God or Evolution

A discussion between myself and an atheist.

-MATT

Happy to hear from you,

I must say with all honesty that I was once an atheist and though I was brought up in a Christian home, church was never practiced. I challenged the idea of God because I figured that evolution had a grasp of things and that anyone would believe otherwise was a nutcase. The media added fuel to my atheist fire by coming out with movies and books (The god Delusion and Religulous). Over the course of studying both in the science realm and philosophical as well my arguments were getting weaker and weaker to the point where If I were to look logically at both sides of the argument either position took a great deal of faith. You could have shown me countless reasons and evidences as to why atheism falls to its own beliefs by science and morality and still I wouldn't have budged, I was spiritually blind. I keep in contact with many who chose to either change their worldview to atheism and those who have converted to Christianity. A lot of the former Christians I have spoken with the majority reason behind their change in worldview is both, moral dilemma and lack of understanding in creation. There is a reason why I have yet to respond to your arguments involving Christianity and Jesus. If you do not believe in God then it goes without saying that you would doubt the existence of the Christian God and it will also follow that you would doubt the very existence and divine nature of Jesus. Like all arguments its best to start the discussion from the beginning of the disagreement which is, whether or not God exists. We can start this discussion in one of two ways, the philosophical standpoint or by science, I will allow you to decide, but before we do that I will respond to your proposal of the good old miller experiment.

"I view so far we have proved through science that we have evolved form the most basic of organisms and u may disagree But the majority of scientists in the world view evolution as the was we came to be. As of right now we have gone that far and it may take time or we may never know how the first cell originated. Experiment wise we have proved amino acids can form in the early earth stage".

Believe it or not you have just explained to me your demonstration of faith in science. There are two things that no man has done on and that is prove God does not exists with 100% infallible evidence and no man has proven Gods existence with 100% infallible evidence. You place a great deal of faith in Millers experiment the origin of life. Even the most basic of organisms are not as basic as you think. Darwin was not able to view living cells like we can today. He assumed that they were simple substances (which they are not). The most basic of cells, for example the single celled amoeba has enough information encoded into that would fill 1,000 Encyclopedia Britannica's. There are also irreducibly complex organisms that cannot function properly if one part of the organism is missing. Irreducibly complex cells do not sporadically create themselves. How does gradual evolution explain this? Dawkins did attempt to explain gradual evolution of the eye (how did you get those peepers). But he sets the reader up by thinking these are mere simple interconnections that came about with 0 chance of error. While most

mutations are errors and do not promote progress. If you would like we can go into more detail but I will bring this back to millers experiment. I will take on each proposal in detail.

According to many researchers today, an even more serious problem is the fact that the atmosphere of the early earth was very different from what Miller assumed. Research has since drawn Miller's hypothetical atmosphere into question, causing many scientists to doubt the relevance of his findings. The problem was stated as follows: the accepted picture of the earth's early atmosphere has changed: It was probably O2 rich with some nitrogen, a less reactive mixture than Miller's, or it might have been composed largely of carbon dioxide, which would greatly deter the development of organic compounds. A major source of gases was believed to be volcanoes, and since modern-day volcanoes emit CO, CO2, N2 and water vapor, it was considered likely that these gases were very abundant in the early atmosphere. In contrast, it is now believed that H2, CH4 and NH3 probably were not major components of the early atmosphere. Hydrogen being extremely light would have risen out of the earth's atmosphere before being able to collect. Furthermore, many scientists now believe that the early atmosphere probably did not play a major role in the chemical reactions leading to life. Although the composition of the atmosphere of the early earth is now believed to have consisted of large amounts of carbon dioxide, this conclusion still involves much speculation. Most researchers also now believe that some O2 was present on the early earth because it contained much water vapor, and photo dissociation of water in the upper layers of the atmosphere produces oxygen. Another reason is that large amounts of oxidized materials exist in the Precambrian geological strata.

To produce even non-functional amino acids and proteins, researchers must highly control the experiment in various ways because the very conditions hypothesized to create amino acids also rapidly destroy proteins. Examples include thermal denaturing of proteins by breaking apart their hydrogen bonds and disrupting the hydrophobic attraction between non-polar side groups.  Very few proteins remain biologically active above 50 C, or below about 30C, and most require very narrow conditions. Cooking food is a good example of using heat to denature protein, and refrigeration of using cold to slow down biological activity. As any molecular biologist knows from daily lab work, the pH also must be strictly regulated. Too much acid or base adversely affects the hydrogen bonding between polar R groups and also disrupts the ionic bonds formed by the salt bridges in protein.

Miller had to deal with the fact that the common cross-reactions of biochemical reaction products cause destruction or interfere with amino acid production. All compounds that interfere with bonding must be isolated or they will destroy the proteins. Therefore, Miller had to remove many contaminants and impurities to obtain pure compounds that are not normally found in life. Otherwise, his apparatus would have produced many destructive cross-reactions.

Also, heavy metal ions such as Ag, Pb and Hg2 must be isolated from proteins because they disrupt the protein's disulfide bonds, causing the protein to denature. As an example, a dilute (1%) AgNO3 solution is placed in the eyes of newborn babies to destroy the bacteria that cause gonorrhea. Many heavy metal ions are very toxic if ingested because they severely disrupt protein structure, especially enzymes. Another problem is that many of the other compounds necessary for life, such as sugar, also react strongly with amino acids and affect amino acid synthesis. For example, Miller and others had to use a sugar-free environment in their experiments. Miller stopped his experiment after just a few days, but if it had been allowed to go on, would the compounds he produced be destroyed or would they produce more complex amino acids? Research on Murchison meteorites found that natural conditions produce compounds much like Miller's, and the result is stable, indicating that further time would not produce any new products.

Many speculate that ultraviolet light was the source used to create life, but UV is highly toxic to life, and is, in fact, often used to destroy life (thus UV lights are used in hospitals to kill micro-organisms). The intensity of the destructive long wavelengths exceeds that of the constructive short ones, and the quantum efficiency of destruction is much higher than that for construction as well. This means that destruction of

amino acids are four to five orders of magnitude higher than construction. In Miller's UV experiments, he used a select wavelength to produce amino acids and screened out other wavelengths because they destroy amino acids. Yet both chemical-building and chemical-destroying light exists in sunlight. Amino acids are actually very delicate and readily break down under natural sunlight. The Miller-Urey experiment also had strategically designed traps to remove the products from the radiation before they could be destroyed. On a primitive earth, any amino acids formed in the atmosphere would be destroyed long before they could be removed. Even the ocean would not protect them, because UV penetrates several meters of liquid water-you can even sunburn under water. This indicates that the conditions on the early earth could never have been favorable for abiogenesis. Even simple movement can cause major protein damage: whipping cream or beating egg whites is one way of using mechanical agitation to deliberately denature protein (the whipping stretches the polypeptide chains until the bonds break). This

experiment also fails to factor in hydrolysis, which is decomposition of a chemical compound by reaction with water. So much for the primordial soup. We also see that extreme temperatures destroys basics cells as well (hot

vents).

