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not saying spiritual people are stupid, but you definitly seem to be since you would contort my words as such, all I have been arging is that certian faith based archelogical findings have been proven to be frauds based on the hobbiest hacks who have supported the claims. That in once sentence sums up what I am talking about and somehow you get that I think *everyone* who is spiritual is stupid?? I am spiritual myself! Man as time goes on the internet gets filled with more and more incompitent morons who finally figured out how to use computers. I'll admit I am a prick , but, geeze how can you not be when dealing with people so uneducated and irrational as yourself. And the fact that you have to correct me on the shape of the earth??? Can you come at me with some real facts as well about these christian based archeological finds? Show me some scientific proof in journals? Or do all you have are simple one liners to try and correct something that was made pereflectly clear in a previous post. Please do, or otherwise you are just some loser who wants his lame opinion to be heard.... next... oh, and obviously I know other people can think , I am only arguing with about 2 or 3 people on here out of the 40 or some odd who have posted, so , doing some simple math (here, I will help you) 2-3 minus 40 some odd = about 37 or so people who I am *not* arguing with and give credit, the upper 90% off all posts on here I am not arguing with, so, givin that math, you are a moron.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRippin, you know what the most amazing fact out of those noah arks discoveries are? The fact that not *one* single creditable scientific journal has ever published any of this as fact. Please, as you have not done yet (which will end this argument instantly) show me when/where it was ever published by a creditable source. No more ranting about how great these finds are, just pure proof, we are on a SCIENTIFIC fourm , you are completely a troll if you can not do this and keep spamming on here. Why would you *not* have some creditable published sources when you are posting on a Scientific forum???? This is staggering to me, you must be a completely delusional hack ... Why would you not go by the main rule of science when trying to prove something on a scientific forum??? Easy, you are a hack.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may continue to oppose the facts without disproving them, but that doesn't change the facts. Mere opposition does not change the authenticity of evidence. Dinosaur tissue was found to be exactly that, The evidence of the Ark continues to be visited in Turkey, the real Mt Sinai has been visited and acknowledged by many including the Saudi government, an underwater land bridge within the specs of the American Disability Act's requirements for wheel chair ramps has been discovered in the upper arm of the Red Sea, but hacks continue to pose THEORIES designed to prop up their own bend toward preposterous evolution theories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, you have also proven that you can not research your info, they were proven wrong in this study :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTools Leave Marks: Material Analysis of the Scotford-Soper-Savage Michigan Relics". BYU Studies 40 (3): 210–238. 2001
one of many publications that prove it as a fraud.
Great. Faith. Ambigious and without proof. I'm sure you can wrap yourself in that belief and all your troubles will melt away. They make Risperdal for those so absolute.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUltimately, all knees will bow. The ultimate question will be how did you respond to the evidence? Will you say none of the scientific journals of which I am aware (or like) confirmed it? Or will you say I never heard anything about it? Both are lies. One is an excuse or lie by omission and the other is just a lie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1 Corinthians 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
Proverbs 14:6 The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none, but knowledge comes easily to the discerning.
Ecclesiastes 10:2 The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.
James 3:17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
1 Corinthians 1:19-21 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside." Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
Colossians 2:2-3 My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Finally:
Ephesians 6:10-13 Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
So God doesn't want to fool you. He wants you to make the right choice (wisdom in science is merely a fruit, wisdom in Christ is the only wisdom that matters). His opposition, fallen angels who are led by the Devil, want to fool your mind by any means possible.
Not defending either view of Michigan tablets it is easy to say that evidience of unfamiliar tools that may resemble work with tools from the 1800's isn't proof that it is a fraud. It is proof that unfamiliar tools that may resemble work completed with tools that were also available in the 1800's were used.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting. Further study of the Ohio Decalogue and other Hebrew inscribed stones found at the same burial site reveal authenticity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/decalog.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpellStar
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Rippin, your an idiot once again (big surprise), there have been THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of tools discovered way beyond the 1800\\\'s and not ONE of them was used to create the Michigan bs. So, your assuming that we *have just not found them yet??*... You have proven, 100% no questions asked that you are a DELUSIONAL HOBBIEST. You are on a scientific forum and you are posted PARAGRAHS worth of BIBLE TEXT???? you amaze me with your pretentious ideologies left and right, I mean at this point you are not even talking about the main subject anymore or anything to do with *real* science. Why don\'t you go troll some other pseudoscience forum, those dudes will totally get along with you, especially if it is a christian based pseudoscience forum; that is *exactly* where you fit in, not with professional academia level scientists. We can never prove each other right or wrong in this field, just enough proof to make a somewhat stable theory but you are all over the place and on the wrong end of the scientific spectrum. The fact that you have argue with me about why you cant post a aricle from a creditable scientific journal (seriously, why cant you just do this??) shows how lame your science background is. Have fun making up ideas with all the other hobbyist crackpots while the rest of us will be the ones *actually* getting published (or, at least hope to) in scientific journals which will be what is referenced in the future for all understand of sciences, which is exactly how it is now. We will always have the delusional types and then the real deal professional scientists, those will be the ones whos ideas get recorded and the rest will just be scoffed at (your crowd) except by the delusional types, which, rarely make any sort of impact on society in the fist place: play by your own rules all you want but no one with a lick of credibility (where it matters) will take your seriously, ever.
