News you won't see in controlled mainstream media.

Thought this was interesting:

First Temple seal found in Jerusalem
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satell...mp;pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Speaking of Biblical evidence, I'd like to discuss more of that here.

Creationists on this forum are trying very hard to discredit evolution. Even if they succeeded somehow in doing this, they need to bear in mind that it would simply mean that we need to re-evaluate the evidence and decide which alternative theory fits better. Creationism would only be chosen if it managed to fit these criteria.

So where is the physical evidence that the Bible is literally true? Do all creationists believe that a global flood occurred about 4,000 years ago? If so, do you believe that the fossil record was laid down at that time? Do you all believe in a young earth here? If not, how old do you think the earth is, and why? Or is there some more convincing evidence for the literalness of the Bible, and creation, that you can present?

That was interesting. Thanks.
It states that the seal had a cult symbol from the Babylonian God. Do you think that the priests used it in the second Temple anyway?

What was the seal used for....marking correspondence?

I'd say probably more likely it was simply a relic of their time as slaves in babylon and one of them carried back with them to Jerusalem. Quite possible an hebrew worked as a scribe in Babylon, using the babylonian seal in his work there. Basically it indicates only that as slaves some of the jews held important positions within the babylonian govt. Maybe he was a clerk or something, an accountant, a notary public of sorts, hard to say. It's proof they were in Babylon, it's proof of the name, there is no proof it was used for correspondence after the return to Jerusalem, that is conjecture.

I doubt science class is a good place to teach theology, Linda. Much less trust the subject of theology to public high school teachers.

The evidence and textbooks should have been re-evaluated a long time ago. Why ideas that have been rejected by science decades ago continue to be taught, at a high school level no less without a more comprehensive discussion of history and social sciences, eludes me completely. Except that someone out there obviously desires to dumb down our kids, plant ideas of racial hatred in their minds, and provide them with a very confusing argument to the possibility of creation.

This thread is about Biblical evidence. Would you like to provide some evidence in support of creationism, for example in answer to one or some of the questions I asked here? Evolution has continually been critiqued on this forum. Surely in all fairness we should also look at the merits of creationism, especially since presumably you think it explains the evidence better than evolution?

Sure.

By the blood of Yeshua Hamashiach I am saved and made free.

Hope that works for you. It works for me, answers every question I ever had about life and it's origins.

Refusal again to engage with the science. This means:

-- that creationism, ID, whatever name you want to call it by, is religion and not science.
-- therefore there is no such thing as "creation science."
-- and creationist groups need to accept that their religion has no place in a science classroom.

Is "because the Bible says so" really all you have to say on the matter?

The problem is, what the Bible says (if literally interpreted) does not appear to explain much of the physical evidence for what's been happening to life on this planet for a very long time.

Not true. If you would like once again to compare your education with mine, you are welcome to begin.

I never rejected science. I never rejected education.

Even, I never rejected evolution.

However, I found the truth elsewhere. and then I rejected evolution.

Can we not talk about what you actually believe in, then? We started talking about the worldwide flood a few months ago. It was one of the rare times here that we were all engaged in a productive discussion about a concrete issue.

If you feel we've been there and done that, then perhaps you can explain to me why there is a consistent sorting of the fossil record across the world? Did God put it there as a giant red herring?

Funny. You're good.

Lets everybody not talk about what anyone believes in except Linda because Linda believes in evolution and only wants to discuss that while she makes jokes about christians and creation.


good. real good.

hey, start your own thread and limit replies to yourself.


I do not recall the flood discussion being productive, funny you should bring it up. did it encapsulate your beliefs and so you remember it?

Maybe you are here as a giant red herring is probably more accurate.

I noticed two crescent shapes on the seal, but only one is called "Babylonian". If any explanation of this turns up, I would be interested in reading it.

I don't understand your attitude, SoSick. You claim that evolution is unscientific. You claim that creationism explains the evidence much better. Yet you refuse point blank to discuss anything about it. I have no intention of making fun of anything. Why should I even question it, if what you present here is scientifically accurate and plausible? You're not afraid that it isn't, are you?

I really think that in all fairness, if we've got so many different threads where evolution is being criticised, that we at least discuss creationism. Yes? What would make it the default theory to turn to if evolution were somehow disproved? Sorry but "the Bible says so" isn't enough to hold up a theory.

