Amazing people of amazing faith, who believe so very much!

This is a relatively simple feat achieved by intelligent humans and even with all the intelligence they're going no place with it so far as helping out evolution. Like we contend, it takes intelligence to do even the simplest of complex things. Imo, it does little to diminish the amount of faith involved in in what you believe.

But all kinds of different traits, dna and other criteria had to come from some where to not only evolve billions of other organisms but to program/evolve into each the exact form of reproduction, nature, kind and so forth to make each the perfect fully capable thing which we observe it to be. Stupid no thought inanimate chancy NS just isn't capable of all this supernatural unimaginable power to do these billions of miraculous highly unlikely wonderful feats, all the while intelligent scientists must use all this equipment, expend all these years of study and still only come up with this simple little thing they're ever so proud of. They might better go to Buddist no thought, empty their minds of everything possible and let NS do it for them if NS is so super smart. Ye men and women of such great faith amaze me, I tell you!!------------------
The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buz

Oh really? Like crawling frogs unable to see or hear yet and hairless hided bears with no claws formed yet or tail-less blind monkeys with half formed stomachs, spineless fish which bobed about and brains so primitive they couldn't find food, let alone find mama's half yoke eggs and know what to do if they did, etc, etc.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 12-30-2003]

I don't have much gung-ho for following these heavily theological topics, so I don't do much in moderating. But Buz, I suspect we're at a point where you may need to (re)define your intents for what you want this topic to cover.{A side comment from the non-admin mode now - Buz, I must think that you know better than to try to promote such images of what transitionals should be like. Or are you telling a joke, and I'm not catching it as such?}Adminnemooseus (with a side of minnemooseus)

Aw c'mon, Rrhain, you make it so easy for me. Is that the best you can do for refutation -- present the fully evolved wonderful being and try to tell me Mr. N.S. Evolve is at work at the dinner table where we eat ourselves into sickness and death?

My apologies, Moose, but I posted again before seeing your post. Are you saying we should expect fully formed species and organisms in the transitionals, with fully formed brains and other functional operatives? For NS to evolve things over millions of years, musn't there be long periods of all stages of formations of each part of the anatomy of an organism or being, all the way from slime or clod to what is observed? No, I'm not being silly, just wondering how things can function on the way up that loooong ladder without what's needed to survive?? What do you think?[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 12-30-2003]

Hi again, Moose. If you think the freeforall would be a more appropriate place for this topic, that's fine with me, but hope you don't shut me down. Methinks it's a challenge that secularists need here in town to be put on the defensive for a change. Imo, you all give it out and should be able to take the heat when we turn it up, to be fair in these debates.

And where did I claim that this accomplishment would "help out" evolution, Buz?Didn't you write the following in post 20: See the text I italicized? That's the part of your post I addressed. Nothing else. You claimed that it would be tremendously difficult for scientists to assemble even the simplest of *living things from scratch. It would be a "big deal," you said.Apparently it's not that big a deal, after all.--MacavityP.S. *Please note that there is not, to my knowledge, strong consensus as to whether a virus is technically a "living" thing. Viruses possess a number of characteristics peculiar to living things--enough characteristics, IMO, to qualify as a partial rebuttal to your assertion.

I'll make a few brief comments (even thought my guess is, that this is off-topic).Using the brain example, the transitional series would be something along the lines of:1)A primitive nervous system, with no brain.
2)A primitive nervous system, with tiny knot of nerve cells at one end.
3)The "knot" of nerve cells slowly becomes larger and more complex, 1 generation after another.
4)Somewhere along the lines, you arbitrarily start calling this "knot" a brain.
5)The brain becomes slightly larger and more complex, 1 generation after another.This progression happens in tiny steps. The difference between generations can be nonexistent, or may be extremely subtle. But, with many generations, you go from "no brain" to "large, complex brain".It's not a "no brain", "half brain", "whole brain" thing.Again, I'm allegedly a geologist. The closest thing to a biology class, that I've ever had, is invertibrate paleontology.Again, I doubt that this sort of discussion is what you intended for this topic. Maybe I'm wrong.Moose (the non-admin mode)

Hi Buzz,This thread has picked up another 20 posts, and I see your post already has three responses, but I'm going to risk repetition by replying now before reading on.In this post you've packaged up all your old invalid arguments into a single reply, a sort of "Buzz Retrospective." Your entire argument is one of simple personal incredulity. This was your position when you first joined, and you've been here a while now. You can't oppose evidence with arguments of the form, "I just can't believe..." I'm surprised you still haven't grasped this after all your time here. Didn't your refusal to abandon this approach get you in trouble a while back?Moving on: Again, you've been here a while now. It's been explained to you many times that all theories are unproven, that they are tentative. Theories in biology are no different in this regard from theories in any other branch of science. When are you going to stop stringing together arguments built entirely from non sequiturs? Ignoring the "proven evidence" oxymoron, you know from all your discussions in other forums that there is plenty of scientific evidence. You can't pretend it doesn't exist. If you think you've identified a significant hole in the chain of evidence you should raise the issue in the appropriate forum.And independent of all the hogwash, the important fact is that evolution has evidence, Creationism doesn't. The definition of science is building theories around frameworks of evidence, and evolution has done that and is therefore scientific. Creationism is built upon religious myth and faith.--Percy

Hi Buzz, I've now read the entire thread up to this point. Since you raised the issue of Free For All yourself, I assume you're aware you've returned to your old debate style that consisted primarily of rhetorical arguments, purposeful misinterpretations, and selective addressal of rebuttals.My wish is that you modify your current course, but if you truly believe that you're doing nothing wrong then please continue as you are, by all means. But if you make that choice then since this is the Faith and Belief forum I'm going to suggest that evolutionists avoid discussion of specific evolutionary evidence and instead focus on the style of argument you're using and why it is/isn't valid.------------------