"Everyone knows that liquid water is essential for humans to survive. In fact, it is essential in the chemistry of all biological systems. Water (chem window: give link to water module) provides the medium in which the transport of molecules can occur in reactions". Water only works when

organisms have established before that, cells have no protection from hydrolysis. I can go into more detail about left handed and right handed amino acids, the types of amino acids that were found (hydrogen cyanide=poison) and DNA spontaneously created information (impossible) but I don't want to drag this out further than necessary. Where you would like to go from here is your choice. Either the philosophical approach to the possibility of God, or the scientific. It would be futile to argue any further, if origin is skipped.

LEE-

Sry m8 wanted to read up some on some things I never looked deep into so farit's been physics, theology, and evolution.So I looked into your amino acid idea and how it's a discrediting to my view but u still lack to see what I view. I view so far we have proved through science that we have evolved form the most basic of organisms and u may disagree But the majority of scientists in the world view evolution as the was we came to be. As of right now we have gone that far and it may take time or we may never know how the first cell originated. Experiment wise we

have proved amino acids can form in the early earth stage.

http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html

Or do your own search on the experiment

 We have gone that far in 150 years from Darwin's idea to knowing how we evolved and how the process proceeded so for me I can take my time and wait I'm not jumping to the first thing that seems pleasing like religion to provide to as how we exist. In the end ill state my view as this finally. I see science as how we originated and so far it proves correct and if a religion is proved I'll believe in it with no problem I just go with the one the holds the proof and so far science has the baton.

So  far u still have yet to prove anything for your case even hurdling over the hero question  u have put no proof to your side just thoughts and views from yourself and circle arguments (god to bible, bible to god). I will say I'm not arrogant if u seem me that way I'm sry but it's because this is a debate and I'm asking hard stuff to answer that's why a lot of ppl stop debating me they don't want to do un bias searches for truth and open their mind. If that sounds mean I'm again sry but it's true you're a very intelligent guy I give u that 100%  no doubt but I feel u have never seen my side where to I used to pray nightly when I believed. As for the being smarter than god then yes the most basic of mind is smarter because like Zeus, allah, santa, the easter bunny, and all other myths they are man made and I wait for u to prove that wrong. I can even prove how christians stole pagan rituals and holidays and made them their own. Here in America it has made me sick to see gays being denied rights every American holds so far the proponents of prop 8 have lacked any proof on why it should be kept. They just use bias sided religious views and screen them as legitimate reasons. That's how manipulative religion is and how it can turn minds on its fellow man. I see the universe as a beautiful thing that we have discovered little

about.

 So I'm down to prove evolution to you or disprove religion your call. If evolution then the bible wont help u it will be about things like carbon and argon dating and the fossil record. If religion then you need to have a open mind and not deny things because they are not pleasing to your view. Sry bout a harsh tone but decided to speak what I had in my mind since I can see you are a college man with a great future and good deal of intelligence so I need to work harder here than anyone I've debated before. I fear u may say I'm wrong but I get the vibe u were brought up religious and a majority of your friends and family are religious if so there lies the problem of not wanting to explore. There is a feeling a lot of my non religious friends felt that co existed to what started my doubt. When u finally get the feeling of knowing how insignificant u are to the universe and how little u mean to it compared to things such as a planet or even a galaxy. Then u will see the beauty and a sense of we aren't the center of the universe like religion preaches.

Hope to hear from ya m8 and cant wait for a solid topic to pick apart

between u and I.

Matt-

I apologize for taking so long to respond I was able to catch a bit of a vacation back home so I have been away from my office. I read through your response and looked at the arguments you have proposed. I'd like to first start off by quoting Kai Nielsen who is an atheist "To show that an argument is invalid or unsound is not to show that the conclusion of the argument is false ... All the proofs of God's existence may fail, but it still may be the case that God exists". By attempting to point out these so called faults

in Christianity hardly adds weight to your belief in the origin of the universe which you have yet to come up with an alternative. I will say this again, YES! If The Bible is read at face value and no spiritual thought is involved you will find what appears to be contradictions. But in order to state with 100% confidence that there are faults you must have the following; a complete understanding of society from 1400 B.C. to A.D. 90, critiqued the massive amounts of manuscripts to substantiate your belief and

also...claim to be smarter than God. I checked out the experiments and website you sent me, the website merely described the different types of evolution and the nature of it which was basic review, I'm afraid I didn't get anything out of it. I believe you still hold the assumption that I know hardly a thing about evolution so I would suggest we chew on that for awhile.

I have been studying microbiology for quite some time now and hope to get my Masters in it. Microbiology has dealt a severe blow to the Darwinian theory. The Bible teaches that God is the Creator of all things (Genesis 1; Colossians 1:16; John 1:1-3; Revelation 4:11). While these passages rule out any possibility of Darwinian evolution, they do allow for variation within a created kind. Evolutionists state that life originated by natural processes about 3.8 billion years ago. Is there any evidence for this happening? There is a theoretical physicist by the name of Freeman Dyson who is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science who stated, "Concerning the origin of life itself, the watershed between chemistry and biology, the transition between lifeless chemical activity and organized biological metabolism, there is no direct evidence at all. The crucial transition from disorder to order left behind no observable traces". Since the origin of life has never been observed, this is a major hurdle. We are left with the question "Is the origin of life by naturalistic processes possible?"  We can examine two areas; The success of scientists in creating life or the components of a living cell and second the probability that such an event could occur. Cells are made up of thousands of components. One of these components is protein. Proteins are large molecules made up of a chain of amino acids. In order to get a protein useful for life, the correct amino acids must be linked together in the right order. How easy is this and does it happen naturally? There are large hurdles that evolutionary process must overcome in order to build a biological protein. Protein molecules contain very specific arrangements of amino acids. Even one missing or incorrect amino acid can lead to problems with the protein's function. Let's go over some of the

parameters that affect the formation of a single protein. First, there are over 300 different types of amino acids. However, only 20 different amino acids are used in life. This means that in order to have life, the selection process for building proteins must be very discriminating. Second, each type of amino acid molecule comes in two shapes (left-handed and right handed forms). Only left handed amino acids are used in biological proteins; however, the natural tendency is for the left- and right-handed amino acid molecules to bond indiscriminately. Third, the various left-handed amino acids must bond in the correct order or the protein will not function properly. Fourth, if there was a pond of chemicals ("primordial soup"), it would have been diluted with many of the wrong types of amino acids and other chemicals available for bonding, making the proper amino acids no longer usable. Fifth, amino acids require an energy source for bonding. Raw energy from the sun needs to be captured and converted into usable energy. Where did the energy converter come from? It would require energy to build this biological machine. Sixth, proteins without the protection of the cell membrane would disintegrate in water (hydrolysis), disintegrate in an atmosphere containing oxygen, and disintegrate due to the ultraviolet rays

of the sun if there was no oxygen present to from the protective ozone layer. Natural selection cannot be invoked at the pre-biotic level. The first living cell must be in place before natural selection can function. Chance protein formation has always been accepted as a matter of faith by evolutionists. Amino Acids do not bond together to make proteins, they also require DNA to get the right amino acids. Where did DNA come from? The complexity and dimensions of the human body are staggering. The probability of assembling 60 trillion cells that form specific organs that all work together to form a single human being in the evolutionary time scale of 3.8 billion years is a giant leap of faith. I know I have skimmed the surface of cells, I kept this short because to go further into irreducibly complex organisms will take much more time and I am not sure if you are ready or interested to get into that. By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution, "Darwins black box" (I would suggest checking out the bacterial flagellum and ATP). Once again I do believe it will be your pride that keeps you from believing

anything I have to say, You have demonstrated this by tattooing the atheist symbol on your arm... strong commitment claiming to know without a shadow of a doubt that there is no God.

