OK now for a perplexing question

[Rebel-Fan-74]

The key to believing in a Divine Creator is faith. Faith is not scientific, its not like math, it is a belief in a spiritual being that is superior to my own understanding. I know this is never going change your way of thinking, and you have zero chance to change my way of thinking.

I didn't ignore your question, I answered it.

[1 CAT FAN]

CAVEAGLE, YOU FULL OF DOOKEY, HAHAHA TOO

That reminds me of an old joke:
I like everything about you but your shoes, because they're full of dookey.

[Penguin]

The key to believing in a Divine Creator is faith. Faith is not scientific, its not like math, it is a belief in a spiritual being that is superior to my own understanding. I know this is never going change your way of thinking, and you have zero chance to change my way of thinking.

I didn't ignore your question, I answered it.

So, then which one, Adam or Eve, was black, which was white, which was Native Indian, which was Asian, which was Japanese, which was hispanic. Either I am blind, or you did not answer any of those questions. It is a simple question. There were only 2 of them.........and I would never presume to change your mind, or anyone else's. I would like to open it up for you, though. Simple question......

[cavaliereagle]

The key to believing in a Divine Creator is faith. Faith is not scientific, its not like math, it is a belief in a spiritual being that is superior to my own understanding. I know this is never going change your way of thinking, and you have zero chance to change my way of thinking.

I didn't ignore your question, I answered it.

So, then which one, Adam or Eve, was black, which was white, which was Native Indian, which was Asian, which was Japanese, which was hispanic. Either I am blind, or you did not answer any of those questions. It is a simple question. There were only 2 of them.........and I would never presume to change your mind, or anyone else's. I would like to open it up for you, though. Simple question......

Penguin, what is you answer to these questions? I see your point. I don't pretend to know the answer. I don't believe the big bang theory.

[Penguin]

E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N. There is no other answer supported by facts.

[1 CAT FAN]

Someone posted this on my Facebook page today.

A few weeks before Sept. 11th, my wife and I found out we were going to have our first child. She planned a trip out to California to visit her sister. On our way to the airport, we prayed that God would grant my wife a safe trip and be with her. Shortly after I said 'amen,' we both heard a loud pop and the car shook violently. We had blown out a tire. I replaced the tire as quickly as I could, but we still missed her flight. Both very upset we drove home.
I received a call from my father who was retired NYFD. He asked what my wife's flight number was, but I explained that we missed the flight.
My father informed me that her flight was the one that crashed into the southern tower. I was too shocked to speak. My father also had more news for me; he was going to help. 'This is not something I can't just sit by for; I have to do something.'
I was concerned for his safety, of course, but more because he had never given his life to Christ. After a brief debate, I knew his mind was made up. Before he got off of the phone, he said, 'take good care of my grandchild.' Those were the last words I ever heard my father say; he died while helping in the rescue effort.
My joy that my prayer of safety for my wife had been answered quickly became anger. I was angry at God, at my father, and at myself. I had gone for nearly two years blaming God for taking my father away. My son would never know his grandfather, my father had never accepted Christ, and I never got to say good-bye.
Then something happened. About two months ago, I was sitting at home with my wife and my son, when there was a knock on the door. I looked at my wife, but I could tell she wasn't expecting anyone. I opened the door to a couple with a small child.
The man looked at me and asked if my father's name was Jake Matthews. I told him it was. He quickly grabbed my hand and said, 'I never got the chance to meet your father, but it is an honor to meet his son.'
He explained to me that his wife had worked in the WorldTrade Center and had been caught inside after the attack. She was pregnant and had been caught under debris. He then explained that my father had been the one to find his wife and free her. My eyes welled up with tears as I thought of my father giving his life for people like this. He then said, 'there is something else you need to know.'
His wife then told me that as my father worked to free her, she talked to him and led him to Christ. I began sobbing at the news.
Now I know that when I get to Heaven, my father will be standing beside Jesus to welcome me, and that this family would be able to thank him themselves ..
When their baby boy was born, they named him Jacob Matthew, in honor of the man who gave his life so that a mother and baby could live.

[SF Band dad]

E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N. There is no other answer supported by facts.

Those are different races not different species. From a genetic perspective there is almost no difference from one race to the next. Differentiation within a species is easily explained when populations are physically separated by geologic features for long periods of time. Think of all the horse and dog breeds man has created in a few hundred years just by selective breeding.

Differentiation of traits due to isolation and local conditions is not evolution. Those differences quickly vanish within a few generations once the populations mix. Butterflies changing color or dogs changing size over time does not impress. If you want to impress us, provide some transitional proof of a butterfly evolving into a cocker spaniel. That would be impressive.


But seriously.....

[SF Band dad]

I am not a creationist but evolution theory has huge holes and gaps in it. The more we learn about genetics the less likely it is that random jumps, environmental pressure and natural selection could produce all the different species we have today, particularly in the geologic time-frame we see them appear.

But it's not just me, Charles Darwin had these same doubts. Of course in 1859 he knew almost nothing about genetics but he was troubled by the gaps in the fossil record and the lack of transitional species living at the time and in the fossil record. He thought that over time more fossils would be found and the transitional gaps would be filled in. He was wrong.

ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
By Charles Darwin, M.A.,
Fellow Of The Royal, Geological, Linnaean, Etc., Societies;
Author Of 'Journal Of Researches During H.M.S. Beagle's Voyage Round The World.'
From the First Edition
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1859.
Down, Bromley, Kent,
October 1st, 1859.

< excerpt >
Chapter 9. ON THE IMPERFECTION OF THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD.

On the absence of intermediate varieties at the present day. On the nature of extinct intermediate varieties; on their number. On the vast lapse of time, as inferred from the rate of deposition and of denudation. On the poorness of our palaeontological collections. On the intermittence of geological formations. On the absence of intermediate varieties in any one formation. On the sudden appearance of groups of species. On their sudden appearance in the lowest known fossiliferous strata.

