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Creation Evolution Debate


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I haven't read any more of the blog - but it can't really be satire, can it? Just looking at one or 2 entries on his list of "Non-Fiction Downloads," it appears he's written hundreds of thousands of words on the subject (and other random subjects) and has hundreds and hundreds of followers and gets thousands of comments.

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I promise I am perfecting the 'how not to make money' part.Vox Day is awesome.Which is why I told Tim he needed to read a bit more about him instead of judging him from a single sentence.As far as the possibility that he is a closet atheist, he's much too intelligent to be an atheist.And unlike the high priest of the new atheism, he presents his book for free, and makes his thoughts accessible to any who want to discuss it with him.Read it and judge for yourself if he doesn't show Dawkins, Harris and the other guy to be the empty suits they are.btw, his site is best understood reading the FAQ section, where he basically says: If you disagree respectfully, with intelligence, I will respond in kind, and if you start throwing down, I love to throw down.

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I disagree. I think you can have a literal view of Genesis and still believe in evolution.
I can't decode the rest of your post, so kindly let me know if you are joking with this comment before I make a serious reply? Thanks.
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I can't decode the rest of your post, so kindly let me know if you are joking with this comment before I make a serious reply? Thanks.
I can see believing that everything was put here by god with the mechanisms for further evolution in place. That's certainly more reasonable than, "Evolution is STUPID and people who believe in it are IDIOTS!"
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I can see believing that everything was put here by god with the mechanisms for further evolution in place. That's certainly more reasonable than, "Evolution is STUPID and people who believe in it are IDIOTS!"
But evolution is stupid....
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I can see believing that everything was put here by god with the mechanisms for further evolution in place. That's certainly more reasonable than, "Evolution is STUPID and people who believe in it are IDIOTS!"
Yeah, but its not what Genesis says.
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Well, it's a bit tricky. A doctor can be a great internist with a full grasp on the intricacies of the body's physiology and associated pathophysiologies and the appropriate treatments without giving a shit about evolution. A surgeon is an extremely well-educated mechanic who doesn't have to care about how we evolved any given bone, muscle, nerve, or vessel. But for either of the two main branches of medicine to advance, medical research has to delve into the inner workings of our bodies at a more and more microscopic scale...from the body, to organs, to cells, to genes, etc. To truly understand how the body runs at a genetic and molecular level, one pretty much has to believe in and understand the mechanics behind evolution. It is basically impossible to understand 'how life works' on that level without realizing that of course all living things evolve. That said, it is certainly feasible for someone to say, "Sure, we evolve, but maybe we were put here at a certain level of evolution by some godlike creature and things moved on from there." I'm not sure if that confirms what I was supposed to confirm.
That was pretty much the exact type of answer I was looking for. I was looking at it more from the perspective of the doctor/surgeon and wondering why they needed to understand evolution to do their job. I think what you're saying makes sense to me.
This was very funny.
True dat.
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Wait, Genesis says, "So God made some stuff, and that stuff will never evolve."?
It depends upon whether or not one takes a literal interpretation of Genesis. If one does, then there is no room for evolution. God literally created all the animals we see today from scratch, tossed them onto the earth, and then said it was good or whatever. He also (first) created all the plants on earth from scratch. Like one instant there was nothing, the next instant there was greenery covering the entire earth, created and designed by God and manipulated by Him in a zero'th of a second. If one does not take a literal interpretation, then it can mean whatever you want it to mean. Yeah, God created all the animals and all that, but it happened over billions of years and there were other animals too that are now extinct He just didn't mention those, and whatever else you want to think.
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Why can't one say, "God created everything a long time ago, and since then there has probably been some evolution (after all, there are no pictures or specific anatomical or physiological descriptions in the bible...or, for that matter, explicit statements that all things created will never change), and moving forward that evolution will continue."I feel like that's a legitimate way of holding onto religious beliefs without completely ignoring the mountains of scientific evidence that make denying evolution a sign of closed-minded brainwashed idiocy. Uh, you know, no offense BG.