It appears you may have misunderstood my previous email. To prevent this from happening again I will be more than happy to respond to all of your statements. This will be lengthy but if you are truly interested in debate, I am sure you won’t mind.  I will also start with a definition.

Religion:  a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.

Atheism: the doctrine or belief that there is no god.

You sir have a “belief”, your religion (which I am positive you will oppose) is science. You “believe” that through science you will obtain knowledge of the “cause, nature, and purpose of the universe”. If you cannot see past the obvious logical statement here then there is a delusion issue but not on my part. 

“I'd believe we are just a alien experiment before there is a god because at least that has some ground compared to a god which reminds me of a good question to ask you”.

           

You don’t want there to be a God which is why you refuse to accept any evidence. This is quite sad because you are the type that even if presented 100% evidence for intelligent design you wouldn’t accept it which is once again not scientific or even mature.  You seem to be opposed what may potentially convict or change your mind; this is not a search for truth but is delusional. Though I feel to carry on may be pointless I will answer your question. God exists outside of time. Since we live in a universe of cause and effect, we naturally assume that this is the only way in which any kind of existence can function. However, the premise is false. Without the dimension of time, there is no cause and effect, and all things that could exist in such a realm would have no need of being caused, but would have always existed. Therefore, God has no need of being created, but, in fact, created the time dimension of our universe specifically for a reason so that cause and effect would exist for us. However, since God created time, cause and effect would never apply to His existence.  When Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose extended the equations for general relativity to include space and time, the results showed that time has a beginning at the moment of creation (i.e. the Big Bang). In fact, if you examine university websites, you will find that many professors make such a claim - that the universe had a beginning and that this beginning marked the beginning of time. Such assertions support the Bible's claim that time began at the creation of the universe.  God has no need to have been created, since He exists either outside time (where cause and effect do not operate) or within multiple dimensions of time (such that there is no beginning of God's plane of time). Hence God is eternal, having never been created. The only possible escape for the atheist is the invention of a kind of super universe, which can never be confirmed experimentally (hence it is metaphysical in nature and not scientific).

“You go off a idea that a things has always existed and on it's own created everything we know. This thing also controls the past present and future and can not be seen. There is not 1 shed of proof of this thing and when held to what we know about life and the universe is just plain silly”.

There is not one shred of evidence for alien’s but for some reason you would accept their existence over God’s… So far this is looking more like a grudge fed disbelief you hold. You have stated your view is flawed and that there are possible alternatives but you are completely against the possibility of God; this is a delusion (a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact).  Organisms are run by highly complex machines that are irreducibly complex which gradual evolution cannot explain.  Until you can give me logical and sound reason for your argument against Intelligent Design (which you have still failed to do) then it is not logically possible to say that you know without a shadow of a doubt that God does not exist. The real question is, are you a man of logic or do you wish to believe only what validates your comfort?

“As for life being meaningless if you actually feel the way you stated then you have a lot to learn still. Yes we are a accident of natural processes but life is not meaningless and your confusing a state of mind with something dealing with evolution. The only thing that matters is survival and that is what natural selection was about survive and those species that did flourished. Due to religion you have been pulled to the idea that life must have a meaning outside just surviving. As for Ethics with the process of science again we have shown that ethics are just a part of evolution. I’m more likely to survive if I have help so as a early animal I just learned to help and be helped. I can keep going but just wanted to show you again religion is not needed for ethics it just aids to survival the one and only thing that matters and was around before humans animals display ethics”.

I do very much so believe that Life has meaning but survival and natural selection does not explain ethics.  Friedrich Nietzsche, the great atheist of the last century who proclaimed the death of God, understood that the death of God meant the destruction of all meaning and value in life; I think that Friedrich Nietzsche was right. But we've got to be very careful here. The question here is not: Must we believe in God in order to live a moral life? I'm not claiming that we must. Nor is the question: Can we recognize objective moral values without believing in God? I think we can. Rather, the question is: If God does not exist, do objective moral values exist? I just don’t see any reason to think that in the absence of God the morality evolved by Homo sapiens is objective. After all, if there is no God, then what's so special about human beings? They're just accidental by-products of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust called the planet Earth, lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe, and which are doomed to perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time. On the atheistic view, some action, say, rape, may not be socially advantageous and so in the course of human development has become taboo. But that does absolutely nothing to prove that rape is really morally wrong. On the atheistic view, if you can escape the social consequences, there’s nothing really wrong with your raping someone. And thus without God there is no absolute right and wrong which imposes itself on our conscience. But the fact is that objective values do exist, and we all know it. There is no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of physical objects. Actions like rape, torture, child abuse-aren't just socially unacceptable behavior. They're moral abominations. Even Ruse himself (Michael Ruse, an atheist) admits, "The man who says it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says 2+2=5," Some things are really wrong. Similarly, love, equality, self-sacrifice are really good. But if objective values cannot exist without God and objective values do exist, then it follows logically and inescapably that God exists. Ethics is not naturally selected. In almost all mammalian societies (herbivorous herd animals, carnivorous dogs and cats), ethics are selected against. In other words, he who has the biggest teeth, strongest muscles, most aggressiveness, etc. gets to mate the most (even exclusively, in most cases within the herd/pack). Genetics always selects those individuals who can produce the most offspring. Being nice doesn't cut it! Virtually no other primate species displays any kind of ethics. A chimpanzee would never be offended if someone stole another chimp's food. They only get mad when somebody steals their food.

"As for the next things you bring up you still go on to attack my view as faith. You still lack to see that I go for the provable and if it’s flawed or not I’m ok with that. Science proves more than any religion can hope and it has at least a basis for it’s claim with this being proved to this being proved and so forth. Religion goes blindly with no proof and so does the idea of a god. You claim you need faith to believe and I agree you do need faith to believe because there is no evidence for your side so faith is required otherwise you see the flaws. I do like how you use science against science.