In the sixth chapter I enumerated the chief objections which might be justly urged against the views maintained in this volume. Most of them have now been discussed. One, namely the distinctness of specific forms, and their not being blended together by innumerable transitional links, is a very obvious difficulty. I assigned reasons why such links do not commonly occur at the present day, under the circumstances apparently most favourable for their presence, namely on an extensive and continuous area with graduated physical conditions. I endeavoured to show, that the life of each species depends in a more important manner on the presence of other already defined organic forms, than on climate; and, therefore, that the really governing conditions of life do not graduate away quite insensibly like heat or moisture. I endeavoured, also, to show that intermediate varieties, from existing in lesser numbers than the forms which they connect, will generally be beaten out and exterminated during the course of further modification and improvement. The main cause, however, of innumerable intermediate links not now occurring everywhere throughout nature depends on the very process of natural selection, through which new varieties continually take the places of and exterminate their parent-forms. But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.
.......

[Penguin]

E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N. There is no other answer supported by facts.

Those are different races not different species. From a genetic perspective there is almost no difference from one race to the next. Differentiation within a species is easily explained when populations are physically separated by geologic features for long periods of time. Think of all the horse and dog breeds man has created in a few hundred years just by selective breeding.

Differentiation of traits due to isolation and local conditions is not evolution. Those differences quickly vanish within a few generations once the populations mix. Butterflies changing color or dogs changing size over time does not impress. If you want to impress us, provide some transitional proof of a butterfly evolving into a cocker spaniel. That would be impressive.


But seriously.....

You presume (I will be kind) that ALL homo-sapiens evolved from only 1 other species. Evolution, by it's very nature, means to change over time. Evolution proves that all species are related if traced back far enough. The fact that the specific gravity in your body (mine as well) matches with the specific gravity of sea water is the most telling fact of evolution.

Darwin did indeed have a theory, as did Einstein. If I can stand and reach to approximately 8 feet high, and you lie flat underneath my hands, and I drop a 16 pound bowling ball onto your head, you would come to realize that although Gravity started as a Theory, it is all too real. The same applies to evolution. I do not claim to have the answers to the universe, but evolution is real, proven, even though, as you stated, it did start as a theory. Science works that way. Theories are brought forth, and evidence is sought to disprove them. So far, evolution has only been confirmed. And yes, Darwin did not fully understand the science of genetics, but he was smart enough to understand the changes that he witnessed. The discovery of the fossils of the "Walking Whale" put all doubts about evolution to bed.

However, I have stepped up to the plate and made solid contact with every question put towards me. I asked the original question, and not a single answer has been forthcoming, only more questions for me. I am still awaiting ANY factual based answer to my question. You can try and poke holes in whatever I say, fine, but at least I have an informed answer that does not rely on magic and mystical powers. But I am a patient man.........I shall continue to wait. And further, I have no desire to change anyone's mind about anything, just open their minds up to the fact that more than one possibility exists. And by asking questions to reach a conclusion, provides far more intelligent discussion than by starting with a conclusion and making up questions to prove it. Likewise, proving "Theory A" wrong, does not equate to making "Theory B" right. Each Theory must stand on it's own merits. And surely, we are not going to solve the mysteries of the universe here on this website. But, as a good friend of mine has pointed out several times to me, there are some really smart people on this site. And just because everyone doesn't view things through the same prism, doesn't change that fact.

[SF Band dad]

You presume (I will be kind) that ALL homo-sapiens evolved from only 1 other species.

You think the different races of humans evolved from different species? (And somehow, randomly, ended up similar enough to interbreed.)

Evolution, by it's very nature, means to change over time.

That's the problem, there's no evidence of those transitions and the species didn't appear slowly over time. Darwin was able to explain why we're not surrounded by living transitional species due to natural selection, but he had no explanation for their absence in the fossil record. ....and to this day no one else does either. They also have no explanation for the abruptness of their appearance.

Evolution proves that ....

Evolution doesn't prove anything, it is a theory that attempted to explain our observations of nature.

....all species are related if traced back far enough.

It is odd that you question that all races of human could have differentiated from a single pair of humans. Yet in the next paragraph you state that all forms of life are related if traced back far enough. Somehow humans from Sweden and Angola are too different to have a pair of common ancestors but a cow, oak tree, mullet and bacteria are all practically cousins who evolved from lumps of simple proteins that randomly formed in the primordial soup.

The fact that the specific gravity in your body (mine as well) matches with the specific gravity of sea water is the most telling fact of evolution.

Logical fallacy: Correlation is not causation. Lots of things have the same specific gravity, it is just a measure of density.

..... and again, I'm not a creationist, I'm not religious at all. I don't claim to have the answers, but I see lots of gaps and holes in the theory of evolution.

Darwin did indeed have a theory, as did Einstein. If I can stand and reach to approximately 8 feet high, and you lie flat underneath my hands, and I drop a 16 pound bowling ball onto your head, you would come to realize that although Gravity started as a Theory, it is all too real. The same applies to evolution. I do not claim to have the answers to the universe, but evolution is real, proven, even though, as you stated, it did start as a theory. Science works that way. Theories are brought forth, and evidence is sought to disprove them. So far, evolution has only been confirmed. And yes, Darwin did not fully understand the science of genetics, but he was smart enough to understand the changes that he witnessed. The discovery of the fossils of the "Walking Whale" put all doubts about evolution to bed.

Wrong. A single positive example does not prove a theory. The theory is not holding up. The transitional gaps remain. The time lines are wrong. Most species suddenly appeared in the Cambrian period and remain largely unchanged to this day.