The Creation vs Evolution debate thread...

Actually it should read "Thou shalt not murder", a distinction some folks don't understand.

Should it?
Based on which version of the bible?
Since you get lots of cretinists that with their fundamentalist literal interpretations also insist that the KJV is the only real version are you trying to say that the one true version is written wrong?

Nothing new from creationists because there is no need for us to try to "Sell" God

So you don't believe in the teachings of the bible then Iceman. Thats really funny from someone who calls themselves a christian and believes in creationism because of a bible story.
Then again its par for the course from those that shout about their faith.
Though what is even funnier is you make that claim about not selling God and mention doubters...can you complete the lines that follow this....."Then the eleuen disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountaine where Iesus had appointed them."?
Have a clue, it mentions doubt and involves selling God around the world.

[Stealth Hunter]

I never really have understood that concept. I mean, if the Bible is the inherent word of a supreme being, there should only be one version of it and one interpretation of it. Yet each sect of Christianity is different in terms of beliefs and practices (the Baptists from the Lutherans, the Methodists from the Catholics, the Quakers from the Evangelicals, etc.) and there are more than enough different versions of the Bible, mostly in terms of translations, but even so you'd expect them to be the same- if it is indeed the word of god, I mean. I don't believe it is. This fact only strengthens my resolve. Plus the fact that a Christian god who is omnipotent and omniscient as the Bible implies is logically contradictory and therefore cannot exist in the same sense that you can't have a circular square or iron gold or a bed made of sleep doesn't do too much to boost my belief; it kind of kills it actually.

[Stealth Hunter]

Transcription factors are and always will be an important part of molecular biology. By extension medical research for the foreseeable future. For the non-biologists among you, a transcription factor is basically a switch. It turns on a specific gene or set of genes in response to a specific stimulus. Hypoxia Inducible Factor, or HIF, as its name suggests, responds to a hypoxic environment and goes on to turn on, literally, hundreds of genes which induce changes in angiogeneisis, glycolysis, the Krebs Cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation, as well as reducing the metabolic load of the cell in question.

The transcription factor needs to know what gene to turn on, and where in the genome it's located. That's why in the 5' untranslated region of a gene which is to be activated (5'UTR) there is a specific site known as the transcription factor binding site, or consensus site. These sites are quite specific to the transcription factor in question, and induce transcription (and ultimately the translation) of the gene downstream of the consensus site.

If we know what genes are activated, how they're activated, and how specific transcription factors activate specific genes in a specific order, we can control the system and the potential for treatment of a host of diseases and injuries is enormous. For example, one of HIF's major activities is the growing of new blood vessels and capillary beds. In the heart, it remodels the myocardium and enhances cardiac function. If we can control what HIF does, we can potentially use the body's own mechanisms to repair the damage from a myocardial infarction with no ill-effects whatsoever.

Consensus sites tend to be short. Very short. On top of that, the binding factor doesn't bind to a unique site, but to a set of closely-related sites. HIF, to use my example above, has two known sites that it can bind with, both of which are 5 basepairs long.

Well, the problem with a short sequence is that it's not unique. A specific 25 basepair sequence is one that you'd only expect to show up once anywhere in the human genome. By comparison, if we have two possible sites, each of which has 5 basepairs, it shows up everywhere. Literally. To give you some perspective on what I mean by "everywhere," if you take our four bases, a, c, g and t, and construct a completely random strand of 2500 basepairs, along with its reverse complement, you'd expect one of our consensus sites to show up completely at random, at least once, on either the forward or reverse strands of that double-stranded DNA sequence. In the human genome, that means that you'd expect to see it over a million times just by pure chance.

The human genome only has about 30,000 genes, so obviously, all of those sites can't be real. But how can we look at a site and know that it's a real consensus site, or just one that shares its sequence?

Apparently, a couple of scientists, Loots and Ovcharenko developed a program called rVista in 2004. In the intervening four years, it has become the way in which one differentiates a "real" consensus site from a "fake" one.

You start with the assumption that a number of different animals share a common ancestor. You look at the gene sequence of animals closely related to it on the evolutionary tree. If you're studying a mouse, you compare your sequence to that found in rats and rabbits. If you're studying a human, you compare your sequence to Chimpanzees and Orangoutans. The program uses two criteria to filter the "fake" sequences from the "real" ones. 1) functional sequences will be conserved by evolution. 2) functional sequences will be more accurately conserved between closely related species than between distantly-related ones. From this, it aligns the sequences and determines whether these short, non-coding consensus sites are significant.