Thermodynamics is a branch of physics which deals with the energy and work of a system. As for law one I wish to ask what sources you have for the universe is losing energy because that’s a new one on me I did searching and found nothing m8. Thermodynamics is a process for closed systems so I don’t see how that has any relevance and I’ve seen this argument many times. You also seem to repeat the same things I hear in every argument about the tornado and such. Quotes from people don’t aid a person can say what they want but it’s whats provable that matters. Sorry even tho you disagree to the proof of what we “Currently know” about evolution and how it’s a proven process through experimentation.."

Religion is a set of beliefs my friend. You have a belief that the entire universe and life itself arose by chance… Not one person on the planet in their right mind will say that they have 100% infallible evidence that God does not exist. If you do “believe” you know 100% that I hate to say but that is a delusion you hold.  The 1st law of thermodynamics can be explained here, Hint: Einstein discovered it.

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6e.html 

The 2nd law of thermodynamics follows I would have assumed you figured this out in basic chemistry. If we must review this we can at your discretion but I will continue. As far as experimentation with evolution only variation has been discovered between species. Yes there have been genetically altered species but macroevolution has never been seen. These so called transitional fossils are not so transitional. They are full forms of separate species.

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin acknowledged that the fossil record presented difficulties for his theory. “By the theory of natural selection,” he wrote, “all living species have been connected with the parent-species of each genus, by differences not greater than we see between the natural and domestic varieties of the same species at the present day.” Thus in the past “the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great.” But Darwin knew that the major animal groups, which modern biologists call “phyla” appeared fully formed in what were at the time the earliest known fossil-bearing rocks, deposited during a geological period known as the Cambrian. He considered this a “serious” difficulty for his theory, since “if the theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods elapsed… and that during these vast periods the world swarmed with living creatures. And to the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.  So the case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained. Darwin defended his theory by citing the imperfection of the geological record. In particular, he argued that Precambrian fossils had been destroyed by heat, pressure, and erosion. Some of Darwin’s modern followers have likewise argued that Precambrian fossils existed but were later destroyed, or that Precambrian organisms were too small or too soft to have fossilized in the first place. Since 1859, however, paleontologists have discovered many Precambrian fossils, many of them microscopic or soft-bodied. As American paleobiologist William Schopf wrote in 1994, “The long-held notion that Precambrian organisms must have been too small or too delicate to have been preserved in geological materials, is now recognized as incorrect.” If anything, the abrupt appearance of the major animal phyla about 540 million years ago, which modern biologists call “the Cambrian explosion” or “biology’s Big Bang” is better documented now than in Darwin’s time. According to Berkeley paleontologist James Valentine and his colleagues, the “explosion is real, it is too big to be masked by flaws in the fossil record.” Indeed, as more fossils are discovered it becomes clear that the Cambrian explosion was “even more abrupt and extensive than previously envisioned.”

“My whole argument I’ve been trying to place is that yes my side is flawed only due to what we currently know because new things are discovered daily. Your religion fails at all tests of a rational argument requiring proof. Evolution is a proven process due to experiments and we know somewhat how the universe started. These both contradict the need for a god yes flawed but still provable with a lot to learn which I don’t mind. We currently know this we currently know that later we will know more about it later and move past that as for now no religion can hold a true statement so if anything you can believe a god exists but your religion is made up. As I said before I don’t claim to know everything science doesn’t claim 100% that it was the big bang because there are other ideas scientifically based. You on the other hand claim 100% proof of everything and how it came to be. I can prove my side to what we know and what it claims but you cannot prove any claims on your side unless it’s by a process that requires no proof like a philosophical discussion”.

Simply stating that evolution is proven process does not validate your argument.  We have discussed how the Miller/Urey experiment cuts its knees out from under itself and still you have not provided adequate evidence of species turning into different species. So proof does not look to be on your side if unable to present it. I claim no proof I believe in a transcending creator who holds all the answers to his creation. The intelligent design movement distinguishes natural cause and intelligent. We see this in irreducible complexity, functional complexity, and specified complexity (see also the moral argument, the teleological argument, and the cosmological argument). I have faith in God; Yes Human salvation demands the divine disclosure of truths surpassing reason. You have faith proof will eventually substantiate your claim. I have faith that the more we study the complexity of life the more we see the fingerprint of God place all over it. I can tell by the way you respond to my statements that you don’t want there to be a God. You would prefer aliens before even considering it. You have committed yourself prematurely to a belief that there is no god without sufficient evidence, which is dangerous. I will be more than happy to address why I believe in creation vs. evolution.  There are many reasons beyond science why I believe in God. You don’t want to be wrong; I know this because when I was a proud atheist there was nothing anyone could tell me to believe otherwise. I had to accept being wrong through some big change in my life. I am more than happy to cut through all the skepticism just need to give me the arguments.

Science is not bias however Scientists on the other hand....

"Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved logically by coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible".
-David Meredith Seares Watson

"Evolution is unproved and unprovable, we believe it because the only alternative is special creation, which is unthinkable".
-Sir Arthur Keith

"It doesnt matter if all the evidence supports intelligent design and contradicts naturalistic evolution, Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because its not naturalistic".-Dr. Scott Todd

"The only alternative to evolution is is the doctrine of special creation, which may be true but is irrational."
-L.T. More

"We find that while Intelligent design arguments may be true, Intelligent Design is not science".
-U.S. Dist Judge John Jones.

How can the truth be irrational and unscientific....?

Truth should be the the objective in any search. The odds of mankind evolving from a "primordial soup" are astronomically improbable. As we search in further detail science is revealing just how complex we are, from the most basic of cells to man. God's fingerprint is all over the place. Laws come from a lawgiver, information comes from an informer, messages come from messengers, creation comes from a Creator. I understand it takes faith on both sides of the fence. An honest search for truth means being willing and ready to accept what it may be. Truth is real, dont allow others to discourage your search and tell you its not obtainable. Jeremiah 29:13 "'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart". If anyone would like to speak more on this in detail, I will be more than happy to at your convenience

Does Absolute Truth exist?

Matt

I believe that Truth does in fact exist. I believe it is impossible to state that truth is relative without making an absolute statement. Though a simple discussion unfortunately convincing complex arguments are made that state otherwise.

 

Opponent

 

The problem with the question "does truth exist?" is that it can only be answered within a framework that assumes the existence of truth. If one says "truth exists", what they are really saying is "truly, truth exists", and when someone says "truth does not exist", what they are really saying is "truly, truth does not exist", or "truth has a truth-value of zero", a contradiction not just of terms but of logic. If this point is answered by saying, "how do I know that logic is true?", we can see that the disbeliever of truth has it all ahead of them: if one does not believe in truth, one does not believe in logic, and, of necessity, nothing can be believed. We must concede that truth exists if we are to do or think anything. The exact nature of this truth is another matter, but truth undoubtedly exists.