And btw, when any post starts with "ultimatly all knees will bow" is a sighn of someone who is crazy and power hungry, does not matter at all who you are talking about bowing to. So at that point, I did not even read your crap post.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd btw, when any post starts with "ultimatly all knees will bow" is a sighn of someone who is crazy and power hungry, does not matter at all who you are talking about bowing to. So at that point, I did not even read your crap post.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1 Corinthians 1:19-21 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside." Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-evidence-dinosaur-soft-tissue.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe conclusion of the "scientific" writer gives 2 choices. The tissue survived 65 million years or it is a conspiracy by other scientists that want people to think that the tissue survived 65 million years. No mention that the tissue may only be 6-10K years old. haha
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbstract
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEleven collagen peptide sequences recovered from chemical extracts of dinosaur bones were mapped onto molecular models of the vertebrate collagen fibril derived from extant taxa. The dinosaur peptides localized to fibril regions protected by the close packing of collagen molecules, and contained few acidic amino acids. Four peptides mapped to collagen regions crucial for cell-collagen interactions and tissue development. Dinosaur peptides were not represented in more exposed parts of the collagen fibril or regions mediating intermolecular cross-linking. Thus functionally significant regions of collagen fibrils that are physically shielded within the fibril may be preferentially preserved in fossils. These results show empirically that structure-function relationships at the molecular level could contribute to selective preservation in fossilized vertebrate remains across geological time, suggest a ‘preservation motif’, and bolster current concepts linking collagen structure to biological function. This non-random distribution supports the hypothesis that the peptides are produced by the extinct organisms and suggests a chemical mechanism for survival.
Contains peer reviewed conclusions:
http://kgov.com/bel/20110204
Now Soft Tissue in a "150-Million" Year Old Archaeopteryx: One would think that these soft-tissue dinosaur finds would be trumpeted as the scientific discovery of the decade. But so many informed evolutionists whom we talk to: 1) have never even heard of these developments, 2) initially deny them, 3) assume that it must be creationists who claim to have found them, and 4) repeat old debunked claims that they then find online that these are not dinosaur tissues but bacterial contamination. Now, from the mother lode of evolutionary dogma, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, comes this report that scientists have found various types of original biological material in archeopteryx feathers and bones, biological material that supposedly has survived for 150 million years!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho said anything about faith? You must have been reading someone else's comment. I posited the idea that perhaps what we perceive through our very limited physical senses is not all that exists in this obvious phantasmagoria of a universe. Like I said, you types are very provincial and downright anal really, unable to think out of that claustrophobic box you keep yourself inside of. Who in, say, 500 B.C. would have thought that what comes through our electrical wires today was anything other than magic? That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. Scientists today are not very forward thinking. What discoveries are out there but which they are just too anal retentive to consider.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYellowstone Petrified Tree Strata: The National Park Service took down their incorrect sign that had claimed petrified trees in a dozen different strata had proved that millions of years had passed during the rise and fall of successive forests. But the petrified trees there had no root systems, and the trees were clearly transported by water and settled into rapidly deposited sediments just as had occurred in Spirit Lake after Mount St. Helens erupted. Bob Enyart had the honor of working with the head ranger at a National Park, and he corresponded with his colleagues at Yellowstone and urged them to correct or remove the sign. They removed it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSame flood that killed the dinos?
Mitochondrial Eve: By admittedly including chimpanzee DNA among their data, evolutionists initially calculated that Mitochondrial Eve, the one woman from whom all living humans have descended, lived as long ago as 200,000 years. But in 1998, as widely reported including by Science magazine, dropping the chimp data and using actual human mutation rates, "Eve... the mother of all living" (Gen. 3:20), was now dated as only six thousand years old! See Ann Gibbon's Science article, "Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock," Creation.com's "A shrinking date for Eve," and Walt Brown's assessment. Expectedly, evolutionists have found a way to reject their own unbiased finding (the conclusion contrary to their self-interest) by returning to their original method of using circular reasoning, as reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics, "calibrating against recent evidence for the divergence time of humans and chimpanzees," to reset their mitochondrial clock back to 200,000 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven Faster Rocks: As listed in Dec, 2010 Creation Matters, radiometric dating by Rubidium-Strontium gives a 1.3 billion year age for lava atop the Grand Canyon which would be 300 million years older than the precambrian basalt at the bottom of the canyon, as reported by Steven Austin, Ph.D. And the Potassium-Argon dating method incorrectly indicates that certain minerals hardened into stone 350,000 years ago, when in reality they solidified just recently, in 1986 at Mount St. Helens, and some of the mineral within the then ten-year old rock was wrongly dated as two million years old.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy exactly do you need to use namecalling? Can't you just discuss things like a decent human being?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought I read quite awhile back that the "Lucy" thing was discovered to be either a hoax or wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarbon-14 Unexpectedly Found… Everywhere: Carbon-14 decays in only thousands of years, and therefore, cannot last for millions of years. Thus evolutionists are shocked when they find find Carbon-14 EVERYWHERE it shouldn't be if the earth were old (Answers Jan - Mar 2011). Carbon-14 is found in petrified wood, coal, oil, limestone, graphite, amber, marble, dinosaur fossils, and even in diamonds! Radiocarbon exists even in supposedly million-year-old two-mile deep natural gas wells (CRSQ Fall 2007): "Once again, fossil gas is not carbon-14 dead. Thus, the age of the gases is on the order of thousands, not millions of years.” See RSF 3-28-08 at KGOV. C14 in specimens supposedly millions or a billion years old is so ubiquitous that it is longer an anomoly, and while old-earthers had hoped that contamination must account for all the C14, Dr. John Baumgardner, of Los Alamos National Labs fame, has documented in Dec, 2010 Creation Matters that C14 exists even in the hardest naturally-occuring substance on earth, within diamonds, dashing the atheists' last hope and prayer that all such C14 might be from contaminants. The earth is young.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, the Lucy thing had insurmountable issues just like all of the other evolution guesses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat evidence makes this creature (Lucy) a transitional form? According to Dr. Johanson, she walked upright! Her brain size is still small, ape-like in proportion, and most of the other features are predominantly ape-like. Some say that anatomically it is not different than a modern chimpanzee. The jaw, in particular, is distinct in that it is V-shaped, totally unlike human jaws.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd what evidence supports the idea that this creature walked upright? The angle that the upper leg bone makes with the lower leg bone at the knee. Looking head on, chimpanzee and gorilla legs have an angle of 0 degrees. Humans have an angle of about 9 degrees. If the angle is much greater it gives a “knocked kneed” condition in humans. Lucy and the australophithecines have a larger angle of about 15 degrees.3
Does this make her an upright walker? Present day orangutan and spider monkeys have the same angle as humans yet are extremely adept tree climbers. Some experts argue that the higher angle makes her a better climber.4 This appears to be a knee-jerk reaction rather than clear scientific thinking.