It works. It has a lower than 4% false-positive rate. It would only work if evolution were true, because the program is designed to analyze sequences under an evolutionary framework. If evolution is false, then the program would be unable to produce any valid data whatsoever.

The process by which rVista was developed and desiged can be found in:

G. Loots and I. Ovcharenko, rVista 2.0: evolutionary analysis of transcription factor binding sites. Nucleic Acids Research, 32, W217-W221 (2004)

It's somewhat technical, but as you can see, this algorithm is completely useless, unless evolution in general (common descent to be specific) is true.

Now my question: What would be the Creationist approach to the same problem?

[onelifecrisis]

When I grow up I want to be just like Tribesman.

Originally Posted by Iceman

Death is the door we will all pass thru soon and that is where in the back of the evolutionists mind he is really scared.

I think you've got your "creationists" (theists) and your "evolutionists" (atheists) the wrong way around. Without fear of death, who needs fairy stories? But whatever... if it gives you strength you go right on believing that death is really just a magical door to a happy place where everyone is super nice.

[SteamWake]

[Skybird]

[August]

[Stealth Hunter]

[antikristuseke]

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

So, respect for others is out the window in this thread, thanks

[karamazovnew]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

I think you've got your "creationists" (theists) and your "evolutionists" (atheists) the wrong way around. Without fear of death, who needs fairy stories? But whatever... if it gives you strength you go right on believing that death is really just a magical door to a happy place where everyone is super nice.

Agnostic Creationists such as myself believe that the original universe was created in its original form by a deity of some form, but that the identity of said deity is unknown or impossible to prove. The Creation and the Afterlife are not so tightly linked as atheists might like to think. They only draw power from our inability to ponder the meaning of Nothing, the one before life and the one after it.

Recent physics theories have pushed this question even further. In an age of such wonderful advances, the search for the start of existence (creation of Mass in the universe), the meaning of life and the long death of all existence are all a single entity. There is a slight possibility that scientists will prove that this Universe is merely a burning match in another greater Mega Universe. They might very well reach the end of possible research, a recursive theory that explains everything and nothing at the same time.

At that time, passionate atheists will have a hard time to explain how their view can be viewed as scientific Truth and not as a simple Belief, like all others. Any final belief is wrong, and the bad part about atheism is that it's an end to all questions, not a start. I was one myself until I started asking new questions and found even less philosophical support that the one Christianity gave me. In the end, the best philosophy is this : "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing."

The Gettier problem applies to all "Final Solution" religions and beliefs.
Christianity (Bible):
- God exists
- S believes that God exists
- if God exists, S (because the Bible says he exists) would believe that God exists
- if God doesn't exist, S (because the Bible doesn't say he exists OR because the Bible says that God doesn't exist) wouldn't believe that God exists.

Since the last condition is not true, it means that Christians have no knowledge of the existence of god, purely based on the Bible.

Atheists (science):
- God doesn't exist
- S believes that God doesn't exist
- if God doesn't exist, S (because there is scientific proof that he doesn't exist) would believe that God doesn't exist
- if God does exist, S (because there is scientific proof that he exists) would believe that God exists.

Since there is no scientific proof that God doesn't exist, an atheist cannot yet claim knowledge of this fact.

Agnostics (proof):
- God is unknown or unknowable.
- S believe that God is unknowable.
- If God is unknowable, S (because there is no proof of God) would believe that god is unknowable.
- If God is knowable, S (because there is proof of God) wouldn't believe that God is unknowable.

Which is true. Since agnostics do not try to put a face on God and take as only proof of his existence the existence of the Universe itself, they are not wrong.

Agnostics:
- God created the Universe (or, the Universe was created, or the Universe exists)
- S believes that God created the Universe
- If God did create the Universe, S (because the Universe exists) would believe that God created the Universe
- If God didn't create the Universe, S (because the Universe doesn't exist, therefore S doesn't exist) wouldn't believe that God created the Universe.

This is almost a form of "I exist therefore I think, I think therefore I exist."

Man.. my head hurts

[NeonSamurai]

You should probably define yourself as an Agnostic Theist, not an Agnostic, as plain agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in a deity or deities as there is no proof either way. Agnostic Theists believe there is a deity or deities, but as you say they do not try to explain it in humanistic terms as such entities are unknowable.