I'll leave the question open to you. Pick one thing about creationism that you think explains the evidence. Something that validates it as a genuine theory, one that should be taught in schools. If you continue to refuse then we'll have to accept that you are simply incapable of doing so, which will further erode the credibility of your position here.

Just guessing here, but educated guess... the altar thing between the two figures is what is referred to in the article as 'the altar', with the babylonian crescent moon symbol sitting directly on it in graphic relief... the crescent moon above is pretty much the same thing but represents the moon itself as opposed to the altar. The babylonians were moon worshippers. they actually had hundreds of gods but Sin/moon was a main one.

Same symbol still used by muslims today btw. Babylon is at the heart of today's modern Islam, with Mecca of course, but Babylon still very important which is why Saddam Hussein wanted to rebuild it.

Couple thoughts for you Linda.... first of all you are a troublemaker. You enjoy creating division between people and you work very hard at that.

Second of all, you lie. For instance, you mentioned directly above that you are not interested in anyone elses beliefs. and now you claim to want to seriously discuss something. No, I do not believe it.

Third, you offend left and right and apparently are completely unaware of it and when anyone defends themselves against you, you cry foul.

I think you should leave it there. No interest in anyone elses beliefs. Point made. and one I observed quite a while ago anyway.





No, I never said any such thing to anyone in my life, ever.

I know very little about 'creationism' as taught by 'creationists'. A laughable little amount. Nonetheless, that does not sway my belief that God created the universe, the earth, and the life on it. That does not make me a creationist according to the arguments you would like to define and i have no intention of studying creationist literature at the moment to spend my time arguing creationism with you.

And lastly, it's quite obvious to me that what upsets you more than anything else at the moment is the discussion CTD and I and sometimes Linear, are having concerning the motives and applications of evolution 'science'. And you would like nothing more than to distract attention from that discussion because you are unable to defend yourself within the facts of it, and therefore you need help of some sort to try to stop it.

People who live glass houses should not throw stones.

Thanks.
Him too? I heard the U.N. had proposed a project once to rebuild it. I'd like to ever catch one of these projects in progress just once. I enjoy a good laugh.

There were lots of photos of it at the point they invaded Iraq. I'm sure they're on the net somewhere. He was really going at it.

The UN wanted to rebuild it? i wasn't aware of that.

Looks like UNESCO is still at it. And we know what UNESCO is all about - just look who their first leader was.

How lucky this came up. I forget how convenient the internet can be sometimes. I shall enjoy following the progress (or lack thereof) of this scientific test.

Edit: found more on the story

I'm not sure if I'm for creation to be taught in science Linda.....because I always think that if you teach solid science as is, then students can consider theories on their own without having a teacher upfront telling them what to believe, rather than letting them come to their own conclusions based on the evidence given. It then allows students to use their minds and consider where the evidence may take them. If one student feels that it leads to ultimate design, fine. If the other does not? Fine. See two people can interpret the "evidence" very differently from eachother and even evolutionists can argue on aspects of evolution, it is not an open or shut case.

Otherwise I believe it is a dishonest form of indoctrination. As I've mentioned before, I know a guy who teaches science and he said to me, frankly I don't push evolution my class, I put across the evidence, the stuff we DO know and if they believe this is the result of evolution, they are welcome to come to that conclusion, but he doesn't stand up there playing God and tell them what to believe, he teaches them science as it is. In fact, I've not seen him have a problem yet or requiring evolution to teach science. Linda, just because you have the majority of scientists on your side, it does not make evolution a fact. Look, how many dentists feel that mercury is ok in amalgam? The majority of them, though this is slowly changing.

I could say to you, these guys are trained, we are not. They know more than we do, therefore mercury in amalgam must be ok and the biologic dentists are the fools because they're a minority (though again the tide is slowly changing).

I feel that there most definitely IS dishonesty surrounding these things, but I don't necessarily blame those who have been trained and studied what they are told. I blame the ones right at the top. You cannot teach science now without indoctrinating the kids about evolution. You think it's the best and closest explanation so far to how we explain life? But none of it explains where the information for DNA comes from, the code to life itself. You do not even really know if anything evolved Linda, because you were not there to see it in action.

