Evolution & Atheism... Is it really more plausible?

[miccy2000]

The Christian (and all religions, actually) arguments are entirely based on ancient lore and faith. There is no scientific way to argue such beliefs except when they directly contradict what is observed. Much of the creation theories DO directly conflict with what is observed, so those theories are clearly false. However, this doesn't invalidate the religion in itself; religion is more of a philosophy, and it is only the stupid ones that take religious principles entirely literally. Religion is in a sense art; it is meant to be interpreted and spark thought. Too often though, it is used as a control system of the masses instead, which is a shame, frankly.

While I don't necessarily agree with you entirely, this is one of the most intelligent threads so far, and also the only truly neutral sounding one.

I believe there is no God, and hate people lumping Atheism and Evolution together into the same category, since they don't necessarily go hand in hand.

The general assumption by theists seems to be that the universe couldn't have been around forever, so there had to be a 'god' who created it, however ask them how their god came into existence and they will explain that he has always existed, and always will.

I find no reason to believe that the idea of god being around forever is anymore legitimate than the idea that the universe has been.

Get over it.

 

[Abengoshis]

Evolution is a fact and a theory, and the theory has more evidence than the theory of gravity.
Theories explain facts, they are not and I repeat, NOT hypotheses. Those who reject evolution simply haven't seen any evidence, or ignore it at will because it conflicts with their beliefs.
There is no reason to ascribe a deity.

There is no need for this thread. There will be flaming. Can someone lock this topic before people are burned?

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

so much for intelligent responses?

A shocking lack of grammatical errors, good show there. But seriously... read some of these:

Okay guys... post. Please do so in an intelligent manner (I reserve the right to make fun of every grammatical error found), and, if you directly mention elements of Christianity... make sure you have some idea what you are talking about.

Evolution has basis in fact. There are numerous fossils that show similarities to humans over the years, the fossils becoming more and more human-like as time came closer to the dawn of man. Plus our DNA is shared with several of our ancestors, AKA Monkeys.

Atheism is plausible because, if there's no evidence for God Existing/Not-Existing, I'll just take it that he doesn't exist.

Show me a REAL missing link, noob. Part of the point of this thread is to have people actually give real EXAMPLES. That seems to be the problem nowadays. You say, "this is supported by facts and statistics," and people believe you. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS POST. And fossils that show similarities... hmmm. Maybe because those bones work? Maybe they serve a freakin similar purpose??? Geez. Good job regarding grammar and spelling though.

STOP ASKING FOR THE MISSING LINK DAMMIT! Whats wrong with you people. For you there will always be a missing link.

"We found the missing link"
Some stupid christian: "whats between that and the next thing?"
"we havnt found it yet... this is the best we have got"
"ITS NOT ENOUGH >:C i want a million fossils linking this monkey with 4 fingers to this monkey with 5 il keep complaining that their isnt enough in between until someone shoots me"

Looking at how old these fossils are and how fast evolution can happen on a reltive scale of how they are preserved (Evolution takes a long time but once a good factor is added the ones that dont have it die out relatively fast compared to the time it took to mutate the new factor).

People saying this annoys me. There are infinite missing links, some only existed for a few thousand years which is nothing in fossil terms. We cant find fossilslike that and chaces are we never will. If we found every fossil ever except for 1 would you still disagree because theres a missing link?

The "missing freakin link" was an idea made before we found human fossilised remains. Your using an outdated arguement in the wrong way. We found many human remains now and the fossil record is quite full actualy.

What you want is a COMPLETELY absurd amount of evidence compared to the retarded statement of "God did it". Put me out of my misery now, how much factual scientfic evidence equates to some random quote from a book that says "God did it".

My arguement doesnt have to be 100% flawless, it just had to be better than yours... and it is.

Which missing link do you want btw? There are inifinate amounts of them, take your pick.

 

[bjj hero]

Evolution is a fact and a theory, and the theory has more evidence than the theory of gravity.
Theories explain facts, they are not and I repeat, NOT hypotheses. Those who reject evolution simply haven't seen any evidence, or ignore it at will because it conflicts with their beliefs.
There is no reason to ascribe a deity.