The only way my opponent can win this debate is if he can prove their is a fact that has been verified and it is complete. Meaning he has to prove that it is not relative to opinion or situation. He has to prove their is a truth that can apply to every single situation regardless. I will offer up some common misconceptions of truth to show my opponent this is impossible

"Everybody Breathes"
Not dead people, you have to be talking relative to the living.

"Everything is in the Universe"
It hasn't been proved, for all we know their might be a Heaven or Hell outside the Universe, this idea would depend on who you are talking too.

I challenge my opponent to come up with a single "absolute truth" that is not relative to the people or humans that agree with the truth. Essentially, a truth that will be universally accepted on by every little thing which would complete the ideas of a "Complete fact that has been verified". If I can find even one way to prove his truth wrong by showing a group of people that disagree or do not accept this fact, than it is not a complete truth.

Further more their is an extra burden on the Pro; if I do not accept a single one of his truths as a human myself than he has already loss as of right now, because he has a truth that is not accepted completely by all people, because I disagree .

So my opponent to win this debate, has to prove an absolute truth exists without me successfully refuting it and it has to be a truth that I am willing to accept, or else he has not proved that their is a truth that is not relative to a person.

 

Matt

 

I'd First like to thank my opponent for accepting this discussion. I hope I may address all proposed arguments to both my opponent and the peoples satisfaction.

I'd like to start off stating that we sub-consciously demand truth daily. Not always is the full truth given whether it be lack of information or present understanding, there is a desire in us to find it. I believe perceptions of truth are subjective but truth in itself is not. A simple absolute truth would be (and this is very simple). Today at least two people wore shoes to work today. Now this statement may seem like little to no thought was put into but it demonstrates two things. First, even though evidence is not provided with the statement it is accepted because logically speaking shoes are necessary for many job occupations. Second, this statement is absolutely true seeing how I witnessed at least two people where shoes to work today. Another absolute truth is the sun provides necessary raw energy for photosynthesis, this has been proven through science. We know that logic exists because we use logic to determine whether or not logic exists. It would be illogical to state that that a scientifucally testible process is only relatively true to those who decide to embrace it and false to those who simply dont believe. It is important to mention that truth is not an attitude. Truth is not how we know, truth is what we know. Besides the problem with self-contradiction, there are several other logical problems one must overcome to believe that there is no absolute or universal truths. One is that all humans have limited knowledge and finite minds and, therefore cannot logically make absolute negative statements. If there is no absolute truth , no standard of right and wrong than we are that we are accountable to, then we can never be sure of anything. People would be free to do whatever they want (murder, rape, steal, lie etc.) and no one could say those things would truly be wrong. To argue against something is to establish that a truth exists. You cannot argue against absolute truth unless an absolute truth is the basis of your argument. The burden lies on my opponent to provide an argument for obvious evidence for the following absolute truth statements.

The outcome of absolute truth cannot be a lie.

This debate is written in a language the opponents can understand.

Energy can be transformed from one form to the other, but cannot be created or destroyed.

 

 

Opponent

 

What is absolute truth?
A: Absolute truth is something that is true regardless of the context (this definition is subject to change).

•For example we can say that "parallel lines never intersect", but this is only true in the context of Euclidian geometry. Even though it is a math-thing, it is not an absolute truth.
•Another example is "1+1=2", it is a bit more difficult to counter. The statement is true if '+' means "add two numbers", but it could also mean "concatenate", so the result would be "11".
•Try to prove that "1+1=2" without first defining '2' as the next integer after '1'; if you can't, then why not "1+1=3"? (for very large values of '1' :-)
Follow up:

As you can see, playing with math doesn't automatically make you right. The weakest link here is the fact that we use our language as a communication tool, and the language is filled with backdoor, kludges and other things that make our existence a bit difficult. Synonyms, homonym's, homophones - they add ambiguity to a world which has enough uncertainty of its own...

Sometimes we can use language to "prove" something; but the fact that a statement sounds nice in a human language, does not make it more credible. Consider the sentence "Absolute truth does not exist". Something cannot be true and false at the same time, but the problem with this sentence is that if it is true, it is false; sounds like a self-contradiction.

What's the catch? The catch is that if there is absolute truth, it does not necessarily mean that the sentence "Absolute truth does not exist" is one of those absolute truths. So, even if this nifty linguistic trick looks cool on paper, it does not make sense in the real world.

Absolute truth cannot be expressed in words
This will result in the projection of the concept upon our vocabulary, a process that implies the fact that some input information will be lost, therefore there is no guarantee that we will be able to reconstruct the original concept having read its description in words. Think of it as drawing a 3D object on a sheet of paper (you get the projection of 3D on 2D). The vocabulary can be limited, lacking words that represent certain concepts; moreover, words can make a sentence ambiguous.

Even if we use symbols, their definition can vary too (ex: '+' means "add" or "concatenate"; it means 'OR' if we're in the realm of Boolean algebra; while in the case of "Mary+John=Love" the '+' means something entirely different).

Once we accept the idea that words cannot be used to express absolute truth, the problem of "Absolute truth does not exist" is solved, and so is "1+1=2".

Therefore my opponent suggesting this topic for debate fails in turn his case fails.

 

Matt

 

It does not appear that my opponent wishes to refute the proposed absolute truths in my previous argument. I would agree that if one had no understanding of math and looked at the equation of 1+1 there would be a variety of possible incorrect answers. The response then could be that it is absolutely true that 1+1 does not always equal 2. Through understanding of basic math symbols and logic we are able to formulate answers that are in fact absolutely true. We know if one pencil is added to a box which contains only one other pencil in it, logically speaking there are now 2 pencils in the box which is a greater number of pencils than a box with only one pencil in it. I believe language is a tool of communication that describes  truth but it does not prove it. You say something cannot be true and false at the same time which I agree with. A contradicting statement does not validate that absolute truth does not exist. You can't logically argue that against the existence of absolute truth. To argue against something is to establish that a truth exists. Reality is absolute whether you feel like being cogent or not. I have placed in my previous discussion a few "real world" absolute truths. I urge my opponent to refute them in order to validate his argument.

My oppenent later forfieted this discussion

 

Answering Atheists 2

“Being an atheist does not require any faith, because it is impossible to 'believe' in nothing. When we are born, our minds are a blank slate. This state requires no effort to be in. The concept of god(s) are added later, at which point you require faith to take you away from your initial position of intellectual rest. Believing in something requires faith. Not believing in something requires nothing”.

Religion:  a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.

Atheism: the doctrine or belief that there is no god.

When an atheist makes the absolute statement “There is no God” he/she would have to claim to know everything about the universe and having witnessed everything there is to be seen. I know there isn’t one (reasonable) atheist out there who would make such a claim however this is simply what they are stating when they announce that God absolutely does not exist. Simply because a child doe has no knowledge of airplanes when they are born has no bearing on the validity of whether or not airplanes exist.   The atheist must also propose a solution in which inanimate matter alone develops information. If you receive a fax from someone it is reasonable to believe that a chemical process allowed the ink to bond to paper but the information only comes from an informer. This information is packed in DNA in such an intricate fashion that even if given the allowed time chance simply doesn’t cut it. I believe the atheist demonstrates great faith to “believe” in the theory of evolution vs. creation.

