Any religious people watch the Wonders of Life last night?

This debate seems to pop up on here quite a bit these days, I normally don't get involved but here are my musings.

See for Christian's, the focus of their beliefs should be Jesus. From a Christian perspective, the bible points to Christ and that resolution with Christ is the ultimate outcome.

The rest is in material. Christians will frequently debate with other Christians over minor phrasing, translations, semantics amidst all kinds of theology including the age of the earth and the creation process.

The approach here is to challenge Christians on Christ, if they fall down on that then disproving the other theologies e.g. creationism becomes much more straightforward.

Creationism vs Evolution (implying macro i.e. from basic life through to humans) is a debate which will never easily be resolved. You can only test the strength of each argument and then make your mind up on the merits of the evidence you choose to accept.

The harder challenge is actually truly accepting your own position and standing by it, not simply being tossed around in the wind as trends go in and out of fashion.
 
I tried watching the program on iPlayer but got abit confused :( was a little too deep for my liking, as are many of Brian Cox's shows, some interesting facts mentioned though nonetheless.
 
Right let's not bash the religious posters again, I genuinely feel sorry for them.

Most of me agrees with Dawkins, it's far more difficult to create a creator who in turn creates everything, than have a process of slow evolution from a relatively simple chemical process. What created the creator? evolution?

Where he annoys me is by saying "why" is irrelevant, it just is. Everything we know as humans has to have a "why".
 
If there's one thing that bothers me most about the world it's that sane, rational people can completely disgrgard logic and reject evolution. I mean it's a fact, as factual as facts can be, as certain as the fact that the earth rotates around the sun or that gravity pulls objects together.
It boggles my mind that people can just go "nope, god did it, look at the bible"

There is literally zero evidence against evolution. Nothing.
Evolution has been proven without a doubt again and again, it is easily observable and you can even observe it with your own eyes.
Just look at disease resistance, it's right in front of your eyes. Penecillin used to be a miracle cure but most bacteria is resistant to it now.
Look at dogs, how they can be bred for certain traits and their traits passed down generations.
One of the best examples is the E._coli long-term evolution experiment where E. Coli evolved to use Citric acid as an energy source. This simply cannot be disputed.

And for the bloke whos missus doesn't believe in evolution but has a degree in biology - I really despair for her, how can someone be so ignorant!
 
Jason2 said:
Why are the atheists explaining micro-evolution to us? We know that happens. It's macro-evolution we disagree with. We are saying that MACRO-evolution does not happen.
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Biologists, as far as I know, do not differentiate between "micro" and "macro" evolution as you put it.

Here are a few examples of creatures that have been observed undergoing "macro" evolution:

Peppered Moth -
This organism has changed colour in response to the changing environment in the UK

Medium Ground Finch -
This bird in the Galapagos has evolved a longer beak in response to new competition.


So you accept that evolution occurs in microorganisms as it has been observed. Now you also know that evolution has been observed in larger organisms. GL.

I watched Wonders of Life and quite enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next installment.
 
Scrutinize said:
The harder challenge is actually truly accepting your own position and standing by it, not simply being tossed around in the wind as trends go in and out of fashion.
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Not really sure standing by a position is all that admirable a trait if the weight of evidence says that you are wrong.
 
Name said:
I tried watching the program on iPlayer but got abit confused :( was a little too deep for my liking, as are many of Brian Cox's shows, some interesting facts mentioned though nonetheless.
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I find him intriguing, the way he explains stuff really makes it easier to understand in my mind. Loved his Wonders of the Universe series.
 
mcast said:
Most of me agrees with Dawkins, it's far more difficult to create a creator who in turn creates everything, than have a process of slow evolution from a relatively simple chemical process. What created the creator? evolution?
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The problem here is where the argument for both sides does indeed have very strong foundations. What created the components for evolution is as challenging as what created the creator.

Hamish said:
It boggles my mind that people can just go "nope, god did it, look at the bible"

There is literally zero evidence against evolution. Nothing.
Evolution has been proven without a doubt again and again, it is easily observable and you can even observe it with your own eyes.
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This is a dangerous absolute position to hold.

There is indeed plenty of evidence for evolution. However, absolute evidence of Macro evolution proving; from nothing to planets to basic organic life to complex organic life to established life as we know now, is not held with an unequivocal degree of certainty. It is a best fit, a testable model but still a theory. Theory often becomes fact when people, including scientists, want to disseminate their position for and I hate to say it personal gain. Dawkins whether rightly or wrongly showboats and makes a lot of money from it.
 
Scrutinize said:
The problem here is where the argument for both sides does indeed have very strong foundations. What created the components for evolution is as challenging as what created the creator.



This is a dangerous absolute position to hold.

There is indeed plenty of evidence for evolution. However, absolute evidence of Macro evolution proving; from nothing to planets to basic organic life to complex organic life to established life as we know now, is not held with an unequivocal degree of certainty. It is a best fit, a testable model but still a theory. Theory often becomes fact when people, including scientists, want to disseminate their position for and I hate to say it personal gain. Dawkins whether rightly or wrongly showboats and makes a lot of money from it.
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Is there plenty of evidence against evolution?
 