There is no need for this thread. There will be flaming. Can someone lock this topic before people are burned?

I feel there has been a lot less flaming than I've seen on previous threads. Most of it seems to come from the OP with his noob comments etc.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

Ah, another religion thread. I could of course once again say everyone can believe what they want and trying to bash other people's beliefs (or even a proven biological concept) is completely pointless. I'm pretty tired of that though, so instead I just respond with a picture of a kitten:

 

[Downfall89]

Oh shit! Ready your shield of +30 fire resistance! My flame senses are tingling, watch out my /b/rother its about to get HOT in here!

4chan references aren't very well accepted around here.

What about movie references?

What movie reference? You deliberately put two slashes before and after that "b".

Indeed I did, indeed I did.

4CHAN FTW.

 

[Zefar]

I can agree with some people here!

Intelligent design does fundamentally contradict evolution!!!

Evolution was theorized in order to provide an origin basis for the RELIGION of atheism, and so, yes, intelligent design DOES contradict evolution.

Please stop arguing for it as a viable compromise.

I do, however, view intelligent design as somewhat feasible.

Atheism can't be a religion. It will NEVER be a religion.
To be a religion you need.
1: A holy book.
2: A god
3: Magical events in the lifetime.
4: Set of rules or way of life. (Atheist either stick to the law or just breaks them.)

Atheism have none of those. If you are 17 and still don't know this we could actually call you stupid because this is common knowledge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

Now Evolution is a Scientific Theory. This is a different version from the normal Theory.

http://www.fsteiger.com/theory.html

As used in science, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena.

Oh and do you know Gravity is a theory? It's actually not that supported compared to Evolution. Yes, here's the funny thing. Evolution is THE MOST supported Scientific Theory in the world. It got the most evidence. Most backed up with information. We can also observe it. We have observed it. We have already found some animals that have adjusted already. One is a frog that grew longer back legs to jump higher.

Intelligent Design have NOTHING on Evolution. Absolutely nothing. It breaks down so quickly it's even silly to believe in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzshC-rCXSE
They even presented a cheap way to try to support it. But so far nothing proves it.
It lost in Court too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
That one is rather interesting to listen too. You might actually learn something too.

Evolution have on the other hand millions of fossils. So many articles on the DNA that improved our understanding of Evolution. The missing links are no longer missing. Most things that where hoax where proven wrong by the scientific community.
Religious people usually take things way out of context. Like quoting Darwin when he had limited knowledge and it was over 150 years ago. Then they think they can claim the entire thing is wrong too.


Scientist have a good theory on how life could have started too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment

His experiment was able to produce some pretty good results and there was now the life blocks that are needed for life.
You can try this too. You can create this experiment if you have the tools and you'll get the same results.

That's the good thing with science. If you don't believe in it you can always learn more about it and do the experiment for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTcFLp1uVZ4
Watch some of his videos. It'll probably clear things up.
You can also watch http://www.youtube.com/user/Potholer54debunks this guy.
Both of these know what they are talking about.

Now try to watch those videos of theirs. Pick anyone you like but you ain't gonna watch any of them. You might as well quit on Evolution all together because you obviously have no will to learn anything new.

Oh and here is a video showing how large universe is so far for us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgg2tpUVbXQ

So which ever God you have. Just happen to leave out the size of universe. Seems like a universal mistake.

 

[Glass_House]

The official stance is that God kickstarted Life and let it go nuts. When Humans came about, He showed up and said, "Hey, kids, check this out", then showed them how to murder'n'shit.

Well, probably not that, but the first part is true. God shows up, kickstarts a self-replicating chemical reaction and watches the results. Occasionally dropping a meteor or two, when He got bored.

This sure as shit makes the most scientific sense. I mean 'living organisms just randomly appeared' seems impossible and implausible. And if God didn't do it then what?

Ooooo I love this argument! "How could we have just appeared that makes no sense! Yet it makes sense that god just randomly appeared and created all of us? Logic defuses this argument before it has a chance.