You think you see a pile of fossils in a certain way in the fossil layers and you interpret this to mean evolution and transitional forms, when you don't know if ANY of them are in transition or not. You're assuming they are, because this is coming from a pre-conceived belief system, one that you cannot admit to. HOw many animals are alive today that you could try and match up as being in transition to becoming something else, just because you want to believe that and could try matching it up with your preconceptions. It may not be happening, but if you believe it, you can simply say "well we don't know it hasn't or won't happen"..... No amount of variation within a kind is one animal becoming another. You can breed dogs and try and get cat-like physical characteristics all you want, but guess what? It'll never become a cat, no matter how much breeding you do. If you throw billions of years onto it, in hopes that enough time will give us the idea that anything is possible, it doesn't mean it will or has happened. E.g. say you find a dog with more pointed type ears or a smaller, sharper nose and you mate this with one similar and keep doing so until it almost resembles a catlike looking dog....(mind you, I've yet to see a dog resemble a cat to be honest, even with all the attempts at breeding different dogs)...however, you'll never make the dog a cat. What makes you think that this process could happen on it's own if we can't even MAKE it happen through breeding? The most unusual dogs, no matter how much they may differ in looks and size, are still dogs and can mate with eachother without problem. (unless one dog is huge and the other is tiny). Dogs don't become anything else, they stay dogs. Ever think this might be the case with all creatures?

I can say to you that I see evidence of creation in my everyday life, because it seems to me that it takes an already complex signature to life in order for it to bring forth after it's own kind.....how else did it get there we wonder? All you have is theories, but they are theories that we did not see take place. Is it fair then to teach children that they most likely DID take place...just because in their eyes it seems "logical" whereas is it really logical to believe that this resulted out of chance? But again, what is the alternative to evolution's big bang theory and primordial soup? Possible intelligent design. Guess what Linda? That is unthinkable right? Therefore, anything can be proposed, so long as it rules that out.

Come up with somehting that "sounds" logical, but once you break down the complicated terminologies, it still seem to require the miraculous. DNA didn't just come from luck. I'd say purpose and intellect are very hard to deny, but somehow you people do your best to exclude it any chance you get. You can say that God may have been involved, as though if He did exist, He's just a bystander to His own creation. Not really in control so to speak, just started off the spark and crossed His fingers. Or sat around for billions of years watching it unfold.

I don't see it that way, nor do I see this as the result of a chance happening. But again my belief isn't taught in a science class and until I could give absolute proof of what happened in the beginning, I wouldn't stand in front of a class without scientific evidence and state that it did. I'd simply give the evidence, the stuff that really speaks for itself and the belief that arises from that is really up to the individual to interpret. Obviously evolution is not concrete, or we'd not be able to debate about it.....simple as that. How can you debate the undebatable?

One thing we do agree on, life produces life. I wonder how it was different in the beginning, because I see nothing different that's been happening in all our recorded history....yet apparently according to you people, it was. Yet what can you give us? A video recording of it taking place and showing that once upon a time it really wasn't like this.....? Or just a bunch of scientific sounding words and explanations with drawings to match....by people who weren't there and can't give anymore than their "ideas".

Let's keep the ideas exactly where they belong and stop preaching them as fact. Do you think it impossible that there was a creator Linda? You absolutely know this for certain because you were there right? As you really can't be 100% certain, seeing as you are not all-knowing, then why do you think it's ok for you to push YOUR theory and say it's an absolute fact? when you cannot be certain 100%, that a big bang or primordial soup is responsible for this. How on earth can you know that or in fact anybody know that without actually being an eye witness. The stuff you find today is not digging up the origins, it is simply digging up the dead. Pinning labels on it to make it what you want it to be, doesn't make it so.

We're not the ones pushing for creation in the science room, the burden of proof does not lie with us, it lies with you people. If I had to start with something that I felt was evidence for design? I'd have to start with the code of life - DNA. You know the one? The one that is so complicated and ordered, that even the libararies around the world would not contain such information. And you believe it arrived from what? simple celled organisms.

How do you know this? Where is an example of simple celled organisms becoming complex DNA? We don't have to accept anything as fact until it's been proven. And has it been proven that complex DNA can arise from simplicity, given enough time? Could you give me a scientific experiment that shows proves this?

That crescent moon really confuses things with regard to the First Temple and the priesthood of the Temech family. Do you think the seal means that the Temech family began to serve the Babylonian gods?

The same symbol is used by the Muslims but it doesn't represent Allah, even though some have tried to equate the god Sin with Allah.

