You don't believe in Evolution, You must be an idiot.
Most people think that if someone is a Christian and doesn't believe in Evolution that it's because they are blinded by their faith and ignore the facts of Evolution.
It's actually the opposite for me.
I used to accept Evolution as the way things became the way they are. I started reading books about Dinosaurs in the first grade. I can still remeber specific moments doing just that. I went all through Elementary School, Junior High, and High School accepting Evolution as the way it happened and not giving it any more thought than that. But I also accepted the existence of God and Jesus as Savior. For a while I believed what I now know of as "the gap theory" which postulates that the 6 days of Creation were not literal days but symbolic of eras in which evolution would take place, etc. I went through stages of other beliefs - most of which I thought up on my own, but were in no way original or extraordinary. At this point I could have gone either way - giving up Christianity and accepting Atheistic Evolution or giving up Evolution and accepting Christianity.
Then I saw some preacher who gave a talk about Creationism. I didn't buy it right out. I thought about it for a long time.
Here are a few of the problems that I have with Evolution:
A Million years is a very long time. Just think about it. If you are totaly indoctrinated in evolutionary thinking, you'll say "Yes, it is a very long time. What of it? It takes a very long time for stuff to evolve." In order to make the Millions and Millions of years model work, Mountains must form at the same rate or faster than they erode. The atmosphere must remain mostly consistant (at least starting from a certain point in the evolutionary time scale). In order for this to happen, the Earth must remain at a constant distance from the Sun, etc. 3.5 Billion years seems like a very long time for a planet to maintain the exact same orbit.
Mountains and such can and do erode very quickly - such that without regular catastrophic events to form new mountains or build up existing ones, there wouldn't be any left after a few million years.
The atmosphere is in a delicate state of balance. A student of Evolution must reason that it is pure chance that biological mechanisms have co-developed and remained in effect to maintain this balance with out any Creator to design them.
I'm going to approach this from another angle. Forget the above. Forget Entropy (which I agree is misused and misunderstood by Creationist zealots). Forget information theory (for now). Forget all of the arguments that you've ever heard for Creationism or "Intelligent Design" or whatever you want to call it.
Here's the main problem that I have with Evolution:
Lifeforms are machinery - they are actual physical machines. They are extremely complicated at all scales - from limbs, bones, and muscle down through the cellular level and on down to the molecular level. Even the most simple forms of life are extremely complicated at the molecular level. There are protien "machines" that cause things to happen that are the direct opposite of what would normally happen by normal chemical means (a molecule moves from an area of lower saturation into an area of greater saturation, etc). These protien machines are just as complicated as any machinery invented by man. And even the simplest life forms requires the coordination of many different types of molecular machinery. I can not accept that they could have developed and started working in harmony purely by chance.
To say that they did develop entirely through random chemical changes is like saying that a Bulldozer was formed over millions of years by random geological events. Not only that this Bulldozer was formed - That it formed underground as these geological events depositied Iron, Carbon, etc which congealed in the shape of a bulldozer complete with a full fuel tank. Then the engine somehow started and now the bulldozer is operating itself, has unburied itself, and is busy leveling some spot of ground all without the benefit of an operator - purely by the random movement of the controls caused by environmental factors.
Not only did this bulldozer form by chance, but it is also able to create an approximate replica of itself and any mistakes that it makes in such replication will, over time, result in a much better, much more sophisticated bulldozer.
I'll have to stop there for now. I have much more to say on this.
It's actually the opposite for me.
I used to accept Evolution as the way things became the way they are. I started reading books about Dinosaurs in the first grade. I can still remeber specific moments doing just that. I went all through Elementary School, Junior High, and High School accepting Evolution as the way it happened and not giving it any more thought than that. But I also accepted the existence of God and Jesus as Savior. For a while I believed what I now know of as "the gap theory" which postulates that the 6 days of Creation were not literal days but symbolic of eras in which evolution would take place, etc. I went through stages of other beliefs - most of which I thought up on my own, but were in no way original or extraordinary. At this point I could have gone either way - giving up Christianity and accepting Atheistic Evolution or giving up Evolution and accepting Christianity.