Answering Atheists

The problem here is that the deist, errors in thinking that in discarding a god, one needs do so by having faith in something else. When I stopped believing in Santa as a child, I simply came to the conclusion that this entity did not exist because there was no evidence to the contrary. This is despite the fact that his image was everywhere during xmas season and many people continued to behave as if he were real. Therefore, I submit that I do not believe in a god that created the universe the same way he doesn't believe in an elf that delivers presents. Consequently, disbelief in this case is an act of reason, not faith.

Response

Id like to start off by saying that science and God cannot be proven 100%. It takes faith in both areas. Facts and theories can be presented on both sides but it narrows down to faith in the end. A person has faith in the law of gravity but cannot prove it 100% (because he/she has not seen everything rise and fall). I have not seen God but I have faith that He does in fact exist by evidence and how He reveals himself through creation. An Atheist puts faith in his decision when he decides whether to believe in an intelligent design or chance. Now you may say hold the phone turbo we have proof that evolution is clean cut evidence for the beginning of existence. I must first mention that in order for something to evolve is must already exist. So what was it that initiated the existence of the universe? Einstein contemporary, Arthur Eddington once said “The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural”. We cannot say the universe began by natural causes because nothing existed there was no nature so whatever did cause a beginning must have been supernatural. If you look up supernatural in the dictionary you will find of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal. In his book “The case for Faith” Lee Strobel writes “ The statistical odds of developing even the most basic living cell by chance are astronomical”. Walter Bradley also points out that, “it takes about 100 of the right amino acids lined up in the right manner to make one protein molecule. And that’s just the first step. Creating one protein molecule doesn’t mean you’ve created life. Now you have to bring together a collection of protein molecules-maybe 200 of them- with just the right functions to get one typical living cell. The mathematical odds of assembling a living organism are so astronomical that no body still believes that random chance accounts for the origin of life.” There is written code and message all over DNA, and these codes communicate with others to properly pass on genetic information to other cells. The chances of this happening by chance can be compared to tornado running through a junkyard and assembles a Boeing 747... A theist has faith that God began and maintains the universe just as an Atheist believes in no God and chooses to believe the material world is the only one. I ask you which takes more faith to believe chance or intelligent design. I urge you to use logic and reasoning and not emotion. Truth stands whether you believe in it or not.  

The Possibility of God vs Evolution

Matt

In a few previous debates I have had, one of the most unfortunate issues was keeping the discussion completely on the possibility of a Creator. I have debated a few atheists who were kind of "all over the place" wanting to debate topically on all subjects (Scripture, Jesus, controversies of the Bible, etc.) while what I was really looking for was an honest discussion of The possibility of a Creator (God) vs. The alternative's whether it be evolution or even aliens (yes I have had that proposed to me before). If one does not believe in a God then they will never believe in what the Bible has to say about Him. I personally believe that everyone is at the very least agnostic, reason being we that we have a very limited understanding of the universe that the possibility of a God still comes into play unless we have proven with evidence that there is no possible way He can exist. I am not sure where or how you would like to start off but I am looking forward to your responses.

Caroline

So basically I think you are saying you want a debate focused on evolution only. That is what I have been waiting for. I just don't understand how you can't look at the facts and evidence and go, okay these scientists have a pretty dang good point....

Matt

Well, I will start off by stating that I agree with you that scientist's who propose evolution as the means of how we came about do make strong points. Unfortunately that's where it stops. The way I have always looked at things is before a theory can only be considered sound or reasonable its premise must first be. I use to believe strongly that evolution was the best explanation for what we see today (I didn't want there to be a God). Over time through studying both in classes and on my own the weight was starting to shift towards the possibility of a Creator vs. chance. Many evolutionists look at Stanley Miller's Experiment for creating life by natural process the problem was it wasn't so natural. I am sure you are familiar with the experiment.

I have studied this experiment and even if given billions of years it is still dangerously flawed. Miller's construction of sending a bolt of electricity into this container filled with carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor excludes oxygen, why? Because oxygen will oxidize amino acids and destroy them. Even in an early earth if there were no atmosphere then ultraviolet rays would destroy the amino acids. You must also factor in hydrolysis which is the decomposition of a chemical compound by reaction with water. Now yes he did create some amino acids but it was only because he was able to suck them down into a chamber where the electric current couldn't fry them if they sat there. Where in the primitive earth would you find such a contraption? It would be like saying a bolt of electricity struck a river bank and made clay, and that clay had the texture and form of a brick, then saying that raw energy could create the empire state building. The few amino acids that were found were 50% racemic where 100% purity is essential. 99% of the compounds were toxic.

Before applying mathematics and probability to the origin of life, we need to consider seven parameters that will affect the formation of a single protein. First, there are over 300 different types of amino acids. However, only 20 different amino acids are used in life. This means, that in order to have life, the selection process for building proteins must be very discriminating. Second, each type of amino acid molecule comes in two shapes commonly referred to as right-handed and left-handed forms. Only left-handed amino acids are used in biological proteins; however, the natural tendency is for left- and right handed amino acid molecules to bond indiscriminately. Third, the various left-handed amino acids must bond in the correct order or the protein will not function properly. Fourth, if there was a pond of chemicals ("primordial soup"), it would have been diluted with many of the wrong types of amino acids and other chemicals available for bonding, making the proper amino acids no longer usable. This means there would have been fewer of the required amino acids used to build the biological protein. Fifth, amino acids require an energy source for bonding. Raw energy from the sun needs to be captured and converted into usable energy. Where did the energy converter come from? It would require energy to build this biological machine. However, before this energy converter can capture raw energy, it needs an energy source to build it, a catch-22 situation. Sixth, proteins without protection of the cell membrane would disintegrate in water (hydrolysis), disintegrate in an atmosphere containing oxygen and disintegrate due to ultraviolet rays of the sun if there was no oxygen present to form the protective ozone layer. Seventh, natural selection cannot be invoked at the pre-biotic level. The first living cell must be in place before natural selection can function. Considering all seven of these hurdles, how probable is it that a single protein that a single protein could have evolved from a pool of chemicals? Stanley Millers Experiment for some reason is still held as the most accepted means of how life began. Unfortunately it seems that this theory is being held on to not by science but by a materialistic worldview.  Here are

a few quotes from famous evolutionists and scientists.  It appears that though science is unbiased, many scientists on the other hand are.

"It doesn't matter if all the evidence supports intelligent design and contradicts naturalistic evolution, Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it's not naturalistic". -Dr. Scott Todd

"The only alternative to evolution is the doctrine of special creation, which may be true but is irrational."

-L.T. More

"Evolution is unproved and improvable; we believe it because the only alternative is special creation, which is unthinkable".

