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Author Topic:   Are we all descendants of Adam and Eve?
Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 68 of 376 (709313)
10-24-2013 3:21 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by jaywill
10-24-2013 11:13 AM


Re: Not sure what's going on ...
Which proves that they are at least not more intelligent.
Evolution is not measured by how intelligent a species is. Intelligence happens to be an adaption that has evolved quite well in our lineage, but it is no different than the aquatic adaptations in cetaceans or the speed that the cheetah evolved.
If you took an unbiased look at evolution you would realize this.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by jaywill, posted 10-24-2013 11:13 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 69 of 376 (709314)
10-24-2013 3:22 PM
Reply to: Message 62 by jaywill
10-24-2013 11:18 AM


Re: Once again, an exercise for you in thinking.
Wrong and terribly elitist.
The only elitism I am seeing is a person who insists that the goal of evolution was themselves, and all other species have fallen short.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by jaywill, posted 10-24-2013 11:18 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by jaywill, posted 10-25-2013 9:39 AM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 77 of 376 (709391)
10-25-2013 2:49 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by jaywill
10-25-2013 9:39 AM


Re: Once again, an exercise for you in thinking.
Whether this process has a final goal or not may be argued. But you have to admit, I think, that evolutionists point to Man as to how far it has yet come.
We shed this Victorian era bias a long time ago. We point to all species as being equally evolved since we are all equidistant from our common ancestor.
I never hear it argued that the evolving of man was for the purpose to improve a better surviving sperm cell. But it is the better surviving sperm cell which facilitates the superior human born from it.
The speed at which a sperm moves has no bearing on the fitness of the offspring produced from that sperm.
Of course some imagine that given continued evolving something better than a human being will come next. But evolutionists suggest the humanity is yet the best that has been produced by the process.
We certainly put more merit in the existence of our species, but we also realize that this is a subjective bias that has no bearing on the process of evolution itself. It is no different than caring more for your close relatives than a distant stranger across the globe.
Metaphysically it seems that such a process would have as a final goal a living thing which can never die.
That's like saying that the final goal of geology is a mountain that can't be eroded. Evolution is just a process. It has no goal or purpose. As long as mortal species are able to reproduce and adapt they will continue to be mortal.
Somehow I see the process in competition to Christ who plainly tells us up front that whoever believes in the only begotten Son of God will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16) .
It is humans that say that.
Maybe Evolution is just man's way of imagining a natural process which can yield the same result one day as the will of God in sending His Son. (Subconsciously, I mean).
Maybe? Have any evidence?
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 110 of 376 (709573)
10-28-2013 12:29 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by jaywill
10-28-2013 12:13 PM


Re: First man?
There is no science theory that compels me to have to acknowledge that the revelatory communication that Adam lived and is our ancestor is not true.
What scientific evidence compels you to think that it is true? What evidence, if found, would falsify your claims?
If you hold to common descent you have a adam of sorts.
You haven't thought this one through too well. Go back 3 generations in your own family. How many ancestors do you have? I have 8 great-grandparents 3 generations back. The farther I go back the MORE ancestors I have, not fewer. What I have is a past population that have all contributed to my genome, not a single person.
So I believe in a common descent from a man Adam as the revelation of the Bible informs the world.
Based on what evidence?
I do have some doubts about people given to scientism as opposed to science. Scientism holds that truth cannot be known except through the scientific method. And that borders on a secular religion.
And yet you claim that you "don't have enough faith" to accept abiogenesis. What did you mean by that? Are you saying that you need scientific evidence in order to accept something as true?
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 112 of 376 (709576)
10-28-2013 12:31 PM
Reply to: Message 103 by jaywill
10-28-2013 8:01 AM


Re: First man?
I will have to consider your chart with some more time.
We can use numerous examples as analogies. For example, can you name the microsecond during your lifetime that you went from being a baby to being a toddler? Can you tell us, down to the hour, when people began speaking modern English? Can you tell us the microsecond each day when afternoon turns into evening?
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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 Message 103 by jaywill, posted 10-28-2013 8:01 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 115 of 376 (709601)
10-28-2013 4:30 PM
Reply to: Message 114 by jaywill
10-28-2013 4:27 PM


Re: First man?
But here are some other reasons why I regard Adam as history.
1.) Luke traces a geneology from Jesus back to Adam. And the human race commences with the man Adam. The geneology (Luke 3:23-38) concludes with these words -
What evidence do you have that these geneologies are accurate? What evidence do you have for the accuracy of any statement about Adam in the Bible, Old or New Testament? I am not asking you for what you believe. I am asking for evidence.