But hold on, the story gets better. Dr. Johanson gave a lecture at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, Nov. 20, 1986, on Lucy and why he thinks she is our ancestor. It included the ideas already mentioned and that Lucy’s femur and pelvis were more robust than most chimps and therefore, “could have” walked upright. After the lecture he opened the meeting for questions. The audience of approximately 800 was quiet so some creationists asked questions. Roy Holt asked; “How far away from Lucy did you find the knee?” (The knee bones were actually discovered about a year earlier than the rest of Lucy). Dr. Johanson answered (reluctantly) about 200 feet lower (!) and two to three kilometers away (about 1.5 miles!). Continuing, Holt asked, “Then why are you sure it belonged to Lucy?” Dr. Johanson: “Anatomical similarity.” (Bears and dogs have anatomical similarities).
All kinds of long lasting peer reviewed acceptance on that one folks.
Yikes! Millions of Years are MISSING Here: According to evolutionary geologists, there are MORE THAN 100 MILLION YEARS MISSING in the extraordinarily regular and straight layers of the Grand Canyon! Supposed geological layers entirely missing from the beautifully formed Grand Canyon strata include the Ordovician and the Silurian. The flat boundaries between strata provide hard evidence proving that millions of years of erosion DID NOT OCCUR, and that therefore, those millions of years DID NOT PASS, neither in the canyon nor anywhere on Earth, for they are an atheistic fiction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo why do they keep talking about it as though it's valid? Don't they check anything?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRippin, as long as we are quoting the bible, which, seems to be what you abide to constantly and hold above all rest, lets check out some really awesome quotes to live by :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say to him, "You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord." When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall thrust him through. (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)"
---So, let all kill false prophets (according to Christianity)
"Go up, my warriors, against the land of Merathaim and against the people of Pekod. Yes, march against Babylon, the land of rebels, a land that I will judge! Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them, as I have commanded you," says the LORD. "Let the battle cry be heard in the land, a shout of great destruction"
(Jeremiah 50:21-22 NLT)
---Pretty rad, kill and destroy entire lands of people.
"Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)"
--sweet, kill people who don't respect their priest
"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
--Kill Homosexuals
"And he smote of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of Jehovah, he smote of the people seventy men, `and' fifty thousand men; and the people mourned, because Jehovah had smitten the people with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God? and to whom shall he go up from us? (1Samuel 6:19-20 ASV)"
This one is really important, because, god kills the curious; scientists are very curious.
Anyways, this nonsense can go on and on but please reflect on these (and the MANY other) stupid bible quotes
when you feel the need to post your own, you can not say that just *youre* bible quotes apply, mine do to, same source.
Now... find me a *CERTIFIABLE SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL* (at this point, no matter what way this is highlighted it does not seem to matter) with some decent (not even great but just decent) proof that can back up any of your ideas and you can move beyond the level of fool.
Actually, ragnar, I see Rippin bringing forth an awful lot of evidence concerning science, without referencing the Bible in that evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRippin, ok, so the dinosaur tissue issue that you have posted does in fact have some creditable proof to add to the theory, though, it is still highly debatable. So good, your post got better. But now, could you still please do the same for the Noah's Ark argument that you initially posted over and over again saying 100% proven true a rheology ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry,but I obviously can not refrain from name calling, I think it has something to do with being in a certain field for many years, taking some amount of pride in a certain way to do things so the results end up as accurate as possible and then seeing someone disregard all of that , a system that has been tried and tested for along time now and seems to be holding up fine, and crap all over it. That can only root from a lack of knowledge of the field that you are trying to crap all over, which, in "rude" terms means you are somewhat of an idiot, moron, fool, whatever term you would like to use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you think Lucy is a hoax, errrrr, you are WAY behind in these sort of claims, you can read that ANYTHING is a hoax, but, you know, those "scientific journal" things I have been preaching over and over tend to clear all these issues up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRippin - Lucy is one of the most accept ideas in archeology, there is countless proof beyond comprehension to make it a pretty strong theory, way more proof then anything in the bible. Your generalizations still amaze me in their stupidity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan, I just gota say since this has pretty much gone to nonsese that it cracks me up to see people say things like :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Is lucy fact or fiction"
"nah, it has *all sorts* of problems (though, I cant find them, let me go to my websites and copy and paste some, even though that will be hard to find)
Lucy is probably one of the most important archaeological finds *ever*. I mean, its the most complete skeleton from the species Australopithecus afarensis that we have EVER found, she is "nearly complete". Carbon 14 proves her age, but, since a small percent of you who post allot on here are morons (sorry if this offends you, there really is no better term at this point). With this knowledge we can put together more pieces of time/space of early humans which furthers our knowledge of the whole human race and everything in general; once more piece in the giant puzzle. Sure, this may even cause more questions to arise but that is how science should work; discover new idea and many new ideas arise.
You know how to make people stop being "mean-spirited" on internet forums? Do some research before you make yourself sound like an idiot, it cant hurt.
