She was exactly right Lula. Where do the animals get their instincts for survival and procreation from since they don't have your one God to do their thinking for them like you do? Evolution is the only answer. And if one believes in evolution and I see no reason not to, there is no reason to think ours came from anywhere else either. If you choose to ignore the obvious then you and you alone are at fault. You should not be so utterly lost in fantasy that you just reject everything we know and understand today and can prove … out of hand. You can supply no proof at all but you reject all proof presented to you simply because it is a man thing. You might as well drop your next Dr. appointment so you may be properly leeched, hehehe. 2000 year old wisdom is pointless today if for no other reason than there is no translation that has any meaning in trying to bridge the knowledge gap.

 

 

 

So you believe your inner sense of right and wrong evolved from Apes!  

Survival never was about right and wrong for any of the animals, birds or fish! Animals have no sense of morality.  

There is indeed reason to think our sense of right and wrong came from someONe else. Only man has a sense of right and wrong. ONly man knows that he is going against an inward  voice. Only man has a voice of conscience dictating to us a law we did not make and which no man could have made for this inward voice protests whether other men know our conduct or not.

 This inward voice is often quite against what we wish to do warning us beforehand, condemning us after its violation. The law dictated by this voice of conscience supposes a lawgiver who have written His law in our hearts. And as God alone could do this, it is certain that He exists.

Almighty God is the only answer. God gave every human being his inner sense of right and wrong. His law is written in our heart. 

 

 

 

Lula, you have to be joking … you want to discuss evolution or is this just … Evolution Not 1.01? If you are going to try and disprove evolution as Mr. Wells does, you need to be prepared to discuss the time periods and frames that would be necessary for you to prove such things could not happen … are you prepared … or is this just another Catholic write off? “Icons of Evolution” is a book by the intelligent design advocate and fellow of the Discovery Institute, Jonathan Wells, which also includes a 2002 video companion. In the book, Wells criticized the paradigm of evolution by attacking how it is taught. The members of the scientific community that have reviewed “Icons of Evolution” have rejected his claims and conclusions as pseudoscience at best. I agree if looking at the beginning of the film is accurate (it's his film)? Lula, you still do not know right from wrong ... only between Catholic and the rest of society and you just think that is right and wrong.

 

 

Discuss evolution, No not really...however...yours were very definite statements and I'd like if you would explain them further. 

The photo I supplied of "man evolving from an ape" fits the dictionary definition of "Evolution" and it fits what school children are being taught as fact in their science classes...which is

"something evolved; product of development; not a sudden creation. The theory that all living things developed from a few simple forms of life through a series of physical changes. According to evolution, the first mammal developed from a type of reptile and ultimately all forms are traced back to a simple perhaps, single cell organism."

Evolution posits progressive changes over long periods of time from a single cell to fish to amphibians, to reptiles to mammals to man. 

Given this definition can you explain how one kind of creature can evolve into a completely different kind and moreover if man evolved from animals, how did our sense of right and wrong come from animals? How does science explain that?

I believe in Special Creation and have already said where our sense of right and wrong comes from our inner voice of conscience. But you disagree and say you believe in evolution.

 

Lula take it easy on me ok, hahaha … you are right, sorry. Here we stand at the crossroads between reality and the supernatural one more time. It is this simple; I ruled out God and am left with two options, little green men or we just managed to bump and grind our way here over hundreds of millions of years. I choose the later and it is called evolution. You know there is a lot of scientific and archeological information available and we are learning more all the time. I of course am anything but an expert … but I have to get from time point zero to present.

You pretty well summed it up for me but we are a long way from going back to the beginning of life on Earth. Unlike you, we do not have all the answers up front so we investigate you know, do scientific stuff and all. We just keep on updating things and discovering others and the theory of evolution becomes more and more complete. Evolution is simply the answer to the parable (hehehe) of “… What came first the chicken or the egg…?” This drama of course does not play out in the real world. The egg and the mother will have to be veritable duplicates based on the genetics so neither one could come first. … however, something that was not a chicken evolved over time (much) through the stimulations of nature (catalyst) … to eventually become a chicken so that it could lay its first chicken egg (evolution) … a fine point here I agree.

