Fossil Records- On the subject of Fossil Records. Olli, makes an excellent points in his post regarding this.
I would like to add a bit of info. On the subject, based on my experiences recently..
I volunteered to help a Friend of mine, disinter, a Man who was buried in the mid 20’s. He was buried in some-ones front yard, and made it impossible for him to sell his property. The property owner, acquired all of the necessary permits, Family of the Interred gave 100% permission, Archeologists, on site, and many volunteers, including the press. He will be re-interred in a nearby cemetery. He was buried in a pine box, on top of a hill in a Arid- (Dry) desert climate. He was buried some 6 ½ feet deep.
Although he was buried in a wooden box, 80-some years ago. Already the box had decomposed into brown dust. The archeologist dug with garden trowels and paint brushes. The wood was gone, evident only by color and a different grain from the surrounding dirt. The skeleton was immersed totally in dirt, as if there was no box at all. I will not go into any details here at this time, out of respect for the Family. But I will say, some of the bones had come detached due to subsidence. They had decayed to the point where they were as close to being dirt, just as was the wooded box. Extremely fragile and very soft. They would crumble in your hand.
I can see how extremely rare it would be for a skeleton from Millions of years ago to be found, even partially intact. Especially considering the Geologic movement of the earth. Periodic flooding, etc. Then give the fact that, as Olli pointed out, only a very few easy access parts of the strata from the earliest time periods have been excavated. The lack of governmental permission to Archeologists, and the fact that ,(as Olli) pointed out, early peoples., were in isolated groups. The fact that the finds needed to complete the argument may now be under water, and several other points, have made them elusive, at best.
If Archeologists were to find a specimen of definitive age, proving the point, would anyone really change their views anyway? I say no, because it has been bred into us that to even consider anything other than the Creationists view is Blasphemy. To suggest that ones Salvation rests primarily on this subject, is selfish, in my opinion.
There is no room for any other thought, or You must be Atheist. I say Foul. I dismiss the argument that this is the single most important Bond of the Christian religion. Please correct me if I am wrong, but, is there language in the 10 Commandments, that prohibit the belief in evolution? It’s true God is Truth, and tells no lies. But maybe when Genesis was written from the word of God, the question of How, never came up.
Galaleo was imprisoned by the Church, for suggesting that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Columbus was thought a Loon, for suggesting the world was round. Alchemists were banned by the Church,
alchemist was a person versed in the art of an ancient branch of natural philosophy that eventually evolved into chemistry and pharmacology.. Is History repeating itself?
Bret, I never said creationists were evil. But it is true, it is them that have the motive to squash a system of thought, not scientists. Scientists get into the field because they are interested in it and want to dedicate their lives to increase the pool of knowledge, to advance our understanding of any given branch of science. It is highly interesting, that's why they do it.
The creationists get into the game because of utterly unnecessary fear that science somehow threatens God' position as the Creator. It is really sad.
The argument of atheism is irrelevant in determining whether evolution is valid or not. The fossils don't care what your personal beliefs are.
What is so strange is that to you, atheism seems to equal inability to make any good decisions. How do you get to that conclusion? I know many atheists, and some of them are the nicest people I've met. You've been brainwashed by the creationist image of an atheist being a mean, angry fool hell bent on destroying Christianity.
Do you also apply this on the other side? Are all the ideas on the conservative side by definition infallible? I agree with almost everything on the right, this being almost the sole exception.
Sure, evolution has been used as basis for atheism. So what? And more importantly, why is that Bret? You think it's because science itself? Or could it be because of the unrelenting resistance from the Christians that make many scientists reject Christianity on that basis? I can easily understand why some scientists don't want to come to church. They'd be scorned at for studying something of their interest. Who wants to deal with that? I'm a Christian and it bothers me!
I believe evolution because
1. It uses the same scientific method that is behind every discovery, every innovation that has made our civilization to look like magic to someone just couple hundred years ago. It works.