Religion can be a nice guide and we should still learn from it's teachings of what is right and wrong.

For religion to keep up with science we have things like Progressive Christianity which adapts to what we now know. How reliable can religion be if you have to adapt and change it. I like this slogan. "Members of the Progressive Christianity Network seek a credible and inclusive way to follow Jesus. We are unafraid to question traditional church teaching".

I liked what Richard Dawkins said speaking to someone of faith, something along the lines of "It is only by chance that you were brought up in the U.S, what if you were brought up in ancient Greece? your god would then be Zeus.".
 
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RDM said:
Not really sure standing by a position is all that admirable a trait if the weight of evidence says that you are wrong.
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Don't mistake resilience and resolve with folly and arrogance.

Nor does this preclude people changing their position after measuring the evidence.
 
[FnG]magnolia;23652220 said:
Is there plenty of evidence against evolution?
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I haven't said there isn't.

There is (for macro evolution) a testable model based on the level of our scientific understanding. This could be between 100% to 0% accurate.

We are talking big-bang macro level evolution here, not just observing evolution (including adapt to survive) in an already established environment and ecosystem.
 
mcast said:
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Where he annoys me is by saying "why" is irrelevant, it just is. Everything we know as humans has to have a "why".
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That's human nature, not reality. We want a reason. That doesn't mean there is one. Not for everything. If you really look at it, we don't have a reason for many things. Science is by far our best method for gaining knowledge, but science is about "how", not "why".
 
Johnnytoxic said:
Religion can be a nice guide and we should still learn from it's teachings of what is right and wrong.

For religion to keep up with science we have things like Progressive Christianity which adapts to what we now know. How reliable can religion be if you have to adapt and change it. I like this slogan. "Members of the Progressive Christianity Network seek a credible and inclusive way to follow Jesus. We are unafraid to question traditional church teaching".

I liked what Richard Dawkins said speaking to someone of faith, something along the lines of "It is only by chance that you were brought up in the U.S, what if you were brought up in ancient Greece? your god would then be Zeus.".
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I know that religion loves to proclaim itself as a guide to morality but really the bible contains terrible lessons. Among other things it promotes slavery, genocide, rape, murder, homophobia and war.
Just look at Noah's ark - God decides to kill almost every single human, plant and animal on earth just because some humans weren't behaving the way he wanted. Even though he made them that way!

Religion is absolutely not useful or required to learn morality or empathy.

And what is Progressive Christianity? I thought the bible has all the answers already? Why does it need to change to meet the status quo? sounds like backtracking to me. It exposes the bible for what it is - an old book of myths.
 
Russinating said:
The thing I've never understood is that you can see evolution actually happening. My cousin's are all religious and don't believe in evolution. One of them married a black guy and now they have two mixed-race children. It's literally right in front of them.
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That's not really evolution, evolution is the survival and continuation of that which best adapts and suits the surrounding environment allowing for the passing on of it's advantageous characteristics.

For example if the couple had two kids, one with short legs, the other with long legs and they lived in an environment where they were routinely chased by lions it's more likely that the longer legged kid would survive to pass on their genes to the next generation which could result in more long legged kids.

Obviously that's a rather simplistic and narrow example but if we were to apply that to our ancestors the advantage of being able to run faster would grant benefits to hunting and escaping from attacks leading to better mating opportunities and a greater chance of more long legged kids in the tribe.

What's interesting is that humans are probably the only creatures on Earth to be devolving as a result of the better health care we now have and the ability for people to survive to procreate and pass on their genes who would have ordinarily died in the past.

I don't understand religious people not believing in evolution as it doesn't go against the existence of a God, evolution could still be part of it's plan.

(I'm not in the slightest bit religious).
 
Scrutinize said:
There is indeed plenty of evidence for evolution. However, absolute evidence of Macro evolution proving; from nothing to planets to basic organic life to complex organic life to established life as we know now, is not held with an unequivocal degree of certainty. It is a best fit, a testable model but still a theory. Theory often becomes fact when people, including scientists, want to disseminate their position for and I hate to say it personal gain. Dawkins whether rightly or wrongly showboats and makes a lot of money from it.
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No offence but I question the reliability of your posts when you say stuff like "still [only] a theory". Laymen mixing the scientific use of the word and the colloquial use of it makes my **** boil.

Scientific theories do not 'become facts' as achieving theory or law status is the highest level you can. There are no absolute truths in science but having your theory recognised is as close to 'fact' as you can get. A scientific theory is not just a 'best guess' or educated assumption, that is a hypothesis.

Furthermore your accusation that scientific theories somehow achieve a new level called 'fact' when scientists want to earn a bit of cash is just laughable. For a start Richard Dawkins hasn't even authored any scientific theories, he merely studies and speak about other people's. he is making his money from selling books and public speaking, generally driven by religious (rather than biological) debate, he makes little in comparison from studying science or coming up with theories (which again he hasn't done anyway).
 
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