You know that you don’t need (probably don’t care) to ask me such question like “How does science explain this or that?” You can look it up just as I would have to do too??? … There was a turning point somewhere way back whenever when whatever (whew) was to become Man learned to use tools. And this usage eventually brought us to the point where we believed we could control our own environment much as we are still trying to do today (poorly). Then it was “Just help keep the huge SOB away from the camp” but from this, Man developed a purpose beyond the will to survive alone.

I could be convinced in a thousand simple ways to change my ‘evil manners’ and to worship at the altar of whatever God made his existence known … no matter what belief or religion. I am not the hard and fast one here, you guys are. For example how many ways could I possibly come up with to make you change your mind? I am always open to improving my understanding of things and I am wise enough to know that there are many wonderful discoveries yet to be made … for you guys to try and refute, hahaha.

Yup. The good ol' crossroads. Which road is the ultimate question and decision we must make.

And I cannot, absolutely cannot, fathom a nano second of my earthly life without God. ANd eternal life with Him!!!! Now that's my goal and what keeps me going strong. We are told no one of us can imagine how wonderful that's going to be. Yes, this is when faith comes in.

 

 

I would say the chicken came first because in the beginning God created 2 adult chickens, male and female, and the rest is history and good eating.

And speaking of chickens, makes me think of turkeys, and I would like to wish you a very Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving.

Turkey in the Straw - animated Flash ecard by Jacquie Lawson

 

 

 

   

Hahaha Lula ... I was going to put that in myself but it was windy enough, hehehe. Have a happy thanksgiving too. By the way, did God make male and female saber tooth tigers too ... just wondering? What does "an eternity" with God actually mean anyway?

There is nothing you have stated here that even points to ‘man from apes’ as your picture seems to indicate. The book you are using was written for the express purpose of debunking evolution based on theological dogma … not for explaining it. I wouldn’t expect you to find anything constructive in it concerning evolutionary theory and I don’t think you do either.

If your car is broken and you actually wanted to do something to fix it yourself, you wouldn’t reference a book that tells you how screwed up that car is and why it should never have been marketed etc. Any rational person would reference a book that actually explains how that car works in the hope of gleaning a viable solution. Evolutionary theory is no different hum; everything I can think of should be treated this way. How to books are much more informative than how not to books … if understanding is a concern.

I was reviewing some things and I ran across Pope Pius IX during the first Vatican Council in 1869 where he dogmatically defined papal infallibility. Following is an excerpt and possibly one reason why you feel empowered to badmouth evolution without any understanding of it at all:

"9. Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church; and furthermore they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth." (Vatican Council I)

Let's review a bit. 

 

I said morality (a sense of right and wrong) needs Religion and Almighty God revealed ancient Hebraic religion now become full blossomed Christian religion as taught by Our Lord Jesus Christ is the basis of morality....and that God gave us our inner sense of right and wrong..(conscience).  

You disagree believing with other Atheists that morality and our inner sense of right and wrong commonly known as conscience came by way of Evolution..that humans evolved from apes and thus from where our inner sense of right and wrong came. 

So, I provided Darwin's Evolutionary icon depicting "man kind evolved from ape kind". 

To which you replied: 

The point is, GFTESS, there is no looking up ape-man ancestry...as Science can not/will never ever be able to empirically explain or show Darwin's ape origin of man Evolution or that we humans got our inner sense of right and wrong from animals. 

Jonathan Well's book full title is "Icons of Evolution Science or Myth? Why much of what we teach about evolution is wrong"? 

Yes, Jonathan Well's book was written to debunk Evolution, but it doesn't do so based on theological dogma! If you had actually read the book you would know that. 

Evolutionary theory is sold to students and the public using these various icons. 

Taking your example, I'll tell you why I use Well's book which is instructive in debunking these various icons of Evolution of which the "from ape to mankind" is but one. Some of the other evolutionary icons found in science books all over the world are the Miller-Urey experiment, Darwin's Tree of life, Haeckel's Embryos, Homology in Vertebrate Limbs, Peppered Moths, Four-winged Fruit flies, and Fossil Horses.  

Now, young unwary students who look at these pictures in the science and biology text books believe almost everything they see and read and what they are taught dealing with Evolution as substantially true. Well, Well's has shown otherwise...that all these evolution icons are blatantly misrepresentations and he goes into detail with evidence how so. Through these various icons, Darwinism encourages distortions of the truth and students and the public for that matter are being systematically misinformed. 

