If you think that there has been no speciation since the Cambrian Explosion, you are seriously uninformed. For example, neither mammals nor birds came into existence during the Cambrian period.

M Duke Said:
>If the evolutionary theory were true, we should be able to easily create new cells, build proteins, and create new species. If RNA could form naturally in the early earth, as well as protein and other complex molecules, we should have been able to make life by now. I have seen some processes explained of how chromosomes can be edited in a generation using certain chemicals. How many new species have we made? We currently haven’t even successfully synthesized protein. If, as has been described, protein could be made with RNA and clay, then we should be far past that step.

Why? I mean, you saying so doesn’t make it true. What’s your rationale for those declarations?

M Duke Said:
>The Bible has remained remarkably uncontradictory between translations. Some parts, I have speculated, could be false, or pretty much just poorly translated. But, we have literally thousands of latin and greek Bibles to check if it remains accurate. And it has.

It is not unsurprising that translations are fairly consistent. We have an essentially unbroken record from those Latin and Greek versions, and we can check them. So could the folks doing the translating along the way. So the fact that the translations are consistent is fairly meaningless and certainly not remarkable. However, what is meaningful is comparing the modern Torah with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is a version of the Torah that was lost for a long time. Discovery of an earlier version that had been lost shows variations consistent with a document changing through the ages (through retellings, recopying) but that are distinct enough to question the consistency of the story.

Note also that we have a historical record that shows when major decisions were made with regard to versions of the Bible, such as why there are separate Catholic and Protestant versions. Curious, though, that God inspired two different versions of the same book, one with extra “chapters�.

>I accept that evolution played some part in history. I do hold, however, that macroevolution could not be the source for speciation. It would contradict what we know for certain to be the most accurately translated part of the Bible, the Jewish Torah.

The ridiculousness of that statement is so extreme it is difficult to put into words. I’ll have to let Ken G’s comment suffice. But as I stated, the Dead Sea Scrolls show the “accuracy� of the Torah to be in question.

>Strange thought, why do men have nipples? Probably because they develope like women early in life and they just stay. Also, they are highly sensitive and so can play a part in sex. God made sex, after all, to help marraiges (although it can much more easily be missused).

The line about nipples was intended as a remark on the intelligence of human “designâ€?. A biological explanation through evolution leaves no confusion, but a “created from scratchâ€? human man (from whom woman was later formed) should not have nipples. Unless perhaps (since Adam was formed in God’s image) God has nipples? But why would God need nipples?

Question, if god made sex to help marriages, then who performs the weddings for all the animals? And who performs the divorces, since almost no animal in existence is truly monogamous? And do animals go to hell for infidelity? And by the way, did Adam ever get a hard on prior to Eve’s creation? Was it possible, and if so, why?

Ken G Said:
>But if we are going to use these pages as a forum for dialog between the religious perspective and the scientific one, I completely agree with Chris P that an air of respect for scientific accomplishment coupled with equal reverence for people’s personal beliefs is the appropriate tone.

I’m fully willing to let people believe what they wish, but using stupid religious statements as a justification to attack science demands a critical review of those statements.

I accept that evolution played some part in history. I do hold, however, that macroevolution could not be the source for speciation. It would contradict what we know for certain to be the most accurately translated part of the Bible, the Jewish Torah. Also, there are various problems in some of the methods of macroevolution (see some of my above posts).

Chris P, you make a good point in that you cannot fit God into a little box for simplicity.

Strange thought, why do men have nipples? Probably because they develope like women early in life and they just stay. Also, they are highly sensitive and so can play a part in sex. God made sex, after all, to help marraiges (although it can much more easily be missused). On that line of thought, why did God make the world like we have it? He could have easily just made us stick figures. Why was the origional language like it was, instead of like another? Some things do play an important role, we just never may know, and some things are simply unimportant anyway. Really, does it make a difference if men have nipples or not? Either way, it would become part of the accepted look.

Does God or a Diety of some type exist? We don’t know, and we have no direct scientific evidence. Did evolution occur? Based on hard evidence, it is apparent that yes, evolution is a past and on-going fact. Is it possible that evolution is the tool used by a Creator? Possibly.

I’m severely agnostic, but not quite an atheist. I’ve found these threads very interesting. In the spirit of debate, I would humbly suggest the following:

Scientists: keep pursuing information and explanations using the scientific method. Just keep in mind that there is some degree of possibility that physics, evolution, and the laws of chemistry, ect, are tools of a higher intelligence. (But don’t buy it until someone invents a God meter and gets a reading.)

As Chet wisely chose above, don’t waste your time on agressive hard-core Creationists like Ed. Sadly, some people have simply chosen to close their insecure minds and you’ll never get anywhere with them. But keep this in mind: one of your greatest challenges in reaching non-scientific people in the general population lies in the fact that very few people out there have any actual concept of cosmic distances and geologic/cosmological time scales. In my own conversations, I’ve found this to be a basic stumbling block.

Most lay people consider time in terms of a human lifetime. Many can conceive of centuries, even eons. Miles, and even thousands of miles are understandable… but lots of people without scientific training, immersed in a terribly shallow daily pop culture, are going to have a terribly difficult time wrapping their heads around scales involving billions of years and countless trillions of miles. Therefore it’s going to be a lot simpler for them to buy the easy answers people like Ed are selling.

So scientists, the next time you find yourself face to face with a person of faith, don’t instantly dismiss them as “banjo-playing inbred rednecks.” I have two degrees, speak three languages, play brass and percussion musical instruments, and am a skydiving instructor — and I’m an Irish Appalachian hilly billy from Georgia. Instead, try to determine if that person of faith has an open mind (you’ll find that many do.) See if you can engage them in a polite dialogue. You may well make inroads with them, as long as you don’t act like an arrogant tweed-jacket jackass in an ivory tower.

To Creationists: first and foremost, don’t automatically believe without question everything you read, including the Bible. Your first clue should be that every translation and version of the Bible contradicts every other. Either humans made errors, or God is schizophrenic. (I greatly prefer the former possibility.)

Regarding ID itself — please explain to me how, as a man, I have nipples. (And “because that’s what God decided” isn’t an acceptible answer. Try logic.)

Instead, Creationists, challenge yourselves. If you truly believe in God, then unshackle Him from your frail mental limitations and admit the possibilities that the scientific laws of the universe He created are his tools, evolution is part of the larger toolkit, and He works on a scale beyond your comprehension.

Both faith AND open-mindedness admit the possiblity that, one way or another, a Diety has revealed to us humans all that we know. Only human arrogance assumes that God has revealed all HE knows.