-Sir Arthur Keith

"We find that while intelligent design arguments may be true, Intelligent Design is not science".

-U.S. Dist Judge John Jones

How can the truth be irrational and unscientific....?

Truth should be the objective in any search. The odds of mankind evolving from a "primordial soup" are astronomically improbable. As we search in further detail science is revealing just how complex we are, from the most basic of cells to man. God's fingerprint is all over the place. Laws come from a lawgiver, information comes from an informer, messages come from messengers, creation comes from a Creator. I understand it takes faith on both sides of the fence.

Caroline

I actually have no idea what the Stanley Miller Experiment is. I love science and everything, but I have just never heard of it before. I wikipedia'd it to get a little background info to understand what you were talking about. I think he didn't include oxygen in his experiment because there was little to no oxygen in the atmosphere at the time the earth came to existence 4.5 billion years ago.  And doesn't the bible say that the earth is like only 6,000 years old? There is a crap load of evidence to support otherwise. And if the bible isn't right on everything, what makes you believe in an almost more insane idea that humans appeared out of thin air and were talking to snakes. If this isn't meant to be taken "literally" why is it in there? It obviously is true, just like every single word in the bible (sarcastic). I think the idea of a mutated cell some 3.5 billion years ago that branched off into eukaroytes and what not which evolved into worms and jellyfish and fish which evolved into land animals and then the different kinds of species evolving like wildfire makes so much more sense than the other less factual route.

Matt

Even though I was hoping to keep this debate focused on the possibility of God over evolution I will respond to each of your proposed arguments in later discussions if need be. Like I said previously if you do not believe that God is truly the creator of the universe than it goes without saying you will not believe the truths about Him. You have a materialistic worldview so anything that presents itself as supernatural is prematurely looked at as illogical. Nature did not exist before the beginning of the universe, therefore a natural explanation is not logically possible for its origin. It must have been a supernatural (beyond nature) cause which brought the universe into existence.  I am not sure how familiar you are with abiogeneis; it's the theory that under proper conditions life can arise spontaneously from non living molecules. If abiogeneis is impossible (or extremely unlikely) than it would go without saying that naturalism is impossible. Darwin himself recognized the problems his theory faced when dealing with abiogeneis. Researchers and scientists know that some oxygen was present throughout primordial earth because it contained water vapor. Photo dissociation of water in the atmosphere produces oxygen. Also in the Precambrian geological strata we find many oxidized materials. Miller also used UV experiment but only a select wavelength to produce amino acids because he knew that other wavelengths would destroy amino acids, both wavelengths (chemical-destroying and chemical-building) exists in sunlight. The delicate amino acids readily break down under natural sunlight. The only reason why the chemicals (and toxic to life I might add) survived was because he built a vacuum to suck them immediately into a contraption where they were protected from the radiation. I don't want to go too far into detail because I am afraid it would take up too much necessary time. Unfortunately for evolutionists Miller's experiment was a lot of "intelligently designed" contraptions that still could not produce functional amino acids. Mutations are frequently observed in science and are observed to be harmful because it is a loss of information or damaged information and not increased information or an addition of traits. I do believe in variation between species because we see this not only in the natural environment but also in labs. Never has macroevolution taken place (major evolutionary transition from one type of organism to another occurring at the level of the specie) in either labs or the natural environment. In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin acknowledged that the fossil record presented difficulties for his theory. "By the theory of natural selection," he wrote, "all living species have been connected with the parent-species of each genus, by differences not greater than we see between the natural and domestic varieties of the same species at the present day." Thus in the past "the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great." But Darwin knew that the major animal groups, which modern biologists call "phyla" appeared fully formed in what were at the time the earliest known fossil-bearing rocks, deposited during a geological period known as the Cambrian. He considered this a "serious" difficulty for his theory, since "if the theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods elapsed. and that during these vast periods the world swarmed with living creatures, " And to the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer".  So the case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained”.  Gradual evolution also is unable to explain irreducibly complex organisms.  A single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. As far as the age of the earth I am still studying the facts presented  but later I will put together my proposal  of evidence for a potentially young earth.  There are many things evolution cannot explain including morals which we can take on as well if you wish. I am looking forward to your responses and hope that the facts presented will remove some of  the skepticism between really knowing God .

Caroline

Maybe it would help you some to know some of my background. Both of my parents are christian, like yourself, and I was raised the same. When I was little, I went along with it because hey, if I wasn't good, I was going to spend eternity in hell. What 7 year old wants to do that? 

So I my parents had me take religious education classes every thursday and I can tell you they were not the most enjoyable thing. Then one day my we come home from  religious classes (also known as CCD) and my sister was like our teacher told us that the earth and everything on it was made in seven days. Then one student was like, how do you explain dinosaurs? At that small of an age I immediatly caught on to the idea that the things in the bible don't make sense. I started asking questions that my ccd teachers didn't know the answer to (like why would god make gay people if he hates them so much?) being a teacher and not knowing the answer to what you are teaching isn't a very well thought out plan. When I got older I started looking at the bible in new ways and was like what was this person smoking when they wrote this? Religion was being shoved down my throat and I did not like it. By the time I was old enough to be confirmed, I was an athiest, but my mom made me do it anyway. So yeah. That's basically why I don't believe and looking at science over the years has just been the way that makes the most sense to me. I think religion is complete bull. But to refute some of your things:

You said that abiogenesis is "extremely unlikely" that is not the same as impossible. Yeah it might be close but it is definatly not the same. Thinking about how long the universe has been around is mind blowing. And thinking of how long it must have been around before the big bang is to hard for me to comprehend. Which is why that in the however hundreds of billions or hundreds of trillions of years space has been around, the "extremely unlikely" becomes alot more likely. 

Science is saying that within billions of years, all it took was one single cell to have a slight mutation to be able to evolve into life as we know it today. Extremely unlikely would be an over exaggeration unless if it was a condensed time period, for instance one year. And not only did it only take one mutated cell, that doesn't mean that that cell was made and 10 minutes later it sprouted legs and started walking around. No. It took about a billion years for the next forms of life to become present in aquatic life.

And your saying all mutations are harmful and not useful? I'll admit that not all mutations are for the better good. For instance, my "genetic mutation" (as my awful science teacher called it) for me to be almost completely blind in one eye does not help me for the greater good. But going back in time mutations were what made natural selection possible. A mutated fish with a few extra bones in it's fin reprodoced to have desendants which reproduced making this feature a teeny bit more enhanced every time, until there was tiktaalik roseae. 

The half reptile, half fish. I don't know how you could get god to explain this for you, but that's the truth on how it happened. And of course Darwin didn't like talking about fossil evidence, and wasn't to keen on the idea back then because it was in the 1800's when fossils weren't as common as they are now. Scientists have found less than 1% of all the fossils ever, but that's still enough to start to see that it is true that there are species that slowly but surely transform and branch into Other species. That's why he couldn't give a "satisfactory answer" as to why there weren't fossils of cambrian times, because they simply hadn't been found yet. Now we have a superior amount of fossils that date way before that time period, and that help better explain evolution.