Ragnar, why can't you just discuss this issue normally instead of being a bully? I have noticed for some time now that atheists come on these forums and speak to Christians and other persons of faith as though they are not even human. Richard Dawkins wrote an entire book like that. His fellow scientists have commented that his book is more of an emotional bullying temper fit than a work of science. I read a column he wrote recently, and it was the same thing. Calling people names. Referring to their utter ignorance. Discussing American political candidates who happen to be Christians -- just tearing their very humanity down. He's just awful. The Bible does speak of people it refers to as "brute beasts" -- I think Dawkins falls into that category. And unfortunately so do you, because you are very ugly toward others who disagree with you. Are you that way in your personal life?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLafidna, if you consider what Rippin is bringing forward as "evidence" then I really cant have a scientific conversation with you (sure , we can shoot some jive and have a good time or whatever, but, kinda the wrong form for that) he is catering everything he says to make it seem a certain way and you are falling for it. who really cares if some rocks are missing from the grandcanyon, does not mean that all science is all of a sudden bs, maybe we just dont know exactly what happened yet? 100 million years on a 4.23 billion year scale is not really that big of a deal, I mean , look at how large the numbers are we are working with, pretty radical timeline in the first place. Everything i am talking about is in the last 200,000 some odd years involving humans, way easier to narrow down certian ideas on that time scale. Just because something is "missing" or cant be proven does not mean "case closed, now my radical idea has more merit". It means we do not have enough of the puzzle pieces to figure it out quite yet. For example, lets go back in time 500 years (not that long at all, compared to say, 100 million) and look at science, no one would know *anything* about the ages of any geographic feature, including the grand canyon. We will learn this things over time and the bible/religion will not be what brings forth new discoveries, being rational and somewhat intelligent (way more important to be rational) will pace the way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDawkins is one of the most important figures in science (and incredible well respected to tons of people, way more then some REAL bully "scientists") , he has an amazing skill at presenting hard science to mundane people so its understandable, god bless him. I never said I am an atheist (thanks for assuming such things) and I am not an atheist. I don't "bully" most people, I just have a short fuse for people who want to act like they are being scientific when they disparaged everything about science, its quite frustrating, if you dont understand that , well.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHighly intelligent people with credentials and a great deal of knowledge of your field nevertheless disagree with you. You don't own the knowledge or discoveries. I have read information concerning a number of highly credentialed scientists who are backing off the theory of macro-evolution due to the complexity of life forms, etc. They say macro-evolution cannot account for it. Yet the minute anyone says "Intelligent Design," atheistic scientists go berzerk, as though they had said "God" and "the Bible." No, they didn't. Some of them don't have a religion. It's just that as more and more is known about lifeforms on earth, and the complexity of the universe itself, macro-evolution seems to them inadequate for the job.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no respect for Dawkins. I have read a great deal about him and by him. He's a bully. I am sick of bullying scientists such as him. He is arrogant. You should read the article he wrote concerning American politicians and his disdain for Christians. What business is it of his? He's British for petes sake. It's just the liberal attitude -- no matter what country it's in, it stinks of arrogance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for assuming you are an atheist, it is your own fault if you sound like one with your attacks on the Bible and the concept of faith.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI simply said I read it somewhere awhile back. You could answer me politely with information to the contrary. There is no need to be hateful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, I am well aware of the issue of funding and power and fame and money and people not wanting to lose their place in academia. If someone has devoted his entire life to a particular concept -- someone like Dawkins for instance -- it could all come crashing down in a moment if a rival concept comes along and threatens to push the other concept aside. Just sayin...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLafidia, your example is good and all but has *nothing* *zero* to do with what initally started these arguments. I am in the field of ARCHEOLOGY. So everything stems from that. I am not in the field of macro evolution (though, I did study it a little bit)though if someone mentions intelligent design 99.9% of the time it means GOD and a good portion of the time the christian god. Were you not aware of that? It is very rare that they mean "Space aliens" or something of the sort, not sure what you were thinking though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLafidia, it just shows that you are sort of narrow minded if me attacking the bible shows I am an atheist. There are tons of religons out there??? I assumed this was common knowledge??? That whole asian part of the world, they have a bit in themselves. I do not care for the bible but have a few christian friends who I cherish, I don't hate anyone really, sorry you take it that way. I even respect some of the newer christian religions who pretty much disregard much of the bible, but, granted,I do not respect them *that* much, just more then some others.. Just a little more info so no assumptions are made.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLafidia - the issue of funding and fame is an issue, I agree, sad but true. Dawkins is awesome though, you should read some of his "kinder" books, don't focus on the god delusion like most people do, he is incredible and loved by many people! He could teach you some amazing things, his new book talks about some newer evolutionary studies that are mind blowing, really, you are missing out if you would like this knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, but you are misinformed about that. There are respected scientists who have no particular religion or belief in religion who nevertheless say that they favor the concept of intelligent design over macro-evolution for the reasons I stated. It is atheistic scientists who then in knee-jerk fashion assume they are referring to God and the Bible. No, they are not. It seems really strange that they cannot even postulate the concept of intelligent design without being accused of believing in the Bible. I think the problem is that they immediately recognize that the entity responsible for the design would necessarily have to have a lot in common with the supreme being discussed in the Bible as far as attributes such as self-existence, omnipotence, etc., and perhaps this drives them a little crazy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod said that a false prophet's own family will kill their son out of shame. Not because he told them to. It was a prophecy relating to the time of the tribe of Judah. A tribe that was eventually destroyed by God because of it's disobedience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod commanded the Jews to destroy several groups of people because of the active threat they posed. In fact, King Saul ran into much trouble after he allowed some to live after he was commanded not to. Samuel tells Saul to destroy the Amalekites because of their injurious actions to Israelites while traveling through the desert. Samuel told Saul to kill everyone and everything; the Hebrew word denotes “devote to destruction”. King Saul “acting according to what is good in his eyes” not only preserved the best animals, but the king. Greed and arrogance dominates the context that is manifested when King Saul set up a monument to “himself” in Carmel. Saul’s concerned for his own honer and glory relates to the ego; Saul preformed an “outward appearance” by sacrificing the animals he “saved”.