 

I "badmouth" Evolution (both Darwinism and Stellar) because it is false and dangerous and I'm sick and tired of it being indoctrinated as "fact" to unwary school children and the public the world over. 

The term "evolution" has, since the days of Darwin and Wallace been used in the scientific field to designate a biological process from one species to another, finally becomes a human being. What right reason and true Religion will not tolerate is the theory that indoctrinates that matter and motion came into existence by their own power. Right reason and true Religion will not and can not accept that life came from non-life....in other words, that the inorganic, by some Evolutionary process not even imaginable to us, in the course of eons of time, became organic by environment, and by potent conflict, developed a physical structure like our own, so that at length man appeared as the highest development of the vertebrate-being, different in degree, though not in kind, from the ape. It is against such Evolution theories of transmutation, and in favor of religious conviction that I endeavor to  "bad-mouth" as you put it, and revolt.  

PS. I'll be glad to debate any points Well's made in his book.   

 

Just to be clear, there are no offshoots of Christ's Christian religion...known as Christianity. There are no offshoots of the Church Christ established. Christ set up one Church, the one He placed under the jurisdiction of St.Peter, to whom His "key", His delegated authority, was given. That Church is recorded as "one body", "one faith" of "one Lord" and the "gates of Hell" were never to succeed in prevailing against it. 

There are, however, thousands of offshoots (sects) within Protestantism, a term applied to a religion that originated in Germany as a protest against granting Catholics religious liberty. Protestantism owes its existence to 2 degenerate personages, Martin Luther and King Henry VIII.  

Protestantism is not an offshoot of Catholic Christianity. That is as wrong as it would be to say that the United States remained an offshoot (branch) of the British Empire, after the 13 colonies broke away from the government of King George III. 

Lula, I don’t know why you don’t listen to me but you don’t. You seem more interested in telling me what I believe a real feet in itself. I and others have explained that man didn’t come from apes at all and it is this kind of nonsense that promotes ignorance. You don’t have to believe in evolution to discuss it properly but you do have to understand it reasonably well to argue against it, with reason anyway.

I don’t need to review this Lula because I don’t lie and have no problem repeating myself whenever the topic comes up again. We have an abundance of empirical data to support evolutionary theory, but what we don’t have is any empirical evidence that proves it is in error and certainly NONE to justify a young earth as even a consideration. Lula, you always start by assuming your conclusions are all true and then you use them to justify all your arguments which is the classical definition of the circular logic of self-deception. It equates with ‘the ends justify the means’ scenario whereas I believe that the means justifies the ends. I have built my worldview from the bottom up starting with the people and ending with the people.

I am well aware of Mr. Wells and his work and I am not about to read his book, there are other ways. If you want to argue his views you will have to relate the specifics to me but I would rather discuss your views as if we were just talking to one another. Evolutionary theory is taught in biology … what else should they be taught in biology? You folks made the decision to challenge the courts with your ‘alternative’ and now there is legal president to deal with too … so again, what are they supposed to teach there? This Pope made this dogmatic declaration just ten years after the first publication of Darwin’s book when science as we know it today was still in its infancy. This also means that he was scientifically illiterate too.

There is no doubt that you believe what you say but my heart is where I determined there can be no manmade god called Jesus and that is where you will have to look too because that is where the BS detector works best. You need a fully functional human conscience to view others with any kind of equality something you cannot even grant other Christians because only you and your church know everything. But that is your problems not mine as I view them all equally. It seems that just believing in your god isn’t at all enough because the three desert tribal religions all believe in the same god and look at that mess.

I don’t know why you continue to spread the hypocritical dogma of the RCC as if that is all that is important to everyone else too but particularly for me. Christianity (from the Ancient Greek: Χριστιανός Christianos and the Latin suffix -itas) is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other NT writings. It also considers the Hebrew Bible, which is known as the OT, to be canonical. Adherents of the Christian faith are known as Christians.   The RCC is just one flavor and I am quite sure most other Christians understand this dogmatic difference too. This is why the ends cannot be used to justify the means. One thing all Christians do seem to agree on is who and what their god represents, but because they don’t believe exactly what you and you church do, they will not even be allowed into your perceived paradise, something  that I could only call hell on steroids. With a complete disregard of the fact that they spend much of their life earnestly prostrating to your god too, they are still doomed. So you blame me and other atheists for all your problems because you know the other Christians won’t pay you any more serious attention, but you are armed to the teeth for laying all the blame on me and my ‘kind’ even though we only comprise ~9% of the American population. I have asked you before how 9% of the population could be in control of anything … and you ignored it as usual as you continue to pass out the blame to everyone besides yourself.

