What the heck is this crap about? Nobody said mutations were species wide. The idea is that some mutations are beneficial, and those with those beneficial mutations spread their genes more, and over time the species will change. Nothing here changes that. Also Christians can and do believe in evolution.
Christianity and evolution are not in conflict. At all. The Catholic Church, which represents the majority of Christians on earth, has even said so. Quit creating dualities where there is no need for them.
How does science account for matter itself? It's all well and good to claim that the big bang started everything, but what I want to know is where the universe itself came from? Another puzzler that I have never understood is: why is it that just about every scientist believes in intelligent life, but when you ask them if there is a God, they laugh at you. What is the difference in their mind?
You are correct that mutations are localized and random. But if these mutations are beneficial to an organism's survival, that organism will have a better chance of reproducing and will likely pass that mutation on to its offspring.
Scientists don't know exactly how the universe began, and they admit to it, which is what makes them far more endearing than religious folks, who claim to know something that they don't. Science is based on evidence, and a Scientific Theory is based on testable facts over time. God and Intelligent Life? Because most major religions don't describe God in the way that Albert Einstein did. The Bible makes outrageous claims about what God wants, and how he is involved in our lives, and his so called "word". Scientist strongly disagree that any of that, and beyond, holds weight. Scientists think Creation is possible, but highly unlikely for the most part. Celestial North Korea, as Christopher Hitchens put it...
That is a good question and one of the biggest mysteries still out there. Until a fully artificial self-replicating cell can be created the mechanism for how life might've occurred isn't well understood. That said though there is a lot of evidence showing how this may have occurred and several things that exhibit some of the functions of what we would consider life, notably the ability to replicate. Viruses are considered on the edge of what is considered life but beyond those are things like plasmids that are free floating genetic material that can be transmitted between bacteria (that's also one of the thing that completely rebuts the claim in the video that no living thing has been witnessed to gain genetic material), prions that are proteins that are shown to be able to replicate and inorganically crystals can replicate. Besides the replication issue there are many experiments that show how amino acids and membranes similar to cell membranes can be spontaneously created.
That is what Christians HAVE TO SAY, because Evolution is factual. But there are many examples of the Bible in complete conflict with evolution and science in general, and even modern moral code.
Just to add to this every time Evolution comes up someone comes in and brings up how is matter is created or for that matter life. Evolution is a theory about how species differentiated. It actually isn't a theory about how life began and it certainly isn't a theory about how matter was created. That would be the Big Bang Theory which is more than just a TV show. This is one of the big problems about why Creationism is problematic as a scientific theory because it is a theory of everything that makes it both untestable and unprovable. Evolution actually isn't a theory of everything and even though the Big Bang is a theory about the creation of the universe it isn't a theory that purports to explain everything about the Universe. While these are both huge complex theories there are many parts of them that are testable.
This thread got me to thinking about the Higgs field. Was googling around and found this article that touches on some of your question, perhaps it will be of some interest. It's like an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Should be enough info in there to get ideas to look around at other topics of theoretical physics that touch on your question.
I won't go into the second part of your argument, it's far too heavy to discuss by the painstakingly slow process of posting and awaiting posts in response. But I'm curious to see if you can expand on your examples of the Bible in conflict with evolution and science. I'm willing to argue with that point.
I personally would like to see someone build an ark out of wood without modern tools, then put two of every animal on it, and survive for forty days. Let's see it!
Let me get this straight... Since science has not been able to create life from non-life that must mean an invisible being in the sky that is all powerful created all life. That's quite a jump, I'm impressed. I am curious however why you require proof, or lack thereof, from the scientist but don't hold yourself and others to the same standard. Or maybe I missed the part where you, unlike the scientist, proved something (god) exists.
God created the universe. Then God's God created God. Then God's God's God created God's God. Then God's God's God's God created God's God's God. Then God's God's God's God's God created God's God's God's God. Then God's God's God's God's God's God created God's God's God's God's God. Science cant explain God's God's God's God's God b****es.
Basically what it boils down to is that we know with relative certainty that there was a time that there was absolutely no living things in our system (universe), that means that either it isn't a closed system or that life can miraculously spring from non living things. Neither of those options make a lot of sense with our current understanding of things, but one of them has to be right nonetheless. Either life came from outside the system, be it a deity (Teddy Bridgewater perhaps?) or some other situation where life managed to enter the system from the outside either on purpose or on accident, a scenario we couldn't explain at all, or abiogenesis is possible despite currently having no evidence of that.
I was expecting those answers, and frankly, there's lots of other examples that you guys could have used in the Old Testament. And it's logical that we go straight to these stories, precisely because of the fact that in our modern understanding of literature and religion, as well as a lack of a historical understanding of scripture and literature. Modern day "right-wing 6-day fundamentalism" and everything that the term implies really only came about as a serious driving force around the 20th century. It's set a bad name for Christianity, making the arguments that everything in the Bible must be taken "literally" as historical, factual science. The fact of the matter is, the Bible is written in different genres. It's written in different time periods, by different authors, with different purposes in their writings. You've got to understand that the language used in Genesis, and in the book of Jonah, as well as other OT books are all used to explain theology. Not for purposes concerning science. To take these books truly "literally", we must understand the genre they are written in. That is, these mythological stories and poems were never a historical fact-by-fact account of what happened. Now you probably jump to the term "myth" and think I've outted myself as one who thinks the Bible is fake. But the classical definition of myth would be a story that uses fantastical elements to describe a much deeper truth. In the case of Noah, the innate depravity of man and his necessity of God (as well as a foreshadowing of Jesus). In the case of the Genesis account, a declaration that there is only one God and he's created the world. There's a number of really good books written on how the modern person has lost an understanding of how certain books of the Bible are to be read. A good starting point is "Reconciling the Bible and Science" by Lynn Mitcell.
mang...them so b****es if you go on an infinite loop, i'm going to half to slap you back to at least Unsorted.
The Bible is all over the place. It was a political book. It's certainly interesting for history though.