 

[Skeleon]

There is a nice little example of how evolution works in the macrocosmos.
We know about it, because it happened just a few years ago.

Back in the day, shortly before the industrialization, there was a species of moth. Like it is with people's hair colours, there were differently coloured moths. Some were white, others brown, others something inbetween.

Now, in this area our little story is taking place, there were a lot of birch trees.
Moths are eaten by birds because they find them oh so yummy. If a white moth would land on a birch tree's trunk, it would be relatively well hidden. Brown moths, however, would be seen, caught and eaten. Thus, mostly white moths survived and got to produce new white offspring, the great majority of moths were therefore white in colour.

However, then industrialization hit. And since we didn't give a fuck about exhaust back then, the sky was blackened with ash. Said ash would also stick to the surrounding nature, such as the birch trees' trunks.

Well, I guess you can imagine what happened next, right?
Whenever a white moth would land on a now blackened trunk, it was easily spotted by those big, mean birds, then caught and killed.
However, all of a sudden, the brown moths had a far bigger chance of surviving! In fact, they survived so well that they quickly repopulated the gap left by the white moths. So now, we had mostly brown moths. A new trait has been established as the dominant one because the environmental conditions had changed.

And that, kids, is how evolution works on its most basic level.
Random mutations (differently coloured moths) lead to differences within a species. And the environmental conditions (white versus blackened tree trunks) decide who gets to live and reproduce.

 

[Disaster Button]

Shuddering Fuck. What is witht he recent upsurge in Religion Threads?

I Never really minded em before but Christ on a Stick, there's been like 9 kajillion in the last couple days alone

 

[Madkipz]

IF you had a choice between a self righteous ****** god who

1. Showed himself to a handful of people after several millenias of nothing but fake gods. Starting with abraham the cheif of maybe 50 - 100 people and told him literally that he was on their side and noone elses.

2. Kills thousands of people in the course of the old testament and burns heathen cities to the ground, destroying their walls so the jews can slaughter the innhabitants.

3. advocates self mutilation in the aspect of removing the foreskin of the penis.

4. Supports slavery, check the 10 commandements

5. condemnts 99% of the world to suffer for an eternity in this place called hell.

6. Advocates that man can do what he wants while the female stays at home cooking.

or the option of simply death, the big nothingness. Equality.

then yes by all means pick the first one. I pick the latter one because i know that if the first one was true then you would burn in hell with me.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

the "Atheists, It's time to turn the spotlight on you" topic has me ranting. Such quotes as:

xXGeckoXx: "I will raise the child as a scientist. I will not teach him that there is a god. If he tells me that he has heard of religions and wants to know what they are all about i will tell him but I will tell him why it is scientiffically7 implausible. then once he has been told he can choose."

MalthusX: "I will teach them how some people thought the world was made, but I will point out that evolution makes more sense."

Does it really make more sense? Can people really argue this logically for me? Yes, I realize you can't completely disprove or even offer significant evidence against the fuzzy, biased view of the earth's creation by a Christian, but try and offer some real evidence FOR evolution.

You've never heard of fossils then? These wonderful things we dig up from the ground that are plants and creatures preserved in rock?
I think a good one is Archaeopteryx. It's literally half-bird/half-reptile:

I don't know how clued up on skeletons you are, whether or not you can notice the distinctive hip design of a bird with the limbs and torso of a dinosaur. You can at least see the feather outlines in the surrounding rock.
It also might be worth you knowing that "raptor" (as in Velociraptor) is another word for the birds of prey we have today, such as hawks and falcons

aruki: "A fair judge [God] wouldn't tarnish everyone from a family, street, town or country or race for the acts of two individuals from centuries ago. Assuming the bible to be correct that is."

Okay, I know this post wasn't typical post, normally people replied a bit more intelligently than that in the thread. But posts that showed little to no knowledge of the Christian side of the picture were fairly common.

Okay guys... post. Please do so in an intelligent manner (I reserve the right to make fun of every grammatical error found), and, if you directly mention elements of Christianity... make sure you have some idea what you are talking about.