That's just it...I DO listen to you. 

Actually, you do a pretty good job telling us what you believe..and then some! 

I know you have said that man didn't come from apes.

But, in this discussion you said that we humans are animals.

To which I probed into that asking, if Almighty God and His Judaic/Christian Religion is not the basis of our morality, where does our sense of right and wrong come from. 

I said I have asked this question before of other Atheists and one gal said our sense of right and wrong came by way of  evolution but upon further questioning, she clammed up, and would not/could not explain her answer any further.

To which you replied: 

See the confusion???  First, you say we are animals and that Evolution is the only answer...but that man didn't come from apes although if one believes in Evolution, then our inner sense of right and wrong came from Evolution.

 

That's why I posted the Evolution "from apes to mankind" icon. It says it all. You may not believe what that picture signifies, (I certainly don't) namely that man evolved from apes, but that is exactly what Evolution posits in the dictionary definition, science textbooks and videos. In short, it's what the teachers are teaching. 

Evolutionary theory and the Evolutionary "from ape to mankind" icon comes from Charles Darwin's, "The Descent of Man," 2nd ed. Collier & Son. 1905.

"In forming a judgment on the head with reference to man, we must glance at the classification of the Simiadae. This family is divided by almost all naturalists into the Catarrhine group, or Old World monkeys...and into the Platyrhine group or New World monkeys...  Now man unquestioningly belongs in his dentition, in the structure of his nostrils, and some other respects, to the Catarrhine or Old World division. ....There can, consequenstly, hardly be a doubt that man is an offshoot from the Old World Simian stem; and that, he must be classed with the Catarrhine division. (Vol.I, pg. 205.

"The early progenitors of man must have been once covered with hiar, both sexes having beards; their ears were probably pointed, and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail, having the proper muscles.... The foot was then prehensile, judging from the condition of the great toe in the foetus; and our progenitors no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, and frequented some warm, forest-clad land" page 214. 

"The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World monkey and the Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the universe,  proceeded. (pg. 220). 

"Man, as I have attempted to show, is certainly descended from some ape-like creature."pg.759.

"The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely, that man is descended from some lowly organized form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many...." pg. 796.  

 

Ah no! It's the Evolutionists who took what Darwin wrote, made a theory from it, made picturesque icons, published it in science textbooks and taught it as scientifically true. 

No you don't. Truth is, there is no empirical data to support or validate Evolutionary Theory. Scientific authorities will back that the fossil remains are either fully animal or fully human. Although science textbooks contain fanciful pictures of "apemen", there are no true fossil remains, no skeletons, nothing found of an "apeman". Plenty of frauds and forgeries and imaginative pictures  though.    

Then supply the data which supports your claim that "Evolution is the only answer as far as where/how our inner sense of right and wrong" came. 

It's not enough that disbelief in God is proof of Evolution. Your arguments are not for the validity of Evolution but rather just deny God. What you are doing won't do...By supposedly proving Evolution, while denying the existence of God, you then charge that Evolution must be have occurred, as there is no other option. 

Again, I just wanted to point out that you're wrong in saying Well's was debunking evolution based on theological dogma when he was doing no such thing. His book has nothing to do with theological dogma. He argues from science and those who have misrepresented science to push Evolution as true to school kids.

I know I have the textbooks and seen some of the videos.  The problem is they present Evolution Theory as fact to be believed rather than as a hypothesis still being tested. 

 

Ah no! It was the Christians who took a book that someone else wrote, made a religion from it, made picturesque icons, published it as the truth in little black books and taught it as gods perfect word. Nonsense too, right?