The others you list are consequences for Jews that disobey the Levitical laws. That law was of the old covenant designed to show that men could not follow God's commands and could not be sinless even with direct knowledge of His existence. There are also over 300 prophecies that you may also google that will explain how Christ never sinned as a man, never disobeyed God, and was given as a perfect sacrifice for all of man. The result of which is the dispensation of grace where knowledge of sin is ultimately written on one's own heart, but transferable out of one's own humility and submission to Christ who rose to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords by the grace of God.
Christ directed that under the New Covenant that believers are to wage peace on His behalf. That means NO beheading of non-believers (God never commanded anything of the kind, only killing those who opposed or threatened His purpose/people including the birth of Christ as prophesied throughout the Old Testament.) and that does not mean (BTW) that Christians are forbid self-defense.
I have always had a great deal of interest in science, from childhood. But I do believe atheistic scientists approach science with one concept already decided in their minds, i.e., that there is no supreme being creator, and therefore all answers in science must submit to that idea. Personally, I see no reason to exclude the concept of an incredibly powerful intelligent designer. Makes it just that much more fascinating to me. If we exist, why couldn't other beings exist, including a supreme being?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people who attack Christians on forums like this are atheists. There is nothing narrow minded about me thinking that is probably what you are. All you have to do is say otherwise. No need to call someone narrow minded. That certainly does not describe me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWIKI:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLucy (Australopithecus)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Lucy Lucy
Catalog number AL 288-1
Common name Lucy
Species Australopithecus afarensis
Age 3.2 million years[1]
Place discovered Afar Depression, Ethiopia
Date discovered November 24, 1974 (1974-11-24)
Discovered by Donald Johanson
Maurice Taieb
Yves Coppens
Tom Gray[2]
Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, several hundred pieces of bone representing about 40% of the skeleton of an individual Australopithecus afarensis. The specimen was discovered in 1974 at Hadar in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression. Lucy is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago.[1][3] The discovery of this hominid was significant as the skeleton shows evidence of small skull capacity akin to that of apes and of bipedal upright walk akin to that of humans, providing further evidence supporting the view that bipedalism preceded increase in brain size in human evolution,[4][5] though other findings have been interpreted as suggesting that Australopithecus afarensis was not directly ancestral to humans.[6]
Apr. 16, 2007 0:21 | Updated Apr. 16, 2007 15:39
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsraeli researchers: ‘Lucy’ is not direct ancestor of humans
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Rak and colleagues studied 146 mature primate bone specimens, including those from modern humans, gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans and found that the “ramus element” of the mandible connecting the lower jaw to the skull is like that of the robust forms, therefore eliminating the possibility that Lucy and her kind are Man’s direct ancestors. They should therefore, the Israeli researchers said, “be placed as the beginning of the branch that evolved in parallel to ours.”
Their research has just been published in the on-line edition of PNAS, the Proceedings of the [US] National Academy of Sciences.
Christian religions that disregard the Bible are kind of crazy. I mean, if I am going to disregard the source of knowledge concerning the person after whom my religion is named, then why am I even bothering? It's kind of like Unitarians who don't believe in anything really -- why do they bother? It's just a group of people meeting together saying "Let's all be nice." OK, but do you need a whole religion and church building for that? There is something in the human being that desires to "worship" something. I think atheistic scientists worship science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.squidoo.com/noahsarkfound
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that is Noah's ark without seeing the information published in a biased, secular publication.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-evidence-dinosaur-soft-tissue.html
...Thus, claims from both those supporting the idea that dinosaur tissue could have survived for millions of years, and those that think it’s nonsense, are likely to continue.
I also believed that the many examples of dino soft tissue found indicate life span of thousands of years before the current battle among evolutionists regarding the topic.
I agree with you. The basis of Christianity is the Bible and it is replete with fulfilled prophesy and history. It is inerrant unlike "peer reviewed" publications.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.vorchester.com/vnews/?p=23
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisprehistoric dino depictions:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.genesispark.com/genpark/ancient/ancient.htm
Lafinda, I toataly understand where you are coming from, I have to agree to disagree with most of what you say. I admit, I was way more open minded when I was younger, also very confused but when I decided to go down the path I am on now I reliased that to be sucesful in the field and get some honest truths you really need to focous on rational ideas and pretty pure scientific reasoning to do most of my studies. I love pesudo science type speculation sometimes on my free time, diving into really "out there" ideas that have little backing or proof for "what-if" scenarios (I am not as closed minded as you seem to think I am), but, this type of thinking is really useless when you are trying to piece together the puzzles of human pre-history, you sort of have to stick with the REAL facts and proof you have otherwise you get lost and dont really make it in the field, it becomes a personal hobby for self-interest , which is fine on a different level but will not fly in the professional realm that I am in. A VERY common saying around here is extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, keep that in mind at all times. I tend to think you confuse experiemental sciences with the normal sciences that are taught at most universities. The experimental is more of a hobby and fun, but not too serious
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRippin, Lucy is an indirect ancecstor that is 99.9% the same DNA as us, pretty amazing huh? When scientists say its not diretly related they mean its NOT THE MISSING LINK that everyone is so hard up to find, but dont fool yourself thinking we are not related to Lucy , you can bet your life on it that we are in an indirect way, I mean, She pretty much looks like a human being, not much different, how can you posibiley think we are not related???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, so this my real final post as this has taken up a ridicules amount of time in my life, I am going to stand by that Rippin and Lafidina are still pretty incompetent hold up a conversation here and I am sure anyone reading this would come to a similar conclusion, (and , maybe that I am a prick, but, I could care less) but, ehhh, I got much better things to do then just waste time on here, I am not going to change how you 2 (yes, only two of you at this point) think or whatnot and really, I could care less to. Have a good one dudes, I have some amazing scientific discoveries to (hopefully) make... Enjoy pesudo science and fake mythology gods, whatever makes you sleep better at night and keep denying yourself of the truth ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRipping - Seems to be a delusional christian who will go to all ends to prove the bible true
Lafindia - some new age person who gets offended at a drop of a pin and wants to have aliens come to earth and prove all us scientists wrong... Dawkins will have a bigger impact (and more positive) then I think you ever will .