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Why can't one say, "God created everything a long time ago, and since then there has probably been some evolution (after all, there are no pictures or specific anatomical or physiological descriptions in the bible...or, for that matter, explicit statements that all things created will never change), and moving forward that evolution will continue."
One can certainly say that. One can say whatever the hell one wants to say. But that's an example of a non-literal interpretation. The Bible doesn't just say "God created everything," it specifically mentions various animals that were created and the timeline it took to create them. The first thing one has to do if they're gonna marry Genesis with evolutionary theory is to admit/believe/realize that "one day" as mentioned in the Bible actually consists of hundreds of millions of years in some cases, and much longer and shorter periods in other cases. But you also have to overlook some very basic paradoxes, like the fact that He created the Earth before He created the sun and moon and all of the rest of the universe (the stars). [Line 9-10 vs. Line 16] That's pretty hard to reconcile, and that's just the very tip of the iceberg. Genesis 1, King James version:
1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13: And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17: And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18: And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19: And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21: And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22: And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23: And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24: And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25: And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.29: And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30: And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31: And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
It does certainly get one thing (fairly) correct though - the fact that man is younger, as a species, than most other animals. But that's practically the only thing in there which is historically accurate.
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"My" interpretation is absolutely a literal interpretation of Genesis. God made all of those things in that order, and it doesn't matter how long it all took in today's standards of time. Once all those things were made, they universe was free to run according to the laws of nature, including evolution. What is non-literal about that? 1. Genesis happens, including the creation of all beasts and whatnot.2. Said beasts commence evolution.No?

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Tim. In your reality, where did the universe come from? How did it start? Was it always just there? How can reality pop out of nothing? Does that even make scientific sense?

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"My" interpretation is absolutely a literal interpretation of Genesis. God made all of those things in that order, and it doesn't matter how long it all took in today's standards of time.
But that is scientifically inaccurate.
Once all those things were made, they universe was free to run according to the laws of nature, including evolution. What is non-literal about that?
That's perfectly literal, it just ignores the mountain of paradoxes found in the first chapter of Genesis as viewed from a modern scientific perspective. I already gave one of the most obvious examples - from everything we know from our study of the universe, our sun is not particularly unique. It certainly was not created before every other star in the universe, and it certainly was not created after the creation of the Earth. Genesis quite blatantly says that it was, on both counts. That alone requires a non-literal interpretation.Another blatant paradox is that fruiting plants existed before the sun. I don't see how it's possible to reconcile that with a "literal interpretation."
Tim. In your reality, where did the universe come from? How did it start? Was it always just there? How can reality pop out of nothing? Does that even make scientific sense?
I have no definite answers to any of those questions. What does that prove? That humans, despite being many many measures more intelligent than any other animals on Earth, are still generally clueless when it comes to questions about the meaning of life and why we're here? I think it's almost impossibly arrogant to assume that those questions must be answerable by humanity at any point in our (future, current, or past) history, and I think it speaks to a blatant desire to be comforted in a cold unfeeling universe when one clings to ancient religious testimony as having the definitive answer to all of those questions, in spite of a 100% lack of any supporting scientific evidence for any of it [God created the 'verse, God started it, it wasn't always just there, it didn't just pop out of nothing - God constructed it].
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Tim. In your reality, where did the universe come from? How did it start? Was it always just there? How can reality pop out of nothing? Does that even make scientific sense?
Oh Jesus. Come on brv, you know there is a commonly held scientific theory about how everything in the universe came to be, all the way back to the big bang. If you want to argue about some intelligent being having had to create the big bang, fine, but then we go to "but who created that being...if that being can be infinite or come from nothing, why can't the universe be infinite or the big bang come from nothing", after which LLY comes and tells us that, yes, something can come from nothing.
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Oh Jesus. Come on brv, you know there is a commonly held scientific theory about how everything in the universe came to be, all the way back to the big bang. If you want to argue about some intelligent being having had to create the big bang, fine, but then we go to "but who created that being...if that being can be infinite or come from nothing, why can't the universe be infinite or the big bang come from nothing", after which LLY comes and tells us that, yes, something can come from nothing.
"How can reality pop out of nothing? Does that even make scientific sense?"I think that was his most pointed question, but as you suggested it's no less mysterious if we say "Uh, God did it" than if we say, "Uh, I dunno." It doesn't actually answer the question in any measurable way, and the question of WHY? is just as mysterious as ever.
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there was never "nothing". There was God. The closest science can come to finding God since he is beyond the understanding of science is the math behind the vacuum, otherwise called space-time. You can glimpse the LORD in the fundamental uncertainty that would be present even in an otherwise empty universe (the Heisenberg uncertainty principle). On the most minute physical scales (the Planck scale) space-time isn't flat. Empty space vibrates and contorts.the quantum vacuum on the smallest level manifests this fundamental uncertainty by spontaneously creating pairs of particles and antiparticles for less than a blink of time. In all places and at all times. This is the physical manifestation of God's will. It always was, and always will be. Emptiness as a philosophical concept is meaningless, as there is always the eternal presence of God who is not subject to space-time. "Nothingness" would be perfectly symmetrical. Therefore, anything has more entropy than nothing, and when entropy can increase, it does. Consequently, "nothing" is less stable than anything.If you ask why the 2nd law of thermodynamics exists? There is exactly one answer: God.