Lula, why are you so angry about this. We have been discussing this stuff for more than a year which I think is plenty of time to Google ‘evolution’ and read the first couple of paragraphs at least. If you were to keep reading there are all kinds of interesting things to be found. Did you know that the idea of evolution goes back to the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers who predate Christianity itself?  When the bible was written, there was no evolutionary theory so it could not have been written for the purpose of refuting it. There was no realistic idea of what the universe was or even the scope and diversity of the earth, so it couldn’t have been written for the purpose of verifying the as yet unknown. There was no science (as we know it) at the time so it couldn’t have been written for the purpose of refuting science either. But it seems that these are precisely the things you use your bible and your church for??? Charles Darwin is also just one click away too. I have warned you of the dangers of copying and pasting from someone else if you yourself do not have an understanding of the subject matter. There is nothing you ‘quoted’ that says man came from apes (“man is an offshoot from the Old World Simian stem, man is descended from some lowly organized form”). All Simian points to is the class of higher apes or the old world monkeys and apes. We are primates and are collectively known as simians or anthropoids. You posted the Evolution "from apes to mankind" icon because you don’t understand evolution and because it is the only point from which you can work from, to attack from I guess. Michael Behe is a Christian apologist for the Discovery Institute no less, who was in large part responsible for the loss of the ID trial in Dover because he couldn’t/wouldn’t defend his own conclusions and he didn't even try to refute the case made for evolution. On the other hand, Ken Miller a Roman Catholic was instrumental in the verdict. This clip explains it all.

Ken Miller on Human Evolution   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk

What in the world is this supposed to mean? Science possesses nothing but empirical data top to bottom. Maybe you had better inform me what empirical means to you??? But if you think ‘science’ is one big elaborate hoax perpetrated by non-Christians to prove god doesn't exist, well good luck with that one.

 

Here is the World Book Dictionary definition of "Evolution" on page 737. 

"Evolution" is

n. 1. any process of formation or growth; gradual development. 2 something evolved; product of development; not a sudden discovery or creation. 3 the theory that all living things developed from a few simple forms of life through a series of physical changes. According to evolution, the first mammal developed from a type of reptile, and ultimately all forms are traced back to a simple single-celled organism. ... Philosophy....the theory that a process or progressive change, with the development of more complex entities, characterizes all force and matter in the universe. Evolution is advance from the simple to the complex.

Now, also a definition of Evolution from a 10th grade biology text book by Miller/Levine, (yes, the same Ken Miller in your video).

in the chapter on Evolution, page 269, the definition of "Evolution" is given as a "process by which modern organisms have descended from ancient organisms."   Note, Miller's textbook is saying the same as the dictionary definition #3. 

Now, let's go back to the first definition...n. 1. any process of formation or growth; gradual development."

I agree with this definition of Evolution AS LONG AS THE PROCESS OF FORMATION OR GROWTH IS WITHIN KIND OR SPECIES.

I agree science has empirical evidence and data of the first definition of Evolution....it's called MICRO-EVOLUTION, meaning small changes over time within species. I also agree that the number 1 definition of evolution does indeed go back to the first pre-socratic Greek philosophers. 

BUT definitions #2 and 3 are defining something totally different than definition #1. It's called MACRO-Evolution--transformation or change from one species to a different one. The number 2 and 3 definitions is the modern theory of Evolution that developed in the 19th century from Charles Darwin's writings such as his book I cited above in which he clearly describes macroevolution. It's commonly called Darwinism.   

In his book, "In the Origin of Species" published Nov. 1859, Darwin maintained that organisms were produced by a process called evolution and that just as each new organism comes from pre-existing organisms, each species has descended from other species over time. 

So, as far as me being angry, you bet. 

The # 2 and 3 dictionary definitions and Miller/Levine Biology textbook definitions is MACRO-Evolution being taught in all public schools and commonly held across society as true ..when in fact, Macro-evolution is a complete hoax. Every living thing, plant, animal and humans didn't evolve from a common one celled ancestor; Reptiles can't possibly transform (evolve) into birds and ape-kind  never evolved to human kind. 

That's why to your assertion---that We have an abundance of empirical data to support evolutionary theory, I said No you don't for the reason there is no empirical data to support or validate the numbers 2 and 3 definitions of Evolutionary Theory aka Darwinism or Macroevolution.

Science possesses empirical data for definition #1 of evolution, but that's as far as it goes and ever will go.  

There is no empirical science, no data, no evidence, behind definitions #2 and 3 of Evolution. 

If you want to continue asserting that there is science behind Evolution according to these definitions, then provide the scientific evidence that demonstrates Macroevolution. 

Genetic similarities does not validate MACRO-evolution.