Good luck to the both of you
Peers are not gods, though you elevate them to that position in your mind. I have trouble believing you even work in science. I don't think anyone who really did would come on forums like this and have these discussions. If they did, they would not be calling people names. Their discourse would be on a much higher level.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA little information on the people who are trying to promulgate Intelligent Design -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf
This is a real document that was leaked from the Discovery Institute by a couple of college students who were hired to copy the document for distribution within said institute.
1 Corinthians 1:18-30
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChrist Crucified Is God’s Power and Wisdom
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”[a]
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
That's pointless. did you know that Bibles were printed and distributed from the basement of Voltaire's house after he died for decades?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLook at this http://kgov.com/bel/20110204 and this: http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/ancient/ancient.htm
"Comparing all the genes of the sea urchin, it's actually quite similar to us," said George Weinstock, who led the sequencing project. Weinstock is co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sea urchin is one of the few marine organisms whose genome has been sequenced.
Rippin, your forgot to copy and paste the part on page 2 of the article you quoted (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061109-sea-urchins_2.html) where it says :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this""Humans and sea urchins have a common ancestor," Weinstock said." Just like Lucy and Humans have a common ancestor, are you now agreeing with me?
you might want to site your sources when you post, but, you seem pretty uneducated in general so no big surprise
If a sea urchin is a 70% match to Human DNA and a Rhesus monkey has a 94% match then I would expect a chimp aor an ape to be about 97% or so. Not sure where you came up with 99% since you have no idea what Lucy's DNA sequence looks like aside from assuming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, DNA are a creation by God. They carry digital information that resembles a very long switch panel. It is how he does it. Can we duplicate it? No. We can play with it, but that's it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy point here is that there is an insidious political side to creationism. There are people out there who promote creationism and manipulate the faithful for their own political ends, which are no less than the abrogation of the Constitution and the establishment of a Cristian theocracy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no greater force for evil in this world than militant religious fundamentalism; I don't care what flavor it is.
Think Taliban. Think The Lord's Army. (Africa. Child soldiers, slavery, mutilation of civilians, blood diamonds, etc.)
Rippin, givin that those percents rise exponentially with each creature you list then lucy must be above 97%, way above. Its "assumed" with out the dna tests done yet that it will match 99%+, and, like anything else time will prove it true, but, yeah, I was just throwing that number out there, maybe a no-no but not nearly as bad as you claiming huge claims with no journals to back anything, just your crazed faith.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishaha, adam and noah... oh geeze...
Stublie, "Science has never laid claim to absolute truth." How about this: The Sun does not revolve around the Earth. Is that absolute? And this article went from: "Questions about Human Ancestry" to: "They recovered material surrounding some of the fossils that may represent preserved skin and soft tissue, something never before seen in HUMAN FOSSILS this old." Is that std usage, to call Au-whatever "human?" I get a kick out of all the T. rex, hadrosaur, etc., soft-tissue being found. Clearly because of evolutionary dating assumptions, it just wasn't looked for over the last century, as at the "List of Not So Old Things."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is an insidious political side to scientific humanism. It seeks to control and manipulate the faithless. There is no greater force for evil in the world. It is manifested in socialism, communism and fascism that enforce eugenic policies that destroy the value and dignity of human life. It has caused mass genocide and the destruction of entire generations through abortion and sterilization. It all begins by proclaiming there is no God and ends up proclaiming "there is no Man". Poof!!! 40 million die. in Gulags, killing fields or abortion mills.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@rag - u said "I think that no one is really reading this anymore so if anyone is , do me a quick favor and please let me know"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI had to be pretty bored to do so, but I read most of this thread, and, frankly, you and rip both sound like idiots.
Mind you, I'm not saying Lafinda sounds scientific, but she seems to be the one arguing for civility and independent thinking, and arguing against dogma.
Anyone who argues that science disproves religion is just as foolish as the fools who say religion disproves science. The fact is that science is centered on what can be tested, proved and falsified, while religion centers on what cannot be tested, proved or falsified.
To say that God created life does not NEED to be in conflict with evolution, but dogmatic zealots on both sides of the fight DO NEED those concepts to be in conflict, else the fight is over. You and Rip relish the fight, and both of you will be tempted to call me an idiot or a demon for saying that I think it is quite likely that evolution tells us a lot about HOW God created life...or for saying that while there is some absolute truth at the bottom of both science and religion, it is a truth so deep and complex that humanity will never fully understand it. You will say we have a lot of "absolute knowledge" already, and someday we'll have it all, and Rip will say the Bible is absolute truth, never understanding that the Bible says human understanding of the absolute truth of the Bible will ALWAYS be flawed (1Cor13, I forget the verse, but towards the end, says human knowledge and wisdom, which would include our UNDERSTANDING of the Bible, is imperfect and will pass away).
I say, and imagine Lafinda would agree, that the more science learns, the more questions it raises; and I say that religious people who think that their understanding of God and/or the Bible are the ones who give religion a bad name.