And evolution doesn't happen where things just grow a vital organ or a brain so you can't say, take out a human brain and it can't function without it so humans didn't come from monkeys. That would be saying if humans came from monkeys, that means they don't have brains. How idiotic does that sound? Evolution is the contributing factor to make individual things more complex so the individual can survive life easier. If you think back to a few million years ago when apes were transforming into humans, the evolution process made our brains bigger, to obtain more knowledge, it wasn't just like -this monkey has a mutation of a brain. It's hard to explain, but the whole  "A single system composed of several well-matched,

> interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the

> removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease

> functioning." thing just doesn't make sense at all.

Matt

Well, I must say I am glad you no longer believe in that god. The unfortunate end is the perception you grew of the Christian God at such a young age in your life. I do believe you are correct; many parents press so much religion into their children (too quickly and not in depth) that it does in fact push them away from it. I don’t doubt one bit that you found those classes to be futile and tedious. However, simply because clarification could not have been provided for your questions and concerns there is little reason to discredit a belief. It would be like asking someone what’s on the other side of the moon, and if that question is not answered according to your timely fashion than you would assume that there is nothing on the other side of the moon. I also agree with you that I do believe a lot of religion is false, however I do believe in both and absolute/objective truth along with absolute/objective morals which can only be found by a transcendent foundation that man did not create. There is not one scripture in the Bible where God says He hates gay people, I am not sure where you found this or who taught this but it is false, secondly God has never made people to be gay. The human X and Y chromosomes (the two “sex” chromosomes) have been completely sequenced. Thanks to work carried out by labs all across the globe, we know that the X chromosome contains 153 million base pairs, and harbors a total of 1168 genes (see NCBI, 2004). The National Center for Biotechnology Information reports that the Y chromosome which is much smaller contains “only” 50 million base pairs, and is estimated to contain a mere 251 genes. Educational institutions such as Baylor University, the Max Planck Institute, the Sanger Institute, Washington University in St. Louis, and others have spent countless hours and millions of research dollars analyzing these unique chromosomes. As the data began to pour in, they allowed scientists to construct gene maps—using actual sequences from the Human Genome Project. And yet, neither the map for the X nor the Y chromosome contains any “gay gene.” Prior to 1973, homosexuality appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the official reference book used by the American Psychiatric Association for diagnosing mental disorders in America and throughout much of the rest of the world. Homosexuality was considered a sickness that doctors routinely treated. In 1973, however, it was removed as a sexual disorder, based on the claim that it did not fulfill the “distress and social disability” criteria that were used to define a disorder. Today, there is no mention of homosexuality in the DSM-IV (aside from a section describing gender identity disorder), indicating that individuals with this condition are not suitable candidates for therapy (see American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Physicians treating patients for homosexuality (to bring about a change in sexual orientation) frequently are reported to ethics committees in an attempt to have them cease. Homosexuality is created through environmental effects on an individual’s life. Time and time again, scientists have claimed that particular genes or chromosomal regions are associated with behavioral traits, only to withdraw their findings when they were not replicate. It appears that the gay gene will be added to this category of un-replicated claims. The real issue here is homosexual actions that society has deemed immoral and, in many instances, illegal. Since no study has firmly established an underlying genetic cause for homosexuality, arguments suggesting “equal rights” are both baseless and illogical Natural selection postulates that those genetic mutations that favor survival and reproduction will be selected, whereas those that compromise survival and reproduction will be eliminated. Obviously, a gene or series of genes that produce non-reproducing individuals (i.e., those who express pure homosexual behavior) will be rapidly eliminated from any population. So, it would be expected that any "gay gene" would be efficiently removed from a population. If you would like to go into more detail we can but we have clear evidence that there is no such thing as a “gay” gene. You don’t even have to be a Christian to discover this.

It is apparent that you turned away from your faith at such a young age because by Gods grace through Jesus every sin (past present and future) has been wiped away. When we believe in Jesus and give our lives to him than whatever sin we have committed has been paid for, so now simply because you did bad things you would not spend and eternity in hell. Many misunderstandings have been made by both new believers and skeptics while reading OT laws. There is massive amounts of manuscripts which support the accuracy and validity of the Bible; even non-biblical scholars provide evidence not to mention all of the archeological evidence. The NT was written 40-100 AD and the earliest copy found was 125 AD which is a span of 25 years, we have 5,686 copies. The runner up is Homer’s Iliad written in 9^th century BC the earliest copy found was in 400 BC which is a 500 year span with only 643 copies. The number difference is huge. The Bible is an extremely accurate historical book that has yet to be refuted. When read at face value then yes it would appear to contain contradictions but they have all been clarified with careful evaluation.

I’d like to quote Paul Davies who is an evolutionist who states “Biological information is not encoded in the laws of physics and chemistry, and it cannot come into existence spontaneously. There is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing”. There are things that are irreducibly complex (bacterial flagellum) how does gradual evolution explain this. A quick quote from microbiologist Michael Behe “Like a mechanical motor, each part in the flagellar motor is absolutely necessary for the whole to function. Therefore, I couldn't logically deduce any naturalistic, gradual, evolutionary explanation for the existence of a bacterial flagellum. Besides, no one would expect an outboard motor, whether mechanical or biological, to be the product of a chance assemblage of parts. Outboard motors are designed and engineered.  There are 20 different kinds of amino acids that are used to construct the proteins of all living organisms, including man. The average person consists of a string of 500 amino acids. The total number of combinations of 20 different amino acids in such a string is, for all practical purposes unlimited. Each protein in our body however must contain a specific sequence of amino acids if it is to function properly. I urge you to take an honest look at the probability and see if gradual evolution is still a reasonable argument.
The 500 amino acids that make up an average sized protein can be arranged in over 1 x 10^600 different ways (one followed by 600 zeroes). If we had a computer that could rearrange the 500 amino acids of a particular protein at the rate of a billion combinations in a second, we would still stand essentially no chance of hitting the correct combination for biological things to operate they need genetic information. My question to you is where did the information of DNA come from how did it arise in the first place. Lots of people have wanted to explain the origin of information by reference to the laws of physics and chemistry or by reference of chemical properties of the constituent parts of the DNA. That would be like saying that you could explain the information in the morning paper by reference to the physics and chemistry of ink bonding to paper. There is a chemical explanation as to why the ink sticks to the paper but that does not explain the way the ink got arranged to convey a message that could be understood by speakers of English language.  Information requires a material medium but it does transcend the material medium.

As far as the fossil record goes there is no evidence of transitional fossils. Even Stephen J Gould and evolutionist admits “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology, the evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips of the nodes of their branches; the rest is inference,  however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils”.  We see only fully formed species with variation but no evidence of species evolving into other species. This is a large topic on its own so If you would like to go into more detail we can.