--	Percy
	EvC Forum Administrator

Percy, with all due respect, the "invalid arguments" and "Buzz Retrospective" is disingenuous, coming from one who seems to want a forum of debate between evolutionists and creationists. Why? Because the "invalid arguments" and "Buzz Retrospective" argument happens to be the literal Biblical retrospective. Your implication is that in order for literalists to participate, we do so at the risk of breaking forum rules and debating out of order. If our perspective is correct as we truly believe it is, we must give reasons why we believe your perspective is unproven and therefore involves faith. This is a feat that is not easily accomplished in a page or two, given the responses which need be addressed. Nor is it going to be acomplished if we are required to accept and believe what evolution scientists consider to be adequate evidence by assuming what relatively little they've observed in this dot of time for past millions and billions of years of likely trillions of processes is proof that we are wrong and they are right. Requiring me/us to debate on the basis that we accept their so called evidence is as unfair as it would be in the faith and belief debates for you/them to debate on the evidence I've given of fulfilled Biblical prophecy. In our opinion your evidence is bogus and we state our reasons. In your opinion my evidence is bogus and you state your reasons. Again, I take issue with that statement, because the opinion I've expressed in this thread would be the opinion of most Biblical literalists, were they here to state it. Morris, Gish, Ham and scores of other literalists would have to agree that faith in unsubstantial evidence is what drives the evolutionist, would they not? It seems that when I begin scoring with some hard pressed to answer arguments, you all get uptight and personal, just like the unrepeatable volleys Eta hurled when I posted positive proof that he not only contradicted himself on at least one occasion, but I also proved by direct quote from credible evolutionists that they had a different opinion than he in dating the sun. Yah, I was [bad boy buzz] in that thread also. Creationists seem to get along here so long as they don't go on the offensive too aggressively in debate. That's how it seems to be, though your side often gets very agressive, insultive and rude with little to no admonishment. Well, Percy, friend, again, with all due respect, i guess I've seen that approach used on myself so much that I got to reciprocating with it on occasion. On the other hand, It's my sincere feeling about what you people can accept as possible. To me/us it's as impossible for what is observed to be accomplished without intelligent help by NS as it is for you to believe in a supernatural engineer of it all. We believe we require the lesser faith, because we don't observe cities being built, poetry to pop forth or airplanes flying without much thought, work and engineering. Well, again, Percy, my counterparts do this to me all the time. I present my evidence of fulfilled prophecy according to history and they/you find ways of spinning it (imo) so as to afford no need to accept it. They do this without impunity, but when I look at their evidence and try to demonstrate how frogs with brains and legs not fully formed/evolved to their present state would be hard pressed to survive without the ability to function as they do it's a no,no. That's incredulous and unacceptable debate form, to be rejected as proper debate. Well, it's really nigh unto impossible to do a topic like this without some discussion on alleged evidence or lack of evidence. I've tried to show that the evo faith comes about by the huge lack of evidence which must be assumed via interpretation of the relative, I say "relative" little which has been observed. Call that "hogwash" if you please, but to us it's paramount if we are to have any credible argument at all.I know, you're often hard pressed to keep this town organized, Percy and I commend you in the overall job you and the others are doing. I hope you'll consider the above and whatever you choose to do, I'll not wear a chip on my shoulder over. Take care.

Arguments from personal incredulity are invalid no matter which side uses them. If I were to argue that Christianity is wrong because I just can't believe all the miracles in the gospels I would be making an argument from personal incredulity. If I instead explained that the miracles violate scientific principles and offered evidence regarding the reliability of the testimony of witnesses in primitive Biblical times, and of gospel contradictions, now I'm arguing from a position of evidence, and that evidence can be examined and discussed.But there's no discussing an argument from incredulity. When you say, "I just can't believe...", I'm sure you're absolutely right. Once you've said this it's time to move on to the reasons why you feel this way, but you seem to be stuck at "I just can't believe..." Your reasons didn't involve evidence, only personal incredulity. You mention a lot of other issues in this paragraph, but they're irrelevant to the arguments from personal incredulity that I objected to. I admit we're hard pressed when you argue like this, but I hope you don't think causing frustration indicates you're on the right track.You go on to say that you're only doing what other people are doing, but It shouldn't be necessary to say that two wrongs don't make a right. If you have a complaint about others following the guidelines, send email to Admin.You are free to pursue your current course if that is your wish, but I hope you'll consider moving beyond unsupported skepticism.--Percy

Ok Percy. Thanks. I'll do the best I can to debate objectively. I hope my counterparts will too in arguments that the evidence for evolution is enough to totally eliminate the faith factor, given all the unknown and the unproven.

Hi again Moose. I don't want to break the off topic rules, but I think it is necessary to address briefly the points you make so as to strengthen my contention for faith in your position.My question for you now is how does the frog, the elephant or the ant, etc survive all the steps of it's evolution with all these degrees of undevoped brains, digestive systems, sex and reproductive mechanism, limbs, hide/skin and all in an environment and habitat which requires certain necessary capabilities for survival?Rush Limbaugh has this saying that he operates his show with "half my brain tied behind me." That's funny and easy to say, but quite impossible. Isn't that what you folks are really expecting without proof that all organisms must have done. Even if everything branched out from a single ancestor, there comes a time when the frog barely begins to resemble a frog, but would have half or less the brain and other organ functions the modern frog has, nevertheless with the same environment requireing all that the frog needs to survive, multiply and function in.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 12-30-2003]