"I’m not ashamed to say that apes are in
the branches of my family tree."
LOL, so you are the missing link and proud of it. Do you sit in a chair and type with the keyboard on the floor?
Repost #195:In a nutshell, Creation is more in line with the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics than evolution. Something does not come from nothing and the organized tends toward disorganization.
The expanding universe shows it had a beginning and requires an outside source. "Chance" is unlikely, our planets and the life on it requires very specific conditions. There was a plan. There is adaptaion but not evolution. Genetic code does not allow reproduction outside of a species. Homology can show similarities but not relation.
And angels personally assemble each snowflake, I'm sure.
Actually, being a scientific theory, Darwin's theory never said anything one way or another about God. God is outside the realm of science. It is fundamentalist religious people and atheists who interpret evolution as being inconsistent with God. Atheists already do not believe in God, so evolution really hasn't done anything but confirm that belief. I fail to see why fundamentalists are so threatened by a theory which makes no mention of God. If you built a robot which was designed to build a machine that produced an inovative new product, did you not invent something? Who deserves the patent? The robot? The machine? I don't think you could argue anything other than that you invented the new product. Similarly, if God created the universe using the big bang as a tool and then allowed it to proceed according to the laws of nature He established, then who created the universe? The big bang? No, God did. Similarly, if the universe proceeded in such a way as to make inevitable the development of life and then life evolved according to the theory of evolution, who created humans? Evolution? No, again God is the creator. It is even possible to reconcile the six day timeline in Genesis with the big bang theory and evolution given a proper understanding of the nature of time. Time is a relative quantity. The duration measured by an observer depends on the reference frame of that observer. It is entirely possible that a duration of six 24-hour days measured from the reference frame of the universe immediately after the big bang is equivalent to a duration of tens of billions of years as measured from our current reference frame. So which is the correct time? Both! That's what relatvity tells us. The first thing God created in the Genesis account is light. The only thing present in the milliseconds after the big bang was light. There are other parallels, but I am not enough of an expert on the science or the Scripture to fully deal with them. The point is that there is no threat to a belief in God coming from science.
The "organized tends toward disorganization" seems to
suggest the myriad possible changes of natural selection.
Also, species boundaries are changed through evolution.
Reproduction outside of a species doesn't occur because
the species is redefined by the successful changes it
adapts and absorbs.
Okay, I'll bite -- since "Creation" is the most extreme example possible of "something coming from nothing", and "organization" coming from "disorganization", how the HECK do you conclude that "Creation is more in line with the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics than evolution"?
Evolution only posits that reproducing things will tend to accumulate beneficial variations -- which is not "something from nothing", and while it can be loosely described as "organization from disorganization", that actually violates no laws, not even the laws of thermodynamics (as another poster correctly implied, if increasing organization did violate physical laws, even snowflake formation would be impossible).
The expanding universe shows it had a beginning and requires an outside source.
An unwarranted simplification, but I'll let it slide. Even so, this in no way indicates that the "outside source" is some sentient creature -- it could just as well be some source working by other sets of natural laws of some sort.
"Chance" is unlikely, our planets and the life on it requires very specific conditions.
Or perhaps these are the only laws of physics possible. You have no grounds for comparison.
There was a plan.
Or not.
There is adaptaion but not evolution.
Adaptation *IS* evolution... So you're contradicting yourself.
Genetic code does not allow reproduction outside of a species.
Sure it does. How else do you explain the pattern of shared endogenous retroviruses?
Homology can show similarities but not relation.
No, it can show relation as well. Even if you're not aware of the many ways that analogs can be verified as truly homologous, and even if you refuse to accept the conclusions of the experts in this area, there's still the fact that DNA analsysis can and has been used to verify the true relation of phenotypic homologs.
Finally, even ignoring homologs entirely, DNA analysis very clearly shows "relation" (i.e., common descent).
Oops, one more example: There are also DNA homologs.
Evolution does not violate either the first or second LoT because the Earth is not a closed system. By your lights, the formation of snowflakes would violate the laws of thermodynamics.
Something does not come from nothing...
I've bet you've heard of zero-point energy.
... and the organized tends toward disorganization.
In the overall system. However, greater local organization is possible as long as the disorganization in the overall system increases.