Thoughts on Religion and the State

[Xant]

What's your point, Jarold? How does DNA decay disprove evolution? I don't get it.

Fool. Don't you know that if we (maybe) can't acquire T-Rex DNA and therefore clone it, Evolution is disproved?

[Jarold]

On the other hand, it's hard to tell if somebody pretending to be Creationist is trolling or not; it takes some genuine stupidity rarely encountered in normal situations to actually argue for Creationism over Evolution. I suppose it would fit the general Creationist behavior to ignore the post full of proof and dig up an article about how Jurassic Park, a movie about dinosaurs, couldn't be real.

Sorry I was addressing your previous post before that. I will address your big one soon enough I just don't have the energy right now to read it.

BTW you're still trying to ignore the fact about DNA decaying. Now I know you are truly scrambling for any foot hold since you are just trying to insult now and repeat. I already addressed the Jurassic Park thing and I will a second time just for you. It's just a means to an end to explain the decay of DNA much more easily.

What's your point, Jarold? How does DNA decay disprove evolution? I don't get it.

Xant made a post about how DNA is used to prove evolution and to study fossils. But how can you get that DNA and still be able to get any useable information to actually study said fossil if the DNA decays within about 6.8 million years?

Well it's quite easily explainable, since you can in fact get DNA from dinosaurs that means dinosaurs aren't actually 65 million years old and are a much much smaller number of years old. And since dinosaurs aren't millions of years old that means everything else has to be younger too to be able to get DNA from them.

Here's a nice little article on the subject of dinosaur DNA. http://www.icr.org/article/7160/

[Xant]

How am I trying to ignore the fact about DNA decaying? DNA decaying has nothing to do with anything. DNA is one of the things used to study evolution, yes; again, how does this have anything to do with DNA decay...? Who the fuck said you gotta take the DNA from 6.9 million years ago? Certainly not I.

And do show what dinosaur DNA has been found.

[Paul]

Fossils where used to study evolution way before DNA was discovered. They were one reason why people started to think about it and why the genesis thing has to be bullshit. I don't even see how DNA can exist in petrified remains. It doesn't matter. Fossils in combination with geology show that species died out and new appeared over the course of time, showing features of their predecessors. I like that better than to think that dinosaus just didn't happen to be within walking distance to Noah's house when the big flood happened.

[Xant]

Guess he didn't have much dinosaur DNA to show after all.

[Falka]

interestingly, there are some statistics floating about concerning religiosity of a society vs. societal health, (an example of bad societal health, high unrest, rapes, murder, dissatisfaction with the government etc)

the interesting thing was that these statistics actually found that the more religion the worse the societal health

If you've studied some United States history and other things like it for a little while you would see the United Stated was an exception.

You should read Dawkins' THe god delusion, where he lays out that the most religious states in US are also those with highest crime rate...

I have looked into evolution and I can't even understand why it's in textbooks these days. It's not even a law, just a theory it's never been proven.

Saying someone who believe in invisible guy living in the sky whose existence ofc can be proved... kinda ironic 

[Xant]

What I find most hilarious is Jarold's constant dodging and coincidental ignoring of everything that disproves what he says. The most obvious and non-debatable one being his confusion about "theory" and "law" (and he claims to have studied it! Seriously; how can you study anything to do with science without knowing what a scientific theory is?).  He then proceeds to cherry-pick quote whatever he thinks he can refute (and of course failing at that, but I digress) while pretending that the rest of his argument still stands.

[Porthos]

I stopped believing in santa claus when I was still a young child.

Why don't you believe in Santa? I met him last Christmas and he gave me a colored pencils.

[zagibu]

Evolution has been observed in nature many times using species that have a very low life expectancy and fast generation cycle. A common example are the moths, which, during the industrial revolution where everything was black from coal residue, suddenly adapted a darker camouflage pattern (because the bright ones were easy to see for birds on the blackened walls), then, when the cities started getting cleaner again, they went back to their brighter color again. There are numerous other examples you can easily find if you google a bit.

Now if you are of the micro- vs. macroevolution debating kind of guy, you can also find a lot of evidence for the latter, maybe starting with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent

[kinngrimm]

What i always find particular disturbing , that creationism comes up in any type of religious debate and afterwards it is all about that. If i have any believe, then perhaps that creationism is a product from the church to fucking derail any type of critical dialogue, their chosen battleground where they spend millions into developing the advertising strategy.
For those dudes who have no problem with science it is infurirating how ignorant these creationist statements are often, for those of the religious crowd who didnt do their homework it is, yes but 'only a theory so it still could be the genesis way' and stuff like that.

As in one of my former posts, religions who dont go with the time will be lost within it, same as hundreds befor them, there had been religons lost also with huge % parts of the population, still any of the big religions can get dinstinct by inherent incoherencies or other factors. You may even say that, those religions wich had grown and survived till now was by pure chance ... like with an evolutionary algorithm, still with a pattern but also a chaos component.

What does creationism matter to the state? Any handson best practise  experiences here?

Perhaps back to topic,  in a former post it was mentioned that russia goes more and more back to orthodoxy, any thoughts on that? What kind of influence will that have on russia and its policies?