The Babylon connection interesting. I had heard that Saddam was trying to rebuild Babylon in order to make himself out to be another Nebuchadnezzar. From his personal info gathered after his fall, Saddam was not a devout Muslim in any way and only performed the rituals when he had to for publicity's sake.

well you know... a person could answer that a couple different ways.... If you read the bible, Jeremiah I'm pretty sure, is where God speaks to them of certain things, grieves that the jews don't seek him, all sorts of stuff along those lines and warns them of captivity in Babylon because they have accepted the ways of pagans eg; babylonians, and ignore him etc... so you could infer some things from that. Of course on the other hand you could also say, oh no, that perhaps this family was taken captive along with the others and found themselves slaves serving a different king and a different god but not by their own choice, Just like if this country were overrun by China and you suddenly found yourself working in a factory wearing a Chinese army issued jumpsuit and labeling boxes with their flag.


Jeremiah 29:1 Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders which were carried away captives, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon; 2 (After that Jeconiah the king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the carpenters, and the smiths, were departed from Jerusalem;) 3 By the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon) saying, 4 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon; 5 Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; 6 Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. 7 And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
...

15 Because ye have said, The LORD hath raised us up prophets in Babylon; 16 Know that thus saith the LORD of the king that sitteth upon the throne of David, and of all the people that dwelleth in this city, and of your brethren that are not gone forth with you into captivity; 17 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Behold, I will send upon them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil. 18 And I will persecute them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and an astonishment, and an hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations whither I have driven them: 19 Because they have not hearkened to my words, saith the LORD, which I sent unto them by my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but ye would not hear, saith the LORD. 20 Hear ye therefore the word of the LORD, all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon: 21 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, of Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and of Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, which prophesy a lie unto you in my name; Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall slay them before your eyes; 22 And of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying, The LORD make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire; 23 Because they have committed villany in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them; even I know, and am a witness, saith the LORD.

... there's more but you can read it yourself. You really have to read the whole thing.



Perhaps. But it does tell us where they come from, who they are. And the interest in rebuilding Babylon pretty much does the same.

The bible says Babylon will never be rebuilt, that they will try and try to rebuild it and God will forever destroy it.

Thanks, Bex, for sharing your thoughts here. An open and unusually non-inflammatory post for this forum. I'll try to do the same.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your first few paragraphs seem to be saying that the scientific evidence should be presented in classrooms without saying that evolution is a fact. The thing is, it's hard not to conclude this when the evidence is actually presented in a thorough way. Here is a drastically abridged list that I presented in the let's-smear-the-evolutionists thread which is called Open Conspiracy:


I don't expect you to respond to every single item on this list, but these all qualify as evidence which supports evolution. I'm not sure how you could, or why you should (if you are an honest science teacher), present these with no reference at all to evolution. They're intertwined. How do we make sense of the world if we ignore evolution as a factor, when there's so much evidence and it's an important part of so many branches of science? You could of course say that we don't 100% understand how evolution works, which is true, and that scientists have different ideas about this.


I think what's important in science is that we always look at the existing evidence, be mindful of new evidence that emerges, and change our ideas accordingly if necessary. There is actually quite a lot of evidence that putting mercury in a person's mouth isn't a good idea. Whether people want to take that on board or not is another matter.

Like I've said to Russ, I think that equating evolutionists with people who say that amalgams are harmless is not a helpful analogy. We can see the evidence for evolution, it is not just propaganda, as the list above shows.


If you read the Abiogenesis thread, you will see information and links there which provide a fascinating illustration of what scientists have learned about the interaction between rudimentary self-replicating molecules and an environment like that of the early earth. They haven't "worked it all out," but it's more plausible now than it was a decade or two ago to say that life might have arisen from non-life.

After reading books by Rupert Sheldrake and Bruce Lipton, as I've mentioned in the (unfortunately named) "Evolution: The Big Joke" thread, I'm trying to be more open-minded. I don't think we understand a whole lot yet about how life interacts with its environment or with other kinds of life. Once we know more about that, maybe we'll have some new ideas about how life might have begun. It's one of the classic questions isn't it, along with "why are we here." Some of us don't want to stop with "it's all in the Bible." If we always stopped there then I don't think we'd end up learning much about how the world works because we would stop trying to find answers, we'd stop questioning and investigating.


