Essays for Lent Ping.
In that case, for God to be able to do all the wondrous things God does, God must be complex and intelligent. Who designed God? How can God's complexity arise from nothing?
If God is eternal, how does God choose a moment to begin Creation? The Infinite Regress becomes a problem, if it truly is a problem.
If God is outside Time, then how could God produce a change in the circumstances, given that change requires Time to pre-exist and elapse, in order to allow the change in the circumstances? If Time were a "created" thing, then the situation changes from one without Time to one with Time operating it. How can a demarcation exist to separate the two situations, if Time were yet to be "created"? In other words, without Time, the situation without Time and the situation with Time running in it would be super-imposed, in other words, the two situations would be simultaneous, which is a self-contradiction. You cannot do something and not do the same thing, simultaneously. Likewise.
Points to ponder, no doubt.
Creation idiots. Radios are sensing radio waves. The theory for electromagnetism is understood and intact, and it allows engineers to arrange and size components to SENSE the f'n radio waves. Why this crap again. If the creationists think sensing God is equivalent, what is the theory that permits Muslims? How do you calculate it?
Benedict XVI also says humans must listen to ‘the voice of the Earth’
-snip-
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19956961/ns/world_news-europe/t/pope-creation-vs-evolution-clash-absurdity/
The argument about transitional forms is not an argument against evolution per se, it is an argument against gradualism. If evolution proceeded (as Gould and Lewonton argued) by long periods of stasis and short bursts of rapid change--punctuated equilibria--then it stands to reason we'd see very little in the way of transitional fossils.
Microvilli, which line the intestines, are microscopic bristles that somewhat resemble the bristles of a hairbrush. The spaces between the bristles are wide enough to allow nutrients to pass through to be absorbed and digested. However, the spaces are narrow enough to block the passage of bacteria, bacteria that would kill you if they were allowed to pass. This in itself refutes the theory of evolution, which contends that when a need presents itself, the body adapts by gradually changing (evolving) over millions of years. In this case millions of years would be too long. As soon as the deadly bacteria appeared, the body would have minutes to hours to design and evolve a system to block them. Failure to do so would result in immediate extinction. Our continued existence rules out the evolutionary premise.
Not at all. Any sexually reproducing species has a measure of genetic variability in the population to begin with. That's the point of sexual reproduction. So, in this model, when this bacteria struck, it would wipe out a large proportion of the population except those individuals who had the correct distance between microvilli.
Some propose the idea of theistic evolution. The idea that God created everything in a primitive state and then evolution took over.
Look, here's what we know. We know that the geologic strata contain what looks to be a succession of living things deposited at different times. Living things, I might add, which are different from the ones alive today. Now if our author here rejects evolution, then he must be willing to posit a *miraculous* special creation for every single one of those organisms. That's of course possible. But responsible theologians remind us that if we start positing miracles as an explanation for anomalous data we have just destroyed the scientific method. Miracles can occur, but they are not the ordinary means of God's operation. The ordinary means of God's operation is nature.
People need to stop thinking about it in terms of "creation OR evolution", and need to consider whether this is a case of "creation BY evolution". We know God created. That is a fact. What no one has really been able to explain is exactly how. In my opinion, evolutionary theory offers us, for the first time, a glimpse into *how* God actually put together different organisms from the slime of the earth.
For my part, I don’t need to know whether the universe just happened or was created. I know that there is an objective reality independent of me. I base my morals and ethics on reason based on that reality. Yes I believe in a creator, but it would not change anything morally or ethnically either way. There are natural laws governing man according to his nature and they are not difficult to reason out.
I don’t need to know if there is life after death either. I just want to live every minute of my life as a gift and I know that some day I will find out as we all will what happens next.
Transitional forms are not important to evolution - transitional forms are evolution. No transitional forms means no evolution!
There are transitional forms. Two examples are the horse and the elephant. The predecessor of the horse, Eohippus was a toed animal but the transition to hoofed had begun. A couple of others (names forgotten, no time to look 'em up) retained the remnants of toes until the earliest modern horse which lacked them.
There are animals which were clearly pre-elephants and elephants in the fossil record that no longer exist, but there are no modern elephant fossils found at the same age levels. That seems to indicate a transition.
God created all, but it is presumptuous of us to put Him on a 6000 year timetable. If we accept His Son's sacrifice we will see Him someday, and I'm sure He will answer our questions.
You must choose between evolution and divine creation and be left with inextricable conclusion that if evolution happened, there is no God.