If I stand by anyone, I stand on the side of peace, and Lafinda comes closest to that.
correction--"and I say that religious people who think that their understanding of God and/or the Bible IS PERFECT are the ones who give religion a bad name."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSkeptical Ken - I appreciate your response, I actually had a feeling that the most people who are not to caught up in either side would tend to pick Lafinda due to his/her more peaceful nature. I also like your idea of through advanced scientific thought and future discoveries if we will indeed get closer to find out how a "god" might have created life; that would be amazing. I did not make note of this but I do think God and Evolution can exist side by side, the catholic church is a good example of a mainstream religion that (for the most part) incorporates it very well. I just cant really see any room for the ideology that the bible should hold *absolute* truth over everything, including science. So no, you do not seem like an idiot but even if you did I would not attack you that front because you presented your thoughts in a more professional manner then some, thanks for doing so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, I never said that science disproves religion though it sort of seems like your implying that I did. Parts of science may disprove parts of religion (the more myth/fantasy type stories in the bible that are taken literally; we all know the earth was made in more then 7 days) but yeah, I can never see it fully disproving any religion completely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, one more thought here, its a core staple of the scientific process that it indeed *has* to cause rise to more questions through new discoveries , if it did not then something would be wrong and science would not be working right; I would be skeptical about some new idea/discovery if a plethora of questions did not come from it. I would also hope that the idea of Occam's razor would be applied to some of these ideas so one would not get out of control with them, start with the ones that make the most sense now and maybe save the more elaborate ones for a time when one can be more sure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have your opinion based on your own beliefs. You are right about extremists often posing a threat, but the difference between Islamic Fundamentalist and Christian Extremists is that Islamists do it because their Koran tells them to. Self proclaimed Christian extremists such as Mid-Evil popes use ignorance of the Bible to commit ungodly acts such as telling Catholic soldiers they will go to heaven if they kill in the name of the Church. Men will do evil regardless of what they believe and that is why Christ is needed. Surely God would know the heart of men and their sincerity. His promise is that humans with a sincere heart submissive to His provision in Christ get a pass on their regrettable misdeeds. Liars go straight to hell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know where you are coming from, it's faith in your idea that Lucy the Orangutan was actually the first human. Faith is the place from where I start when it comes to things discovered that are described in the Bible. So when I see evidence published by people I trust that are not writers in your favorite journals of the world I may choose to believe them if they present a case that I find plausible based on the photography, the story, and the Bible verses that back each other up. I will dismiss those who are unable to explain the evidence away. Giant ship anchors in the Mountains of Ararat, the petrified laminate deck board chunks, the alloy rivets in conjunction with the loads of other finds and the text of the Bible backing it all up make it obvious to me despite the rants of evolutionists or blind unitarians. Same with the discoveries around the Real Mt Sinai. Same with the Leviathans and the Behemoths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan is incapable of peace without God. As sure as you sit there offended by me saying that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1Corinthians
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”[c]
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “LET THE ONE WHO BOASTS BOAST IN THE LORD.”[d]
Rippin writes; "Man is incapable of peace without God. As sure as you sit there offended by me saying that."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExtropian replies; Humankind has not achieved peace with any god either. For two millennia and longer humans have developed more and more successful ways of killing more and more of each other, in many, many cases some god has been the cause of vast tracts of spoliation, desolation, genocide, pillage and rapine done at his behest and in his name. Documented history is replete with the boastings and exhortations of these gods' minions.
But such claims as yours and mine are endlessly debatable. The spiritual/religious aspect of humankind is far from a peaceful realm simply because such spirituality/religiousness emanates from our flesh and blood and the ensuing life experiences that develop what we call our minds.
With a cordial approach, we may be able to avoid unnecessary confrontation by giving genuinely open-minded attention to the following question.......
Each of the opposing sides to this issue is entitled to ask of the other: "Are you able to give the same respect to my views on life and the Cosmos as you expect from me?"
I have asked this of many theists and very few have given me any kind of answer, a few have answered in the negative and absolutely none in the positive, when I asked for their consideration of the atheist view.
May I presume to ask if any theist here has the forthrightness to break the mould with a positive appreciation of the atheist's entitlement to his/her view?
b4eternity: You mix a tiny bit of science with a whole bunch of religious Voodoo and you come up with a conclusion that some 'God' exists somewhere and you even conclude there is just ONE of these magical Gods and this God is a 'he'. WHY are there not thousands of magical Gods living somewhere in your magic land of Voodoo and why aren't half of these magical Gods females ? I cannot believe you religious nuts even bother to read Scientific American magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan, I go away for a day or so, come back just to see if anything interesting has been posted here and RIPPIN is
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this*STILL* copy/pasting bible verses left and right all over here. Is this person even real? Is this a automated bible reference machine (You ask me any question I give you most precise bible quote to back your idea). This dude totally wins Troll of the Year award. Hey dude, I dont think GOD really cares for you, your making him look bad.
Rippin, we have gone over this before, here is a whole page (tons out there) of "evil" bible quotes :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.evilbible.com/
Now, I know you have your paragrahs and paragrahs of bible quotes that you are going to interpet in your own percise way to make them seem like that page is wrong, but, alas, all of us can see that these lines do exit in the bible and are in fact evil. These are the lines that extremest christians always use to back their ideas. So, somehow the Koran is violent because you take it literally but the christian bible is not because you do not take it literally???
And when you tell me that FAITH is where you start a scientific search (which, is very un-scientific) its my faith in science (different kind of faith then yours, same word, different meaning) that lucy is indirectly connected to humans, NOT THE FIRST HUMAN AT ALL. I am not going to get into any of this with you because you really dont care and just want to be like "ME ME ME, I am right, YOU are wrong and GOD will punish you and save me; aka bend the knee" blah blah blah blah. I dont really even read your posts anymore so save your copy/paste for some other respone, this is just to humor anyone who may be reading this still. I have a good feeling you are one of the christians who would see a silver lining in a situation like if Isreal was nuked next week, it would be a sighn of revalations and the rapture and I bet a part of you would be proud, which is sick and disturbing , but, you seem so far to fit the bill.