I've asked this before though: Do you believe that we can never learn anything about the past, from evidence in the present? Can forensic scientists and detectives not study clues at the scene of a crime and work out what probably happened? Maybe we won't always have 100% certainty, but surely it would be nonsensical not to even look at the evidence and formulate hypotheses about what it means.


We talked about horse evolution a bit earlier. We can date fossils according to the layers in which they are found, as long as they are in situ, though there are other methods too like fluorine analysis, which can be applied in certain circumstances. So we know that the time line for horse evolution is accurate -- we know, for example, that hyracotherium lived 55 million years ago, and miohippus lived 35 million years ago. What's more, when we look at sample fossils of those listed, we can see phyletic gradualism -- the changes in these species through time. In the case of the horse it appears to have been gradual, a smooth but inexorable transition from one species to the next. Specialists around the world are in general agreement that these are horses, and they are people who spend their lives looking at bones. They know what to look for in a horse and presumably in other animals too. Before you mention Piltdown man then yes, scientists can sometimes be wrong, but Piltdown man was accepted too quickly without proper testing, and some scientists thought it was a hoax from the start.

So the question again is, if God created these horse fossils, put them in a specific order in specific strata around the world, and made it appear that they changed through time . . . why? And why did he do this for other species too? For me, the sorting of the fossil record is the single most convincing piece of evidence that evolution is real. I've seen answersingenesis try to explain how the fossil record was laid down by the flood but it doesn't wash when you check it out with how geology actually works. They obviously don't expect their readers to know much about that.


I have deduced that they are, because this is what the evidence clearly points to. It's got nothing to do with what I want to believe. You could just as well say that I have a fervent desire to believe that the sun shines, or that trees grow.


You might end up eventually with a new species that looks like a cat. This would be speciation, which is evolution.

Or instead of doing this artificially, then it's conceivably possible that environmental triggers would cause dogs to eventually evolve cat-like characteristics.

Observed instances of speciation

Interestingly, answersingenesis actually requires evolution in order for their flood idea to work. They say that after all the original "kinds" came off the ark, they changed very quickly over a few thousand years in order to produce the millions of different life forms we see today. I guess they feel they have to say this because it's obvious that there are too many known species to fit in a wooden boat -- but in doing so they've gone from saying there's no evolution to saying there's hyper-evolution -- all the while saying that there's still nothing but the original "kinds." This doesn't make much sense to me.


Every now and then, someone proposes an alternative to the big bang, though the onus is on them to show how their hypothesis explains the evidence at least as well. You can read about the most recent idea here. Like I said earlier, it's the evidence that needs to be the focus, and the big bang does explain much of what we see.

If we said "God did it," as you seem to want, then how will we ever learn about the world, or the universe? God can do anything he wants, so whatever we see is due to the mysterious workings of God. If people were thinking that thousands of years ago, I honestly doubt if we would have achieved the level of technology we have today. How would we even have worked out what electricity is if we continued to believe it was sent from a god or gods in the heavens? How would we have learned about the atom?


I actually believe that the divine is in everything and everyone. It is part of life. So creator/creation is a false dichotomy for me. Species evolving in response to their environment doesn't really change that.


No. I don't know how life started, or if we're even on the right track there, though I like reading about people's ideas. I do, however, see a lot of evidence that evolution has occurred.

I don't even accept the standard scientific dodge, which is "you can't prove it." I don't believe that science explains everything, as some people do. All I can say is that I'm truthfully playing my agnostic card here: "I don't know." If some evidence emerges which seems convincing, I'll evaluate it. I've read a lot of creation myths from different cultures and while I find them enjoyable, poetic, and instructive, I am not inclined to believe any of them literally.


Who's "you people"? I've been arguing with hyper-rationalist scientists on another forum and they're telling me I'm spouting delusions. Don't lump me in with them, they're not nice.

You asked about DNA. The scientific idea about that at the moment is that it started as self-replicating molecules. It wasn't even necessarily essential for the first life, as long as some kind of basic way of replacing worn-out components was possible. If you want to learn more about abiogenesis then you're welcome to look in that thread.

Many creationists claim that evolution was impossible because something is irreducibly complex, that it simply couldn't have evolved. Again, I'm not sure we'd learn much if we stopped at this. People used to think the atom was irreducibly complex. We never would have learned otherwise if we hadn't studied it to find out if this really was so.

