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Originally Posted by Ristaron
With every new scientific discovery, a hole is plugged and "God" shrinks a little bit more. This "God of the Gaps" has long been recognized by those of us in the scientific community who are moderately far-sighted as condemned to one day be reduced to nothing. That's why we don't believe in Intelligent Design.
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I understand what you mean by the God of the Gaps but the thing is that I've never prescribed to the "Oh, I don't understand that. God must have done it." type of religion. Frankly that sort of reasoning should never have existed in the first place. Yes we are making massive leaps in bound in understanding the natural world around us, but that does not prove in any way that it isn't God that's behind it. It just lets us understand how those various natural processes work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ristaron
There are two major flaws in your understanding of evolution that I easily point out in this paragraph. The first is the notion of "macro-evolution" occurring naturally. Simply put, macro-evolution is nothing more than the missing pieces in the fossil record. These missing pieces are bound to happen; consider it. Five thousand years from now, do you think the bones in the local cemetery will still be there? How about ten thousand years from now? Twenty? Do you know that anatomically modern humans, according to carbon-dating, have been around for one hundred thousand years? Apply this knowledge to considering how many fossils of previous forms of hominoids have been recovered. A handfull. These are fossils that are up to a million years old, sometimes over!
It's not that we disregard theories, we consider them for their validity, certainly, but most of the time it's all the same Intelligent Design stuff that's been scientifically disproven.
The second is the incorrect notion that evolution always makes the evolved form better fit for the environment. Every gene has two parts that code for different things. Occasionally you'll find that one trait that makes the species better fit overall, but it also introduces a rather useless feature that tagged along because it was on the same gene.
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I don't quite understand what you mean by macro evolution not occurring naturally. And to be perfectly honest, I am in fairly over my head in this area. That being said, from what I understand about carbon dating (I'm assuming you mean carbon-14) it's only real effective range is between 500 and 25000 years. That being said, I agree that yours is a perfectly acceptable theory for why there are so many missing links.
I'm not particularly sure what the second part has to do with what I said. Are you saying that the accumulation of useless features just happened to occur in such a way that they became useful?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ristaron
I assume that you're talking about Buddhism, where you must succeed at one level to pass to the next on the ladder to enlightenment? If I'm right, you certainly do have it wrong -- they are supportive of each other in their quest for enlightenment.
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No, that's not what I meant. I can see where you would get that though. I wasn't terribly clear. I meant that within all other religions that I've encountered the idea that comes that you have to do all the work yourself. I'm not saying that others on the same path won't be supportive or even helpful, but it's still you that has to achieve whatever end the religion is trying to bring you to. It would be both ridiculous and stupid to assume that other's wouldn't be willing or able to help you further along.
I apologize for any lack of clarity on my part.