Adios Amigo.
Eureka! We have found the missing link! Why is everyone being so tepid about it? For years, some people would not believe evolution because the creature half human and half ape was missing. Australopithecus sediba fits the bill. Eureka!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisshimagyoh
Your heart says "there is a God"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience says "show your work"
@rip - u said "Man is incapable of peace without God. As sure as you sit there offended by me saying that."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy would I be offended by that? Mankind is incapable of peace, period. An individual man may find peace, but as a species, man is a combative beast.
The "God vs. Evolution" farce is proof of that. My Corinthians reference was 1 Cor 13:8, "8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away."
So any knowledge you have about the truth or lack of truth of evolution is flawed, incomplete, and temporary. If you are a Christian, you are called to speak the truth politely, and walk away quietly if the truth is rejected; not to bash and insult until you "win".
@ragnar - u said "BTW, I never said that science disproves religion though it sort of seems like your implying that I did."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was. I mistook you for the type who does say such things, sorry.
I'm glad you know that the purpose of science is to find more questions by answering current ones rather that to find the answer to everything...which is 42. Too many people on both sides of this kind of argument believe they have absolute knowledge. I believe no human has absolute knowledge, and no human ever will.
The Roman Catholic Church would be interested in your last comment. Their ability to change with new scientific discovery is exactly the reason the Church remains vibrant, and not a cause for its demise. Science does not run counter to faith within the Church. It hasn't always been a hallmark of the Church, but since the dust-up with Galileo they have been successful in taking science into account regarding belief. It is the unbending scientist that doesn't allow for belief that remains short-sighted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNope. Wrong again. Jesus will bring peace when he comes the 2nd time according to God's plan. The first time he came as a priest and the 2nd time he comes as a warrior to seal the deal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsaiah 9
1 [a]Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—
2 The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
3 You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
4 For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.
5 Every warrior’s boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
I agree that man has failed to bring peace. God's plan includes a dispensation for men to gather in Christ. Once Christ returns and brings peace
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsaiah 9
6For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
those who serve Christ will be His priests.
Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
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1 Peter 2
New International Version (NIV)
1 Peter 2
1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
The Living Stone and a Chosen People
4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”[b]
7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”[c]
8 and,
“A stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”[d]
They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
This should be settled science at this point:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://kgov.com/bel/20110204
http://www.squidoo.com/noahsarkfound
http://www.noahsark-naxuan.com/Slide1.htm
http://www.archive.org/details/The_Search_for_the_Real_Mt_Sinai
BTW, Isaiah was born 800 years before Christ so his prophesies about Christ were given over 700 years prior to his birth and crucification.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hear you Ken, but many folks have not heard the truth through the veil. God uses us all for His glory whether we are believers or non-believers, outspoken or quiet. When I quote the Bible and link research that validates the Bible I boast in the Lord for His glory and not my own. You may be aware of these things but many are not and if its God's will that they hear about these things then it has been fulfilled.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPenn Jillette on Preaching the Gospel
http://www.everysquareinch.net/2009/11/penn-jillette-on-preaching-gospel.html
Penn Jillette is from the well-known magician duo Penn and Teller. He’s rather famous and rather outspoken. Through radio, television, and even print, Penn’s opinions are made known to many. Penn is also an atheist, and holds to that view quite forcefully and with conviction. Thus, when I saw this video it sort of floored me.
“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward—and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me along and keep your religion to yourself—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
“I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.”
I’ll argue that if you’re not handing out Bibles and not preaching on street corners you can still be faithfully preaching the gospel.
I think you are misunderstanding Carbon 14 dating. It does not involve dating carbon atoms, which of course could be billions of years old, but the RATIO of Carbon 14 atoms to Carbon 12 atoms. Carbon 14 is the radioactive form of carbon and the the atoms decay. Living things take in carbon all the time, and have the same ration of the two forms. But after they die, no new carbon is taken in, so as the Carbon 14 decays, the ration changes. By looking at the ratio in a bone or piece of wood, say, scientists can tell the approximately the age of the object. This method, BTW, is only good up to about 50,000 years. Other methods have to be used for older stuff.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStrubie did not say "A science that claims no truths" he said "Science has never laid claim to absolute truth." Please read a bit closer before pouncing on what someone else says...lest you be made the fool.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease save us from the biblical verses...they just take up space. Also...someone did mention one of my favorite subjects. I have had the conversation on several occasions with folks who insist that their god is a he...not a she...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy question to them "Are you saying your god has a penis?" also, if that is what you are saying I must also ask what its function is..are there other gods who have vaginas, or does 'He' only use it for peeing? What possible use could gender be to a one and only god. I would be most appreciative if someone could shine light on my confusion as regards this conversation.
I'm not interested in the natterings of trolls who aren't actual Scientific American readers, any more than I am in the daily astrology page in my local newspaper--other than seeing its presence as circumstantial proof that chimpanzees and humans belong in the same genus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am interested in the wide pelvis of this small-brained hominin. Any have an evolutionary model to hypothesize that could account for this? Might a somewhat wide pelvis confer some kind of locomotory advantage?
After scanning through the 100+ quotes I see an odd blurring of terminology/definition when it comes to science and religion. Such as, the use of the concepts of faith and fact. Is religion and science in conflict? Since science deals with determining what can be determined to the best of our ability and religion is merely a matter of what one chooses to believe on the basis of faith (i.e., no proof necessary), then it is clearly a matter of how an individual thinks that determines if the two are compatible or not. What I find disturbing is when certain religionists attempt to chatise science for being unlike religion, and then turn around and assert that religion is more accurate than science. That notion is absurd of course. Science is founded on empiricism, religion on faith. No amount of ad hominems and bogus web site references will ever change that.
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