The evolutionists had similar ideas about baby embryos too. E.g. the developing stages of an apparent tail, gills and a yolk sac. The so-called yolk sac as we know, is the source of the human embryo's first blood cells, it was never a "yolk sac". The so-called gills, were not gill slits like a fish, they were wrinkles in the skin where the "throat pouches" grow out. They develop into the lower jaw, tongue, thymus gland, the parathyroid, etc. The middle ear canals come from the second pouches, and the parathyroid and thymus glands come from the third and fourth.

The so-called tail was just the tail bone (coccyx). It's an important point of muscle attachment required for our distinctive upright posture and for other things....(I won't go into).
It should come as no surprise then that similar is being suggested about snakes and whales, but is it accurate?

The hind limbs are used during mating and serve to grasp during locomotion. I wonder how they would handle not having any grip function? What may appear to be legs or "leftovers", seems instead to be a very necessary function rather than "apparent vestigials. Modern pythons have a rudimentary hindlimb, usually little more than a "claw" of cartilage tipped with bone that they use during mating and occasional fighting. There are distinct lizards and distinct snakes in the fossil record and alive today. Just like every other group that supposedly shares a common ancestor. I am not sure, given all the incredible varieties of animals that you can be certain evolution is responsible.


Closely related, does not automatically = evolution. I have no problem at all with this Linda, because a common designer cannot be ruled out. I guess we can argue that point in neverending circles. A lion and a tiger can mate and produce offspring, but they're usually sterile off-spring. Even they have just enough gaps to cause problems. I consider all creatures a product of common design and I believe the means to allow for wide variation within each kind was already pre-programmed in the genetic code. Mating to exaggerate certain characteristics is not evolution. Just because there is a close similarity in genetics, does not mean one kind evolved into another. This is not proof for evolution, nor is the certain exaggeration of traits in certain environments. The vast information within the genetic code provides an amazing amount of diversity WITHIN each creature, but does not mean one kind of creature can become another. How does a lot of time make the difference? Just because anything sounds possible?


They are hardly new structures, the information already existed. I believe that within the genetic code is the information already there to allow for such incredible diversity and flexibility. Again, this does not prove one kind of animal becoming another (macro evolution). We don't see it happening and haven't so far.

.

Linda, one thing you won't hear from an evolutionist is the remaining percentage that makes all the difference. The evolutionist tries to bridge the gaps as much as possible. See here, they have us believing that we are more than half similar to a fruit fly or a worm in our genetics. Actually the percentage that is different is a HUGE difference when it comes to all creatures. Even ONE small difference in percentage, makes a big impact. That's what makes us a completely different creature. Why do they do this? The same reason why they exaggerate the similarities between monkeys and humans. Yet even the small percentage of difference is exactly what makes them monkeys and us humans. This in no way contradicts a common designer.


DNA language is not the same as DNA molecule. Information cannot be considered in the catagory same as matter and energy. It's true that matter or energy can carry information, but they are not the same as information itself. The amount of information in human DNA is roughly equivalent to 12 sets of The Encyclopaedia Britannica-an incredible 384 volumes" worth of detailed information that would fill 48 feet of library shelves!

Yet in their actual size-which is only two millionths of a millimeter thick-a teaspoon of DNA, could contain all the information needed to build the proteins for all the species of organisms that have ever lived on the earth.

Who or what could miniaturize such information and place this enormous number of 'letters' in their proper sequence as a genetic instruction manual? Could evolution have gradually come up with a system like this? How can meaningful, precise information be created by accident—by mutation and natural selection? None of these contain the mechanism of intelligence, a requirement for creating complex information such as that found in the genetic code.

Even the simplest single cell organism has, within its genes and chromosomes, about as much data as there are letters in the world's largest library - a trillion letters. NO way in the world could random processes organise that much data! Most lifeforms are comprised of billions of these complex cells which once again display themselves in perfect order. The mathematical impossibility of the human body being formed accidentally surpasses the logic of an explosion of a printing shop resulting in the formation of a dictionary.

The genetic code prevents one life form changing into another kind. So scientists speculate that mutations or damages to the DNA must be responsible for evolutionary processes. Again they believe this in spite of the observable evidence, that no new species has resulted from a mutation. Mutations are almost always harmful, they bring about small adjustments in a particular species, but no way are they able to change one kind of creature into another. Give me one example Linda of a mutation that created a new kind of creature?