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 Message 114 by jaywill, posted 10-28-2013 4:27 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 117 by jaywill, posted 10-28-2013 5:07 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(2)
Message 118 of 376 (709608)
10-28-2013 5:10 PM
Reply to: Message 117 by jaywill
10-28-2013 5:07 PM


Re: First man?
One of my evidences would include the journalistic attitude of the writer Luke.
Attitudes are not evidence.
A sample of Luke's investigative historical research can be found in chapter three -
What evidence do you have that his research was right?
So you do not have to come back and say in essence "But you have not yet forced me to believe the Gospel of Luke." Or "But you have not yet forced me to believe that Adam was the first man."
I am asking for evidence, not a reiteration of your beliefs.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 117 by jaywill, posted 10-28-2013 5:07 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 120 by jaywill, posted 10-28-2013 5:24 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 126 of 376 (709664)
10-29-2013 10:39 AM
Reply to: Message 120 by jaywill
10-28-2013 5:24 PM


Re: First man?
Why not cut to the chase and present your proof that Adam the first man never existed?
It is up to you to support your claims, not I. There is this thing called a burden of proof. It is up to the person making the positive claim to produce positive evidence to support that claim. What you are using is a logical fallacy:
Your logical fallacy is burden of proof
Or to put it another way:
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."--Christopher Hitchens

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 127 of 376 (709665)
10-29-2013 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by jaywill
10-29-2013 10:17 AM


Re: You want what?
That's right. I have been through a number of iterations with you. All these exchanges contained a general skeptical flavor that I really should believe something else from what I am taught to believe in the Bible concerning the first man Adam.
We are asking you to follow the evidence. Belief has nothing to do with it.
The general flavor of your participation seems to me to be that because of science research not available to any of the writers of the Scriptures a concept of a first man should be discarded.
Why should we accept it to begin with? If there is no evidence for a first man, then why accept it as true?
You say you are not interested in my belief. You seem to be interested in my changing my belief to believe something else though. Rather than continue reading your general "Hath God Said ... ?" to doubt statements in the Bible, show me your unquestionable scientific proof a first man Adam never lived.
Burden of proof fallacy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 10:17 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 130 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 11:38 AM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 139 of 376 (709724)
10-29-2013 1:34 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by jaywill
10-29-2013 11:38 AM


Re: You want what?
If belief has nothing to do with it then why are you trying to persuade me to come over and believe like you, that no Adam ever lived?
I am trying to persuade you to look at the evidence.
In some many eloquent words you admitted probably, you cannot prove no Adam ever lived.
Burden of proof fallacy.
Your logical fallacy is burden of proof
I have just gone back through every post I wrote on this discussion to see where I used the words either "prove" or "proof".
I look back and I see you making claims that certain things are true. I am asking for evidence to back those claims. If you have none then just say so.
But if you continue to insist that I also should not believe it, I ask you for your sure knowledge that if has to be not believed.
I am simply asking why anyone should believe in something that has no evidence to back it up.
Neither one of us has absolutely undeniable proof for our beliefs.
I have smoking-gun evidence that modern humans share a common ancestor with chimps. This evidence is found both in our genomes and in the fossil record. The difference here is that I can back up my claims with evidence. You can not.
I don't agree there is no evidence.
Then what is the evidence?
Do not now nor ever have in this discussion claimed I can prove "the first man Adam".
When you demand that others disprove your claims without offering evidence of your own, that is the burden of proof fallacy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 11:38 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 140 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 2:04 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 142 of 376 (709737)
10-29-2013 3:25 PM
Reply to: Message 140 by jaywill
10-29-2013 2:04 PM


Re: You want what?
I gave you my main reasons why I went from skepticism concerning the history of the Old Testament to believing it.
You do not want to accept my main reasons. What can I do about that ?
Do you admit that your beliefs are based on faith and not evidence?
Do you also admit that when you ask others to disprove your claims without offering evidence yourself, that you are committing the burden of proof fallacy?
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."--Bertrand Russell
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 140 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 2:04 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 143 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 4:07 PM Taq has replied
 Message 151 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 5:10 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 150 of 376 (709751)
10-29-2013 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by jaywill
10-29-2013 4:07 PM