[IanC]

Here's my much researched theory results;
1. God may exist.
2. God may not exist.
Nobody knows. Period.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by karamazovnew

Agnostic Creationists such as myself believe that the original universe was created in its original form by a deity of some form, but that the identity of said deity is unknown or impossible to prove. The Creation and the Afterlife are not so tightly linked as atheists might like to think. They only draw power from our inability to ponder the meaning of Nothing, the one before life and the one after it.

Recent physics theories have pushed this question even further. In an age of such wonderful advances, the search for the start of existence (creation of Mass in the universe), the meaning of life and the long death of all existence are all a single entity. There is a slight possibility that scientists will prove that this Universe is merely a burning match in another greater Mega Universe. They might very well reach the end of possible research, a recursive theory that explains everything and nothing at the same time.

At that time, passionate atheists will have a hard time to explain how their view can be viewed as scientific Truth and not as a simple Belief, like all others. Any final belief is wrong, and the bad part about atheism is that it's an end to all questions, not a start. I was one myself until I started asking new questions and found even less philosophical support that the one Christianity gave me. In the end, the best philosophy is this : "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing."

The Gettier problem applies to all "Final Solution" religions and beliefs.
Christianity (Bible):
- God exists
- S believes that God exists
- if God exists, S (because the Bible says he exists) would believe that God exists
- if God doesn't exist, S (because the Bible doesn't say he exists OR because the Bible says that God doesn't exist) wouldn't believe that God exists.

Since the last condition is not true, it means that Christians have no knowledge of the existence of god, purely based on the Bible.

Atheists (science):
- God doesn't exist
- S believes that God doesn't exist
- if God doesn't exist, S (because there is scientific proof that he doesn't exist) would believe that God doesn't exist
- if God does exist, S (because there is scientific proof that he exists) would believe that God exists.

Since there is no scientific proof that God doesn't exist, an atheist cannot yet claim knowledge of this fact.

Agnostics (proof):
- God is unknown or unknowable.
- S believe that God is unknowable.
- If God is unknowable, S (because there is no proof of God) would believe that god is unknowable.
- If God is knowable, S (because there is proof of God) wouldn't believe that God is unknowable.

Which is true. Since agnostics do not try to put a face on God and take as only proof of his existence the existence of the Universe itself, they are not wrong.

Agnostics:
- God created the Universe (or, the Universe was created, or the Universe exists)
- S believes that God created the Universe
- If God did create the Universe, S (because the Universe exists) would believe that God created the Universe
- If God didn't create the Universe, S (because the Universe doesn't exist, therefore S doesn't exist) wouldn't believe that God created the Universe.

This is almost a form of "I exist therefore I think, I think therefore I exist."

Man.. my head hurts

I've no idea what that has to do with what I posted but it's interesting at least. I'll respond to the bit that applies to me:

Atheists (science):
- God doesn't exist
- S believes that God doesn't exist
- if God doesn't exist, S (because there is scientific proof that he doesn't exist) would believe that God doesn't exist
- if God does exist, S (because there is scientific proof that he exists) would believe that God exists.

What would constitute "scientific proof" of God's existence? If a big bearded face appeared in the sky, visible to everyone, and said "I am God. I created the universe" would that be proof? No, not of God. It would be proof that there is a big face in the sky.

One will tend to run into big problems when making statements involving the "scientific proof" of something that isn't even "scientifically" defined.

I could say I am an atheist not so much because there is no scientific proof of (the Christian) God, but because the (Christian) definition of God makes no sense to me. Asking me to believe in him is like asking me to believe in a purple Tuesday.

[Letum]

What would constitute "scientific proof" of God's existence? If a big bearded face appeared in the sky, visible to everyone, and said "I am God. I created the universe" would that be proof? No, not of God. It would be proof that there is a big face in the sky.

What would constitute "scientific proof" of onelifecrisis' existence?
If a person appeared at a subsim meet, visible to everyone, and said "I
am onelifecrisis. I created SH3 mods" would that be proof? No, not of
onelifecrisis. It would be proof that there is a person at the subsim meet.

Extraordinary theories like gods may require extraordinary evidence, but
big faces in the sky should be close to extraordinary enough.

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

Asking me to believe in him is like asking me to believe in a purple Tuesday.

I disagree.
There are plenty of descriptions of gods that are coherent.