By increasing the amount of time on history, and using a lot of complex language, suddenly these things can seem more credible and this is the key to evolution "Time" and "complex language" and lots of it. But no matter how much time you give an evolutionist it still does not solve their dilemma of exactly how life came into being in the first place.


Just because there are similarities in certain aspects of anatomy, does not = evolution. Rather they work well the way they were designed to work. If I create a model of something and it works well and I decide to make something else, I may use very similar methods on certain areas that are designed for a similar function. Whether it's limb or wing movement. How does this prove evolution Linda? It doesn't. It proves that a similarity of design in certain structures works well. Even the things human beings themselves create are often modelled on nature. Sounds like the creator got it right the first time.


A new species? How does that work Linda? No matter how much breeding intervention to produce as much variety as possible with dogs, you end up with dogs. ....so far we've seen nothing different in all our history up to the present day. NO matter what adaptions take place, the creature remains exactly what it is. Whether it's a bird, a dog or a cat. I don't see one kind becoming another, I've never witnessed it happening, nobody in history has witnessed it happening. Why aren't we seeing this?

This is going to be a bit cumbersome to reply to Bex, but I'll do my best. Maybe I should have listed one or two things for you. My time is going to be more limited soon and it will be easier to write and address shorter posts.

You seem to be saying that the hind limbs which have been observed to form and disappear in whale embryos are not what they appear to be, like the so-called gill slits. I've looked into this and I've seen pictures of them. They form briefly and then they do indeed simply disappear -- they do not turn into anything, form any other body parts, indeed there seems to be no use for them. But they are also a small part of a bigger picture, when you look at vestigial parts -- we can focus on the whale here. Rod-like vestiges of pelvic bones, femora (thigh bones) and tibiae (shin bones) have been seen embedded within the musculature of whales. They are more pronounced in earlier species. Whales also have vestigial olfactory structures. Some whales possess rudimentary ear pinnae, which serves no purpose for an animal with no external ear.

Dolphins share similar characteristics, and you can see here some pictures of 5-week-old fetuses with the hind limb buds, as well as some with atavistic remains of hind limbs.

To add to this, genetics can tell us how species are related to each other, and we can see that whales are more closely related to ungulates than they are to all other mammals, through genetic analysis.

You can read about the molecular biological evidence and the vestigial evidence for the evolution of whales here. It's difficult to see how anything other than evolution would make sense when such a large body of evidence is considered as a whole.



First, how do you define "species" then? How many "variations within a kind" do you accept? And how do those variations occur? Some pretty large ones are called for in Ken Ham's flood story, and they needed to happen rapidly. You could avoid labelling this "evolution" if you want, but the process is the same.

Second, if species are completely unrelated to each other, then the nested hierarchy of life needs to be explained. In Darwin's day as well as ours, this is a strong piece of evidence for evolution. Carolus Linnaeaus first noted that the arrangement of species in genera united by many traits shared by only members of that genus, in orders united by a somewhat smaller number of unique shared traits, in classes united by their own suite of traits common to members of the class and not found elsewhere, and so on. For example, all animals with mammary glands also have (although this hardly seems a logically necessary corollary of mammary glands) a single bone in the lower jaw and three bones in the middle ear, as well as other morphological similarities.

There are no birds with mammary glands. There are no bats with feathers; they all make do with the general mammalian architecture, including fur. This is an odd feature if species, or "kinds," are separately designed for their particular roles, but is a typical pattern for groups of organisms resulting from common descent with modification. Families of documents hand-copied from a common original fall into consistent nested hierarchies, as do families of languages, but designed organisms do not. This same nested hierarchy is reflected in genetic and biochemical traits. Humans share pseudogenes (nonfunctional "crippled copies" of functional genes) with chimpanzees and other primates, with those in chimps more similar to those in macaques, but all disabled in the same way.

Surely these patterns and similarities would not exist if the organisms were not related to each other, and instead had each been specially and individually designed.



Do you have evidence for this? We've found out recently that the human genome consists of 25,000 genes rather than the predicted 120,000. We also know that some genomes are more complex than the human one, and that some species also have more genes than we do. So where is all the extra complex coding for all the future morphologies that are supposed to be pre-programmed? And how do we know that God has programmed for all possible contingencies that the organism will find itself involved in forevermore? I think this pre-existing program isn't there but you're welcome to try to show with some evidence that it is.