That post seemed pretty informed to me. That's exactly the sort of thing God does. For example, the Jews following Moses, when marching through the desert, cried out for food so God made it rain fowls. However he did punish them for their greed...500 years later. I ask you, what's the point? To me that just seems like something bad happened to a bunch of believers and, looking for a reason why, they came up with the raining fowl thing and thought "Oh, maybe he was angry at us for demanding food like that". They've linked two events and come up with an imaginative reason as to why they've done such a thing. In short, just how a superstition is started.

 

[Diablini]

Oh, lord. This never stops does it. Does it really matter? Honestly? You have your views, i have mine etc etc. Lets just get over this already.

/thread.

 

[Seanchaidh]

And that, kids, is how evolution works on its most basic level.
Random mutations (differently coloured moths) lead to differences within a species. And the environmental conditions (white versus blackened tree trunks) decide who gets to live and reproduce.

I've actually heard that the descriptions of those specific moths were a sort of hoax that ended up in biology textbooks. I don't know if that's true. Just warning you in case someone provides some evidence of that. That said, there's plenty more examples that actually happened, though perhaps not so quickly.

 

[MajoraPersona]

hai gais i can haz mok ur vyews plzkthxbai

No matter what you believe, the fact of the matter is most people need to believe something. Whether you believe in a schizophrenic old guy who plays Telephone with people or Xenu sleeping in Ry'leh, you have an opinion about the world.

Me? I just kind of sit here, mocking other people and looking down on them from my parent's basement.

 

[bjj hero]

IF you had a choice between a self righteous ****** god who

Please dont use ****** in a derogatory way.

 

[twistedshadows]

I find it amusing how hypocritical you just were. You implied that people who don't believe in or are ignorant of Christianity are unintelligent, all the while showing off your disbelief and ignorance of scientific theories; many atheists would think you were the unintelligent one.

No, I cannot explain evolution in a logical manner to you because you clearly believe strongly in Christianity, just as you can't convince me that Christianity is logical because I believe strongly in science (I was raised Catholic, by the way, and truly believed it all for a long time).

It is a difference of opinion, and people have a right to their opinion even if it is different than yours. It doesn't necessarily make them stupid.

Get over it.

 

[Cxizent]

PS: Don't hate me for making a religious thread.

Fine, I'll hate you for knowingly starting a flame war. Honestly, if you cannot understand the basics of evoloution you are one of two things:
1. A moron
2. Too damned lazy to bother doing any basic research or readings on what it actually is (and then because you're trying to argue with it without any knowledge, a moron)

Neither have any place trying to contest it or imply it doesn't make sense. In the case of the second, here is a good place to start. You can read about some of the basic concepts without the "I'm not a monkey" bullshit most people would try and counter evolution theory with.

Sounds fun! Did you also read this before you made this post? I sure know that I did, before instructing another to take the same road. Anyone can go there and read about some of the basic concept without the "God isn't fair" bullshit most people would try and counter Creation theory with.

You may want to observe that I made no mention of my opinion on creationism (it is irrelivant, this is not a debate on it), merely the most common and most stupid counter arguament to evoloution. You'll find my understanding of christianity is far greater than most, so please refrain from patronizing me with wikipedia articles on faith at least until I say something that in some way could be taken as a contradiction of the fundamental concept of faith (perhaps if I was to argue something along the lines of "you can't prove god).

What I said was that you'd have to be a moron to not be able to understand the basics of evoloution (please note that understanding is different from beleiving). To even need to ask if one can "even argue it (evoloution) logicially" implies that you have no understanding of evoloution, logic or both.

tl;dr

 

[Agrael]

Who gives a rat's ass ?

Seriously...

 

[similar.squirrel]

This religion thing hasn't fizzled out yet?Or gotten out of control?

Anyway..I say you tell the kid both versions.
It depends on how you brought the child up, really. But if s/he's predisposed to question, and likes to see how things work, chances are s/he'll take the evolution theory.
If s/he's prone to flights of fancy and likes simple, shiny and reassuring answers, s/he may become religious.