wannabe_tank_whore wrote:
With that in mind, what are the chances of evolution? And plausible? Give me a break... you later refute your own point by saying God could have done it and erased all evidence yet call evolution more plausible than intelligent design? Talk about double standards.
How is pointing out that God *could* do so refuting my point that evolution is more probable? As I've mentioned, I cannot prove that God does not exist, and so I must take into account that he might. So I have 2 facts: God might exist and God is all powerful, thus I cannot rule out anything. God could have created all life on Earth 6000 years ago and made up all this scientific evidence to the contrary, I dont know. But I doubt it. I find that a process of gradual change over a few billion years resulting in the species diversity we see today is more likely than 'God did it'.
wannabe_tank_whore wrote:
Do you purposely lie or is it a gene?
"Show me a bleeding heart that believes in the Christian God."
Excuse me? What am I supposedly lying about? Are you saying that you did not, in fact, write "most universities are quite liberal and most liberals do not believe in God?" Perhaps you should go back and check page five of the religious thread, heres a link in case thats too complicated for you:
http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=18864&p=5 post #111.
I'll thank you not to call me a liar again without some damn good proof.
wannabe_tank_whore wrote:
No, because of your inability to acknowledge arguments from the opposite side.
So a good professor does not acknowledge arguments from both sides? I'm glad you're not in charge of our education system.
And I have acknowledged the arguments, and dismissed them. In the world I live in, the world of science, logic and reason, Noah did not stuff every species of animal on Earth (plus the dinosaurs, according to answersingenesis.com) into a wooden ship for 40 days. It didn't happen, because there is no evidence to support it, and it borders on the impossible. Now, if God does exist, then who knows. Maybe Noah's Ark is real and all this did happen, because if God does exist then my little world of science logic and reason is pretty meaningless; I believe my friends over at talkorigins.org sum it up pretty well:
Second, the whole story can be dismissed as a series of supernatural miracles. There is no way to contradict such an argument. However, one must wonder about a God who reportedly does one thing and then arranges every bit of evidence to make it look like something else happened. It's entirely possible that a global flood occurred 4000 years ago or even last Thursday, and that God subsequently erased all the evidence, including our memories of it. But even if such stories are true, what's the point?
They were of course talking about Noah's Ark, but the same argument applies to intelligent design and creationism in general.
wannabe_tank_whore wrote:
What does 'no comparison' have to do with the fact that it happened and it had a significant impact of most of the northern hemisphere. "there's still no way animals repopulated the Earth after the flood." And you can claim this based on what scientific facts?
The ice age and the 'little ice age' are profoundly different. Besides which, you only brought it up because I was talking about land bridges, and the 'little ice age' was supposed to have enabled animals to migrate thousands of miles across ocean in order to repopulate remote continents and islands, and the fact remains that the little ice age (and other events like it) were not nearly large enough in scope to allow such events.
There is, quite literally, no way animals repupulated the Earth (in its entirety) after this supposed flood (again, barring supernatural interference). If we skip over the litany of scientific problems with the flood itself and getting all of these animals together in the first place aboard this ship, there is still the problem of inbreeding (there are only two of each animal, not much genetic diversity there), getting those animals to isolated islands (no, the little ice age did not allow this, even if there were ice bridges connecting every bit of land on Earth, slow moving land animals that are used to warm climates would have frozen to death on the way)... well, I could go on, but this feels kind of like trying to teach my dog algebra. Actually I'd probably have better luck with that.
wannabe_tank_whore wrote:
Sure... so what you've posted is not rhetoric designed to A) reinforce the theory of evolution and B) prove Intelligent design wrong? I guess you made a good point, no?
What I've posted is A:based on over a century of scientific research and observation that the vast majority of the scientific community agrees is most likely, and B: As I have stated several times before, Intelligent Design cannot be proved wrong any more than it can be proved right, because it is based on something that cannot be tested or measured by science, I.E God.
wannabe_tank_whore wrote:
But no one has ever sided with me... ever. That's like saying "all my friends like me".
Have you considered that noone has sided with you because your argument is absurd? Or had that thought not occurred to you?
wannabe_tank_whore wrote:
Did you read the entire article?
"New Zealand has no problems with salinity because its rivers take the salt off the land and back out to sea. Why doesn't that happen here?
"Australia is so different from any other land. Rivers normally build on high ground and run briskly down slopes and disappear into the sea. When rivers behave like that around the coastal parts of Australia any excess salts that get into river systems is carried back into the sea. However most of our major rivers rise on the western flanks of the Great Dividing Range and they don't run briskly down slopes and into the sea, they run into a very flat landscape. In the case of the Murray Darling it's our major river system and it travels mainly westward and then it has one very small exit to the sea. So you've got inward flowing rivers in a continent with a sunken centre. You end up with a very flat land, it gets flatter and flatter retaining its sediment and it becomes a land of flood plains and at the same time of course it is retaining its salt."
Looks like water does flow down and thus taking the salt with it. Since the flood, has it ever rained? And considering that there was enough water to cover the entire planet, don't you think the salinity would be diluted?
I know you think this is some kind of crushing blow to my argument, but that paragraph doesn't really say anything important. I bolded the pertinent information for you.
As for there being enough water to cover the entire planet, I believe we've already established that there is not, in fact, enough of it to do so (again, barring Godly intervention). You seem to have skipped over that minor detail.
wannabe_tank_whore wrote:
I find it 'laughable' that you said my viewpoint was a double standard yet claim humans evolved from a common ancestor with no evidence.
If you've been paying attention, I'm not the one claiming humans evolved from a common ancestor. I believe it was decades of established scientific research that did that, I just happen to agree. As for evidence, you seem to be ignoring DNA polymorphisms, genetic similarity with other animals (fruit flies share nearly 60% of their genes with humans), well, I could go on, but I don't feel like researching all of this just to have you ignore it like you have every other bit of evidence I've presented.