Definitely no God of the bible and its version of Creation.
Evolution or Creation Poll
by Vanderhoven7 81 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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cofty
Evolution is NOT atheism.
The vast majority of christians accept the fact of evolution and manage to reconcile it with their faith. Many scientists who work in biology, genetics and paleontology are christians.
We have sixteen people on this forum who are bad theologians.
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hooberus
Evolution is NOT atheism.
Without Evolution what are atheists left with to “explain” biological design, and complexity?
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cofty
Without Evolution what are atheists left with to “explain” biological design, and complexity? - Hooby
Why is explain in scare quotes Hooby?
Let me clarify for you - It is not necessary for a theist to reject the fact of evolution. Millions of christians simply accept that biological evolution is as well established as the shape of planet earth. The earth is not flat; evolution is a fact. These two statements are equal in veracity.
Evolution is a necessary but not a sufficient idea for atheism.
Evolution-denial is not a necessary position to be a bible-believing christian.
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slimboyfat
When I read The Blind Watchmaker in 1999 it convinced me evolution was a better explanation than I had read in the blue Creation book.
However The Blind Watchmaker also stated that acquired characteristics could not be passed on. This was a heresy called Lamarckism that had been rooted out in the nineteenth century.
Ten years later and acquired characteristics had made a comeback under the name epigenetics.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong
Who knows what we currently believe that may need to be replaced in light of further discoveries and reflection? We can’t predicted the ways in which Darwinian evolution may need to be revised or replaced with a better theory.
Convergence calls into question the idea that evolution is not planned or that it could turn out radically differently. Consciouness challenges a purely materialist conception of reality. For many, fine tuning points to someone transcendent. And human exceptionalism calls to mind the idea that there is purpose in our predicament.
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cofty
The significance of epigenetics is often massively overstated in popular science. I have a book here by Nessa Carey called The Epigenetic Revolution. It's interesting but I suspect it is also much exaggerated. The ridiculous headline and strapline in the Guardian is a classic example of bad science journalism.
Environment may have a passing effect on the expression of genes but the basic code is still the same. The physical folding of the DNA molecule actually affects the translation of genes.
Regardless of the long-term conclusion on the significance of epigenetics it has no bearing on the fundamental fact of common ancestry.
I think this is the third or fourth time I have made the same point. All extant species - and the 99.9% that have gone extinct - evolved from a common ancestor. That will still be true in 10,000 years time whatever details of the process have to be reconsidered.
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Earnest
The principle that everything evolved from a single common ancestor is based on genetics, the vertical transmission of DNA from parent to offspring. However, in the journal Trends in Genetics it discusses the effects of horizontal gene transfer. In the abstract it says :
Simulations of genes and organismal lineages suggest that there was no single common ancestor that contained all the genes ancestral to those shared among the three domains of life. Each contemporary molecule has its own history that traces back to an individual molecular cenancestor. However, these molecular ancestors were likely to be present in different organisms and at different times.
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cofty
That is such an esoteric detail Earnest.
Go all the way back billions of years to the very beginning of life and what did the roots of the tree look like?
So what?
Humans still descended from primate ancestors and from reptiles, amphibians and fish before that.
So many attempts to muddy the waters in this thread. Not sure if it is deliberate or because people really don't understand the significance of their quote-mining.
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slimboyfat
If I remember correctly, Darwin also suggested the possibility that life began in a few organisms independently rather than a single common ancestor.
The fact is that anyone who says they know for definite how life began and developed over millions or billions of years, and that this conception of natural history will never fundamentally change, is being presumptuous to put it mildly.
There seems to be a cultural turn away from the Dawkins and Dennett-type of confidence in atheistic materialism.
I find it interesting that many of the comments are openly mocking the vacuity of Daniel Dennett’s reductive materialism in this video for example. I don’t think that would have happened a few years ago. There seems to be greater opennness to the limits of human knowledge, the mysteriousness of the universe and reality, and the possibility of something transcendent.
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cofty
You take debates over details and try to use that to pretend the basic fact of evolution may by in jeopardy.
Nothing could be more intellectually dishonest.