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On the most minute physical scales, (the Planck scale) space-time isn't flat. Empty space vibrates and contorts.the quantum vacuum on the smallest level manifests this fundamental uncertainty by spontaneously creating pairs of particles and antiparticles for less than a blink of time. In all places and at all times.
We all know you're a satirical account, but I'd still like to get some LLY confirmation on this. I even recommend he overlooks the statement "a blink of time." Regarding your first point I quoted: huh? What is the significance of space-time being non-flat "on the most minute physical scales?" Isn't space-time always non-flat?EDIT: Thanks for the annoying wikipedia links, for those of us without google.
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We all know you're a satirical account,
Whatever you say, sport.
Regarding the first point you make, huh? What is the significance of space-time being non-flat "on the most minute physical scales?" Isn't space-time always non-flat?
the discussion was concerning "something from nothing". The closest we can get to "nothing" would be space-time as an absolute vacuum, with no "things" present to curve or warp space-time. I am pointing out that even in empty space, space is not flat and particles and antiparticles pop into existence. To be clear: it is flat (if empty of things) on a larger scale. Like if you look at a road from the top of a building or from a distant field. But if you go up and look closely at this road there are bumps and loose gravel ect. This fundamental uncertainty - this always something - is a direct manifestation of God's will.Prove me wrong.
I'd still like to get some LLY confirmation on this.
lol you think LongLiveDork is going to come to your rescue on this one. good luck, you'll need it. I know what I'm talking about.
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Whatever you say, sport.the discussion was concerning "something from nothing". The closest we can get to "nothing" would be space-time as an absolute vacuum, with no "things" present to curve or warp space-time. I am pointing out that even in empty space, space is not flat and particles and antiparticles pop into existence. To be clear: it is flat (if empty of things) on a larger scale. Like if you look at a road from the top of a building or from a distance field. But if you go up and look closely at this road there are bumps and loose gravel ect. This fundamental uncertainty - this always something - is a direct manifestation of God's will.Prove me wrong.
You know as well as I do that it's definitively impossible to prove a negative. Why don't you start with trying to prove yourself right? When somebody's best evidence for God is, "prove me wrong," they've already conceded the argument by suggesting that the only way their opponent can win is by doing something altogether impossible. So thanks, I guess.
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It does certainly get one thing (fairly) correct though - the fact that man is younger, as a species, than most other animals. But that's practically the only thing in there which is historically accurate.
Genesis did cover all the bases on that one, by hedging that position in the next chapter.
Man in the Garden of Eden4 ¶ These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,5 and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life; also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.10 ¶ And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Hav'ilah, where there is gold;12 and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.14 And the name of the third river is Hid'dekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphra'tes.15 ¶ And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.18 ¶ And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
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"How can reality pop out of nothing? Does that even make scientific sense?"I think that was his most pointed question, but as you suggested it's no less mysterious if we say "Uh, God did it" than if we say, "Uh, I dunno." It doesn't actually answer the question in any measurable way, and the question of WHY? is just as mysterious as ever.
This post made me smile. Spot on.
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