Then I saw some preacher who gave a talk about Creationism. I didn't buy it right out. I thought about it for a long time.
Here are a few of the problems that I have with Evolution:
A Million years is a very long time. Just think about it. If you are totaly indoctrinated in evolutionary thinking, you'll say "Yes, it is a very long time. What of it? It takes a very long time for stuff to evolve." In order to make the Millions and Millions of years model work, Mountains must form at the same rate or faster than they erode. The atmosphere must remain mostly consistant (at least starting from a certain point in the evolutionary time scale). In order for this to happen, the Earth must remain at a constant distance from the Sun, etc. 3.5 Billion years seems like a very long time for a planet to maintain the exact same orbit.
Mountains and such can and do erode very quickly - such that without regular catastrophic events to form new mountains or build up existing ones, there wouldn't be any left after a few million years.
The atmosphere is in a delicate state of balance. A student of Evolution must reason that it is pure chance that biological mechanisms have co-developed and remained in effect to maintain this balance with out any Creator to design them.
I'm going to approach this from another angle. Forget the above. Forget Entropy (which I agree is misused and misunderstood by Creationist zealots). Forget information theory (for now). Forget all of the arguments that you've ever heard for Creationism or "Intelligent Design" or whatever you want to call it.
Here's the main problem that I have with Evolution:
Lifeforms are machinery - they are actual physical machines. They are extremely complicated at all scales - from limbs, bones, and muscle down through the cellular level and on down to the molecular level. Even the most simple forms of life are extremely complicated at the molecular level. There are protien "machines" that cause things to happen that are the direct opposite of what would normally happen by normal chemical means (a molecule moves from an area of lower saturation into an area of greater saturation, etc). These protien machines are just as complicated as any machinery invented by man. And even the simplest life forms requires the coordination of many different types of molecular machinery. I can not accept that they could have developed and started working in harmony purely by chance.
To say that they did develop entirely through random chemical changes is like saying that a Bulldozer was formed over millions of years by random geological events. Not only that this Bulldozer was formed - That it formed underground as these geological events depositied Iron, Carbon, etc which congealed in the shape of a bulldozer complete with a full fuel tank. Then the engine somehow started and now the bulldozer is operating itself, has unburied itself, and is busy leveling some spot of ground all without the benefit of an operator - purely by the random movement of the controls caused by environmental factors.
Not only did this bulldozer form by chance, but it is also able to create an approximate replica of itself and any mistakes that it makes in such replication will, over time, result in a much better, much more sophisticated bulldozer.
I'll have to stop there for now. I have much more to say on this.
posted by phil at 8:36 PM
4 Comments:
Okay:
Your hypothetical bulldozer does not have offspring. Evolution works through survival and reproduction, which leads to:
"Random chance, hell. Natural selection is the most loaded pair of dice ever (not) designed." I wish I could remeber where I read that, but it makes the point. Mutations are random. Survival is not. The problem with your buldozer analogy is that it has no way to keep beneficial mutations and discard harmful ones. That is what natural selection does.
Remember: Survival and reproduction.
Plate Techtonics. Look it up. Hint: it's still happening. Here's a link to get you started. Don't stop here though.
Living creatures did not just evlove to maintain our atmosphere as it is. They made it the way it is.
Johannes Kepler's laws of planetary motion.
All your points are answered. All that is needed is a little research. Unless your mind is closed to evidence. Then I cannot help you.
This comment also applies to your previous post.
No one said you were an idiot (at least I didn't) You are welcome to believe whatever you like, regardles of what I think of it. But if you tell me about what you believe, don't get upset when I tell you why I don't.
I reserve the term idiot (or IDiot) to people who try to pass off their nonsense as science, and continue to do so in spite of the fact that it has been demonstated repeatedly that it is not. In my dictionary, idiot is synonymous with crackpot.
You believe in Evolution and not in God. I believe in God and not Evolution. I can live with that if you can.
Works for me. If you don't try to "save" me, I won't harangue you.
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