Re: You want what?
I don't think you understand what faith really is. I think you think faith is gritting your teeth, clinching your fists, squint your eyes and like the lion in The Wizard of Oz, saying " I DO believe!! I DO believe!! I DO, I DO, I DO believe !!"
I think you maybe view my faith in God's word as sheer strenuos will power.
When you come up with something so unquestionably making it too unlikely that there could be a first human being, I'll let you know.
You have some theories. You tendered some. And I responded that its not enough for me to move to a position that Jesus was deluded or lied.
I guess I will have to ask again.
Do you admit that your beliefs are based on faith and not evidence?
No. I didn't watch your link. But it seems that some people always want the theist to do all the heavy lifting on burden of proof as if you made no claims.
It's not a video, so it doesn't require watching. It is just a few short sentences.
"The burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. The inability, or disinclination, to disprove a claim does not render that claim valid, nor give it any credence whatsoever. "
You are making a claim. You are claiming that there was a first man. Therefore, it is up to you to support this claim. You have the burden of proof, not I.
I think man is unique. Man alone has a sense toward reaching out to God. If someone could show me that any animal has this sense of the divine as to search or reach out to God, I might consider human beings not unique on earth in that regard.
First, you need to show that there is a God.
I don't think any animal has a human spirit that longs for God.
Second, you need to show that humans have spirits.
A first man with a spiritual capacity makes a lot of sense to me.
An argument from common sense is also a logical fallacy:
A List Of Fallacious Arguments
And as I said many times, if it is good enough for Jesus Christ, I will believe it.
Even then, you only have claims that this is what Jesus of Nazareth believed, and there is no evidence that Jesus actually ever said that, or that there really was a Jesus.
I think what you want is evidence which excludes anything written in the bible.
What I want is the evidence that backs your claims. Have any?
If I was a biologist, and if I could afford to pursue scientific areas of interest I would look into something more sudden to explain where new species came from. That's what I would research - maybe something more like what Gould called Puntuated Equilibrium.
During your education you would learn that Punctuated Equilibria still uses the evolution of one species to another through evolutionary mechanisms over hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
Nice. They asked Betrand Russell how life looked to him after his son had died.
I heard he said "Pretty dark."
Maybe he would have not found life to eventually be so dark had he dropped his Atheism for trusting in the Son of God as I have learned to do.
Bertrand Russell, like many atheists including myself, preferred the truth to comforting lies.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 4:07 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 168 by jaywill, posted 10-30-2013 2:35 PM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 152 of 376 (709756)
10-29-2013 5:26 PM
Reply to: Message 151 by jaywill
10-29-2013 5:10 PM


Re: You want what?
Thanks to your post I have been enjoying reading up on Bertrand Russell, an interesting man. Really.
Like Einstien he was very intellectually gifted, even brilliant.
I wonder why neither men could remain faithful to their wives.
What does that have to do with anything?
A logical fallacy is a logical fallacy, whether it is pointed out by a murderer or a saint. What you are now committing is called the ad hominem fallacy:
"An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument."
Ad hominem - Wikipedia
When I compare some of these smart people with Jesus Christ His faithfulness in a factor which influences me that He is righteous, straight, trustworthy, to be relied upon as well as heady.
First, you need to show that the stories about Jesus were even real, and that he was the son of a deity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 151 by jaywill, posted 10-29-2013 5:10 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 156 by jaywill, posted 10-30-2013 8:36 AM Taq has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(2)
Message 157 of 376 (709796)
10-30-2013 10:43 AM
Reply to: Message 156 by jaywill
10-30-2013 8:36 AM


Re: You want what?
You set forth an interesting person - Bertrand Russell, as someone whose view on reality was to be taken seriously.
I am asking you to address his argument.
I gave reasons why Jesus Christ I am more impressed with and take more seriously.
None of those reasons involve evidence. It involves faith.
But these two brilliant men Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, while quite intelligent, manifest also a sad degree of instability. Neither could even remain faithful to the wives of their youth.
That is an ad hominem. Do you really think that just because Albert cheated on his wife that E=mc^2 is no longer true? Do you think you can falsify the theory of relativity by pointing to Albert's indiscretions?
You know how you irk that I would learn something about science ?
Where did you learn that you can falsify a scientific theory or argument by pointing to a person's marital indiscretions? I must have missed that part of the scientific method.
I am not saying either Einstein or Russell had no good contributions to human life or our understanding of things. I don't think they are in the same class with Jesus Christ.
I will agree that they are not in the same class. We can actually show that Einstein and Russell existed. We can't do the same for Jesus.
So you think some Galilean fishermen conspired to concoct a character and put words into his mouth ?
I don't have enough faith to believe a conspiracy theory like that.
You don't have any evidence that the gospels are true. The only reason you accept them as true is because of faith.

This message is a reply to:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 158 of 376 (709797)
10-30-2013 10:46 AM
Reply to: Message 155 by jaywill
10-30-2013 8:17 AM


Re: You want what?
Did you regard that as an ad hom ? It is not. It is a statement that to some degree they fall short of the moral perfection of Jesus.
Falling short of a character in a book is not a reason to reject someone's argument. To stress this again, pointing to someone's marital indiscretions does not falsify their argument. You must still address their argument.
I regard His perfection as evidence of His truthfulness in teaching and reliability.
You aren't pointing to the teachings of Jesus. You are pointing to the teachings of men such as Paul and the gospel authors.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 155 by jaywill, posted 10-30-2013 8:17 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 159 by jar, posted 10-30-2013 10:48 AM Taq has not replied
 Message 164 by jaywill, posted 10-30-2013 12:37 PM Taq has replied

  
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