2. To do otherwise would violate my conscience. I know I'm right in this one. So for me to go to church and be told I have to lie to myself and to believe something I find fraudulent and intellectually dishonest (creationism, not Christianity), it doesn't exactly make me feel welcomed. How much less a non- Christian scientist! If you want to blame scientists for atheism, you should blame it partially on the ignorance of church and for its continuing the middle- age practice to resist ideas that don't comply with its (misunderstood, I think) theology in this particular issue.
If one wants to be an atheist, he doesn't need evolution to justify it. People have always, through ages found excuses not to believe. That in no way invalidates the theory itself.
And Bret, while I agree about colleges when it comes to leftist politics, it is those college educated people who invent all the gadgets and life- improving innovations you use every day. It's that knowledge and understanding that differentiates us from superstitious primitives of the stone age.
Creationism adds absolutely nothing to that end. It a is purely theological discussion. It is utterly useless in any application of scientific problem solving. It predicts nothing. It has no power to determine laws of nature. Defending "design", it itself has no power to design anything that the classical science has, and does, and will design.
All creationism does is attack the very discipline that pulled us up from the dark ages and gave us the tools to understand our world and the universe, and all the technology and life- saving innovations it brought with it.
Global warming is mainly a political issue, not scientific. It is not comparable to a theory that has prevailed in the peer- reviewed community of the best minds we have for 150 years. And, it is scientists that are arguing about global warming, and you will find that it is science itself, not religion that will deny it at the end.
Like I said, evolution does neither support or deny God. Science doesn't deal with such issues since it has no tools to do so. There are many Christian evolutionists.
What are you talking about taking a bullet? I'm not a communist or an atheist. I am almost laissez- faire capitalist, and been a Christian and in the ministry since a little boy. I'm not sure where you are taking this, but let's just stay with the argument of evolution/ creationism.
Olli, I think you missed my point about your irony, as you didn't respond to it. When I said 'take a bullet' and 'throw you under the bus', I meant these as FIGURES of speech, not literally. This may be a cultural divide, and I'm sorry for using them because they just created confusion. The irony is this...that you a Christian would be ridiculed by many, not all, of the people you side with in this issue...that's all. And not all because alot of scientists are Christian, like you said, but the control in evolutionary science is with the atheist side...ie the nothing to everything theory.
Like you said, many scientists are Christian, and many Christians go into science. The problem for them is that they must keep a lid on any theistic notions of origins or evolution. This is why I said 'you would get thrown under the bus' if you said 'God created the heavens and the earth', as you did.
You're right, I shouldn't have said that you said creationists were 'evil', you didn't say that. I inferred it because you said they DELIBERATELY lie, and I think that's evil, so I said it.
I agree with Jonathan when he said, "It is secular evolutionists in fact who are the ones who adamantly refuse to let anything other than evolution be taught. Christians I believe just want to add some time for creationism but I don't believe they're demanding that evolution not be taught at all."
You also didn't deal with my point that science, and it's direction of inquiry and study, is influenced by many things NOT scientific, I cited global warming, as a recent example. I don't recall Al Gore, or Obama being a scientist, but maybe I'm wrong. You also didn't deal with my point on research grants, which are sometimes highly political.
I went back and read my post and your's again, and all I can say is that you didn't read mine very carefully, as you come up with assertions that I never made, like I'm against science, or tying to undermine it, you've done this with others as well... it's not true.
Like I said, "Complete nothingness to what we have today, void of any god influence, is taught as fact in most public schools, this is not right!" Am I right? At some point the unknown, or philosophy, or religion, comes into this debate, which makes it unique amongst scientific study.
Correct me if I'm wrong; you believe that going from 'nothing' to the heavens and the earth involves God. I believe going from nothing to species involves God. Are we really that far apart? And I believe that God in some way is holding it all together:
Colosians 1: 16-17
"For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
