and op.. part of your argument is that natural selection and evolution is so simple , and so mindless that it doesnt need a designer. It is mindless and blind. Well, just because it doesnt need a designer , does not mean that it did not have one. God certaily could have put a simple, mindless process in place, and with his forsight know the end game led to an intelligent being that would be his "people" no matter what. There is no way for you to say that that is not a possibility, and if you think you can.. well.. then you are the one in denial.

I wonder why no one makes a connection between patterns and the God of the bible and see that there are a lot of patterns in both DNA and fossil patterns just like there are a lot of patterns given in the Old Testament.

Don't patterns indicate a mind that organizes things?

How would a primitive people be sophisticated enough or devious enough to say they received patterns from God on how to build his tabernacle, priest clothing, temple, etc. unless they had received them from Him?

I understand how evolution works and let me tell you "it just doesn't happen" without a lot of fine tuning and tweaking to the system. If it "just happened" there would be evolutionary systems all over the place. Keep in mind that biology...when you get right down to it is just chemistry...and chemistry....when you get right down to it is particle physics.

All that stuff you are learning in kollege about chemistry and biology are just consequences of the undelying fundamental physics which govern everything. Evolution only happens in very specific contrived circumstances even though the same laws which govern it are operating everywhere and on everything.

If you think about the human brain how did it just happen?

Humans have 3 brain systems. The neo cortex seems to have gotten a lot more prominent and important recently in history than the 2 other systems.

The human brain could still be evolving.

A lot of the OT is word pictures like the building blocks we give to children today to teach them the alphabet. Kids don't just read they have to know the basic letters first.

The OT could have been written for a less sophisticated mind than people have today so people indicting the bible for being ancient is absurd. You have to start teaching people at the level they're at not at some modern level people are at today. On top of that God had to transcend time and make those pictures transcend to following generations and the symbolism of the OT does that.

Is this seriously the best comparison you have? Evolution in humans, animals etc etc can't happen without someone guiding it because computer viruses don't evolve (as they don't have someone guiding their evolution)

Atheists that somehow think evolution disproves God are so fascinating to me.

You asked for a specific example of something I thought would evolve if evolutionary systems did not require the heavy handed participation of intellect in their inceptions. I gave you an answer.

I never said "Evolution in humans, animals etc etc can't happen without someone guiding it because computer viruses don't evolve (as they don't have someone guiding their evolution)". You said that. Your continued dishonest tactics in this thread have annoyed me to the point where I have decided not carry on any further conversation with you.

Dishonest tactics? You seem a delicate little soul.

You're the one who has been going on (and on) about evolutionary systems but when asked to give a specific one to compare to human evolution you give us something that really bears no relation whatsoever, therefore bringing the main thrust of your argument down.

Here's evolution in a nutshell:

1. When reproduction happens, mistakes happen during DNA replication or during meiosis. These are simply mistakes in nucleotide addition or swapping, or chromosomes not lining up correctly just prior to meiosis. Usually the result is disastrous (ie down syndrome), but sometimes the result provides a beneficial mutation (such as a creature's arm being 5.6 inches long rather than 5.5 inches long). These mutations, that happen in meiosis just prior to birth, then spread to the zygote and then to literally every single cell of the new creature. They don't just disappear, they accumulate in the genome.

2. The environment, either living or non living, causes the non-random death of individuals of a population. Individuals with traits that increase survival are selected to live by the mindless environment. As the Galapagos finch experiment has shown, even less than a 1 mm change in beak size means the difference in life and death for finch populations.

And here's what you need to add for theistic evolution:

1. When reproduction happens, mistakes happen during DNA replication or during meiosis. These are simply mistakes in nucleotide addition or swapping, or chromosomes not lining up correctly just prior to meiosis. But sometimes, and only when humans are not looking, God will create a nucleotide out of thin air and add the nucleotide. He also sometimes temporarily defies the laws of physics and chemistry and rearranges the chromosomes as they are lining up just prior to meiosis. Usually the result is disastrous (ie down syndrome), but sometimes the result provides a beneficial mutation (such as a creature's arm being 5.6 inches long rather than 5.5 inches long). These mutations, that happen in meiosis just prior to birth, then spread to the zygote and then to literally every single cell of the new creature. They don't just disappear, they accumulate in the genome.

2. The environment, either living or non living, causes the non-random death of individuals of a population. Individuals with traits that increase survival are selected to live by the mindless environment. As the Galapagos finch experiment has shown, even less than a 1 mm change in beak size means the difference in life and death for finch populations. But sometimes, only when humans aren't looking, God will temporarily defy the laws of physics and chemistry and turn from an invisible form to a visible form. He will stick his hands into Earth from the sky and physically move certain individuals around to prevent or cause death to certain animals. He may also stick his hands into Earth to cause events (hurricanes, asteroids, ect) that guide evolution to a direction he wants. Again, this only happens when humans aren't looking.

So even this deep into the thread, you have NO idea what theistic evolution means. No wonder you're baffled.

This is not what we have been claiming. Maybe if you tried to actually understand our claims instead of just pretending we don't know more biology than you, you would be less baffled.

I admit I haven't read every single page, but I have read most of them. I do know what theistic evolution means, it means God controls evolution, correct? The only way he can control evolution is if he intervenes. If this is wrong, then you must believe evolution is not truly blind and purposeless, right? In other words, if he doesn't intervene, then you must believe he planted the first cell and had the foresight to know exactly what it would evolve into a few billion years later. In other words, you must believe the actual process of evolution involves no random chance or contingent events.

note: my comment below has no bearing on the theistic evolution argument.

not really necessary. can even argue meiosis is completely dispensable for evolution to occur. what meiosis, more specifically recombination and crossing over, provides is the uncoupling of beneficial mutations from deleterious ones.

now before you go off about new mutations in a zygote that didn't exist in the parent, consider whether we can differentiate between mutations during germline mitosis and mutations introduced during meiosis, and how many of those changes we can infer are the results of meiotic errors.

yodachode,
You seem to believe that with "theistic evolution", when there is a genetic modification from one generation to the next, that the "laws of physics and chemistry are being broken". When this exact same modification occurs in "atheistic evolution", no laws of physics or chemistry are being broken.

Can you hash this out in as much detail as you can handle? In particular, could you please note which laws of physics or chemistry are being broken when one of these modifications takes place?

*This was a reply to my statement that 95-99% of all species have gone extinct before humans arrived*

Any species that went extinct and did not give rise to future species is a complete waste, unless God purposely evolved that species in order to influence a different, important species (such as one that would give rise to humans). But if God did this, evolved a certain species because it would affect a different species, wouldn't it be a lot simple and easier to just guide the important species?

Your statement is true ONLY for ancestors of humans or any creature living on Earth today. But literally all of that 95-99% of species that went extinct were species that branched away AFTER a speciation event occurred between them and us/current living species. It's impossible for one of those species that went extinct to have been our ancestor because then we wouldn't exist today.

God doesn't need to intervene to have controlled evolution -- simply setting up the right start conditions and rules would suffice.

Though I do have to say that I spoke too strongly in my last post. Surely anyone believing in God has no problem with God being supernatural and being able to defy physics. Though I haven't seen this being the claim wrt theistic evolution in this thread, I don't see why it's not a possibility. And it's a possibility that you also can't show to be wrong. It really should be no more ridiculous to you than our belief in God to begin with.

As for randomness, we've been over this before. Here's what I believe to be my last post that dealt with this topic of randomness in a thread of yours from 2 months ago: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...6&postcount=64

The very next post of yours didn't address this anymore, but instead started with: "Here's a slight digression..."