Amos

Thanks, your world must indeed be very flat.

Doubting Didymus

Aaah! Ha hahaha! These are priceless. You really know what you are doing, don't you amos? These gems are not inadvertant.

happyboy

amos, i'm dying to know.....do you smoke crack before you set fingers to keyboard, because these have been some of the most unintelligable posts i have ever read.

happyboy

Doubting Didymus

You ain't seen nothin. Read some archived threads.

E_muse

Amos.. hello.

It will help you enormously if you can realise that atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods. For the atheist there is no 'God'. Any idea attributed to 'God' is simply a human idea superimposed upon an imaginary being.

Therefore the atheist can simply say that they claim to be somewhat brighter than those whose ideas of reality have been attributed to the supreme being.

This couldn't be more false I'm afraid.

Firstly, evolutionists are not dummies (and worthy of respect in much the same way that theist are ). Secondly, they do not believe that nature has a mind. To quote Richard Dawkins (who states it better than I):

Emphasis mine.

You are attacking your own idea of atheism which is not what atheism actually is!

I hope that made sense!!

No. Purely natural forces will "arrange" stones on a beach according to size simply because of the natural forces at work. No intelligence is involved though.

None of the atheists on these boards are claiming there is one.

Adaptation requires the ability to adapt, nothing more. Does the ability to adapt require intelligence? That's something else IMO.

If an organism can change itself in response to its surroundings "on demand" then I think we'd be on to something.

The people on these boards are not dummies and to say as such shows a total lack of compassion and respect IMO.

It is biology for those who, if what they witness is the product of a sentient being, don't consider him worth knowing, unknowable or indefencible. However, I stand to be corrected.

I agree that it seems too simple and can seem rather like a 'magic wand' that cures all ills.

Doubting Didymus

Prepare to be corrected. Evolution is biology for EVERYONE. Theists and atheists alike, anyone who respects science accepts (or should be able to accept) evolution.

Amos

</strong>

Hello E_Muse.

Your proposition sounds like the height of ignorance because in the end each one of us has the ability to be God. All we need to do is know who we really are to be God. In case you wonder, we need noetic vision to know who we are and once we have noetic vision we will be omniscient and don't have to believe anything anymore. </strong>

Fear not and just let me prove you wrong. First of all, my "dummy" comment was a response in kind and not a blanket statement to you intellectuals.

Dawkins is right in that nature has no mind and no purpose because nature has no existence to be of purpose. Nature is our description of the environment and its effect upon creation. Without a mind nature does not select and just is. It has no plan for the future and therefore has no reason to select. Nature just is. So the phrase "natural selection" is an oxymoron at best.

I would say that nature is the negative stand against which the various forms of life make selections. These forms of life do have a purpose (according to Dawkins) and are therefore the positive stand (if they have a purpose) in the rout of creation which is translated by Dawkins into the "apparent purpose" to make evolution known. You will agree, of course, that two stands are needed in a rout and that one must be negative and the other positive. So with nature being the negative stand (lucky for mother earth that we called her mother), all forms of life that interact with her must be intelligent enough to have intercourse with her and allow us to reproduce the offspring we desire to generate.
</strong>

Oh it does, but to me an atheist is just an impoverished believer with too much unstructured space upstairs. </strong>

Of course the placement of stones on a beach is natural selection. Lets just thank God that they don't have a purpose of their own. </strong>

Agreed. We'll just call it a misnomer by the founder of Evolution.
</strong>

A cameleon can change its colors on demand and through the subconscious mind all sentient beings can influence their own genetic make-up to make adaptation possible. You would call this mutations because you look at them after the fact. The theory of creation looks at the effective cause for these changes. I should add here that in my view essence precedes existence which means that procreation follows a predetermined pattern which is created or just ied by the incarnate mind. In animals this would be the soul or subconscious mind. The answer to the creation-evolution debate is to recognize the creator within the species. If religion is wrong in their explanation of God it is much better to attack religion and not the intelligent design found within creation.

Amos

Evolution is obvious because things change. The question is why do things change and what is the effective cause of these changes.

In Gen.3 it was stated that the TOK was good for gaining wisdom in the TOL and if the TOL is needed to create life out of nothing (wherefore life is an illusion) wisdom is the effective cause of evolution.

excreationist

Amos:
The Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil allowed people to have knowledge - knowledge about what is good and evil (like nakedness) - but it was forbidden.
The Tree of Life, which is also in God's city in Revelation, allows those who eat of its fruit to live forever. Adam and Eve were prevented from eating from it. The Tree of Life wasn't used to create anything.

monkenstick

amos boggles my mind