[Corsair831]

to answer all of your points (and i must apologise for the wall of text),

If you've studied some United States history and other things like it for a little while you would see the United Stated was an exception. It's early years they focused on keeping religious beliefs the core of it's country. Slowly but surely they started separating religious beliefs and standards from public life. If you do a quick study you will see how much social health (crime) has risen over the years.

firstly, are you suggesting a direct correlation between the rise in crime and the lowering religiosity of the United States? Because I would suggest much more prevalent reasons for the increasing crime in the US is a mixture of the growing poverty gap, the lowering of the number of employed americans (with the destruction of the american jobs base (further linked to the rise of capitalism/the increase of the poverty gap)), and more recently the the 'war on drugs' is probably the main cause of the increase in crime statistics.

What are their names exactly?

your second point, the 'great thinkers' of the western world who are 'practical atheist', http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Percentage_of_atheists, have a look at the "among scientists" section and compare it to the general percentage of general religious population, you'll find it's much higher in 'scientists', aka the men who do most of the thinking. if you're looking for specific names, just look at the list of nobel laureates.

What qualifies as "on the religious side"?

your third point, 'on the religious side', their repeated attempts to classify the bible/quran as evidence in every damn debate i have with them would be a big one

It's something called logic, which is exactly what evolution lacks. Evolution is as unproven as they get, absolutely nothing backing it up. No change of kinds, no in between forms, and no evidence whatsoever. So tell me again why it's the best theory.

If you want I can point out the evidences for Creationism and more reasons why evolution is a load of hooey.

your final point i have seen here, regarding the legitimacy of evolution, evolution is a 'practical fact' in the same way that gravity is a 'practical fact'. you can demonstrate every single aspect of it, there is an absolute Mountain of evidence to back it up (short term evolution aka dogs, placement of various types of animals on the planets (marsupials all in australia etc etc), not to mention the extensive fossil record (more a bonus than anything as we can rather conclusively prove it without that)).

if you are still sceptical about the legitimacy of evolution, please, i invite you to read some of professor dawkins' work, i shall link you to a few books!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Show_on_Earth:_The_Evidence_for_Evolution

there are many other books which catalogue the broad field of evidence for evolution, however i find dawkins' style the easiest for newcomers to understand.

hope this helps you to understand, we're not talking baloney out of our arses here, evolution is actually proven stuff! i really do encourage you to read those books my friend, even if you do not believe it, it is always better to know more than less! these people arguing against you here on this forum, i don't think this is the right tack, you're never going to have any change of belief based on our words, i really believe the only way to change a man is further education. therefore i really must emphasise for a third time to read these books!

regards, Corsair

[Jarold]

Evolution has been observed in nature many times using species that have a very low life expectancy and fast generation cycle. A common example are the moths, which, during the industrial revolution where everything was black from coal residue, suddenly adapted a darker camouflage pattern (because the bright ones were easy to see for birds on the blackened walls), then, when the cities started getting cleaner again, they went back to their brighter color again. There are numerous other examples you can easily find if you google a bit.

Now if you are of the micro- vs. macroevolution debating kind of guy, you can also find a lot of evidence for the latter, maybe starting with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent

That's called adaption not evolution which is what evolution always confuses.



I have not seen a single shred of evidence given here for evolution here yet. Please no more "evidences" on how a species has changed that's actually adaption. I need to see the species getting new traits, not choosing a certain trait over another. Example, a short hair dog and a long hair dog mate, it makes a medium haired dog, that's taking it's short haired genes, and it's long haired genes and making a medium haired gene. It didn't get a new trait it just adapted or used an existing trait. So birds changing color is merely adaption, just like the beaks on the finches (finches right?) in Charles Darwin's book.  A change of kinds would be nice to see actually, like a sea animal to a land animal.

Obviously i'm alone on my side here and you people are well versed on your evolution but this is interesting nonetheless.

Saying someone who believe in invisible guy living in the sky whose existence ofc can be proved... kinda ironic 

I guess Creationism and Evolution share a common trait then. After all both need a little bit of faith. How do you know it took billions of years, were you there? How do I know the universe was made by God? Well actually I do but that's besides the point.

[chadz]

Finally this thread is picking up some pace.

[Corsair831]

That's called adaption not evolution which is what evolution always confuses.



I have not seen a single shred of evidence given here for evolution here yet. Please no more "evidences" on how a species has changed that's actually adaption. I need to see the species getting new traits, not choosing a certain trait over another. Example, a short hair dog and a long hair dog mate, it makes a medium haired dog, that's taking it's short haired genes, and it's long haired genes and making a medium haired gene. It didn't get a new trait it just adapted or used an existing trait. So birds changing color is merely adaption, just like the beaks on the finches (finches right?) in Charles Darwin's book.  A change of kinds would be nice to see actually, like a sea animal to a land animal.

Obviously i'm alone on my side here and you people are well versed on your evolution but this is interesting nonetheless.


I guess Creationism and Evolution share a common trait then. After all both need a little bit of faith. How do you know it took billions of years, were you there? How do I know the universe was made by God? Well actually I do but that's besides the point.

pleeeeasse just read my post for christ's sake

i included 2 books which explain in very simple terms the evidence for evolution, the problem you're having is you don't seem to understand it, read some books and you will!

it's pretty bloody infallable. a scientist is a man who sees things which happen, and writes them down. these are called 'facts'. there's a really really really really good reason the vast majority of the worlds scientists believe evolution happened, please for the love of god read the books.

[Kafein]

Example, a short hair dog and a long hair dog mate, it makes a medium haired dog, that's taking it's short haired genes, and it's long haired genes and making a medium haired gene.

Yeah, you most definitely did not study evolution.

Finally this thread is picking up some pace.

If this thread was a ship in space, we'd be in the Schwarzschild radius of the creationism debate.