I think what you've shown is that there's more to the puzzle of life than genetics. I've talked above about how the human genome is smaller than anyone thought possible. And we share 70% of our genes with a nematode worm. Is it possible that genes alone can code for the vast differences? I don't think so, and growing numbers of scientists don't think so either. We don't have a situation where a single gene is responsible for a single trait, or even the coding for a single protein.

However, the pattern of gene similarities among species, like the patterns of nested hierarchies, presents a pretty strong body of evidence. A branch of science called molecular phylogeny tells us how animals are genetically related to each other and what their probable evolutionary trees look like. We share 70% of our genes with nematode worms, but more than 99% with chimpanzees. When you look at these patterns for other species, it would seem that this is more than coincidental. And before you say that this must have been the pattern God used for all of life, I would ask why he also included some of the weird similarities discussed above if those animals are not related to each other in any way, and why primates all share the same "junk DNA."



What you need to be mindful of when you are using the argument from incredulity is that something isn't necessarily impossible just because you think it is. No evolutionist says that life sprang fully-formed out of the oceans, with all the complexities that it now entails. From fossil evidence we can see that life on earth consisted of nothing but single cells for a few billion years. Before those cells appeared, life would have been simpler still. At its most basic you could be looking at self-replicating molecules, though abiogenesis is a separate issue which is still in a speculative stage. I think it's quite possible that the first "life" didn't even have any DNA (it is not necessary for survival on a basic level), and that DNA could have evolved over a large amount of time, bit by it. When the first multicellular organisms appeared, life had already been on the earth and evolving for a very long time.



This is a strawman really, because a single mutation being responsible for a whole new creature is more akin to a nuclear radiation piece of science fiction than it is to what happens in life. Beneficial mutations, however, have been observed to occur. If they are an advantageous adaptation to the environment then natural selection can act on the population.



But abiogenesis is a different theory from evolution. Being an evolutionist doesn't require you to think that abiogenesis definitively happened.



But anatomical homology is not mere "similarity" of superfical appearance, it is deeper strcutural, genetic and development matching. And it includes what I said earlier about nested hierarchies and shared genes. These patterns all point to species having common ancestors. Otherwise, why would all of these patterns exist? To deny them would be akin to saying that the fossil record is just a pile of bones that doesn't mean anything.

I think I've addressed the main points here . . . it's taken a bit of research though. I recommend it for you -- if you've got questions such as these, visit TalkOrigins or other sites which explain the evolutionist perspective. I'm not going to have the time to keep doing it so much myself. This has never even been one of the great interests in my life, believe it or not, and it takes work to learn the facts because I'm not a scientist and I don't have them all to hand.

More to the point of the thread, though, does creationism consist of anything other than trying to discredit evolution and by default claiming victory for its own ideas? Is there nothing else to present other than "it says so in the Bible"?

There is quite a bit of historical evidence to the truths of the bible. My intention with starting this thread was not to lay upon it all bible evidence that has ever been found by archeologists or acknowledge even by science, but to post new evidences as they appear. I read the news and journals from time to time and frequently run across such finds. Thus I titled it not 'Bible Evidence' but 'MORE Bible Evidence'

You can easily find many examples of known bible evidence on the web. Once you are able to make the breakthrough in your own mind that not all thing that are decalred bible evidence are false, then you should be able to form a reasonable discussion concerning thees things.

I have to admit, that for one who jumped into this otherwise pristine thread, which no one seems to have much time for, declaring they wanted to discuss bible evidence, you have muddied the certainty of that forever now, Linda.

Sorry sosick, once again another thread has been de-railed right off-topic. When there are plenty of other threads for the previous discussions above.

"MORE BIBLE EVIDENCE". was the title of this thread. If I reply to Linda's post, I'll be putting it elsewhere.

If SoSick had said in her opening post that she wanted this thread to be specifically about archaeology, history, relics, etc, then I would not have posted here. The title of this thread is "More Bible Evidence," and I thought it was a good place to ask for some.

I am a bit perturbed by others talking about evolution in this thread that obviously is not about evolution. I don't understand why you started it in the Creation and Evolution forum though. Maybe Linda started talking about it here because she thought you were trying to support the literal accuracy of Genesis Creation by showing evidence that other parts of the Bible are historically accurate. Is that your purpose in this thread?

It is also true that we cannot accept all "declared" bible evidence as true, especially on the web.
Each item should be explored with caution, but not outright disbelief.

I posted here in January, there was no other place to post anything of this sort at that time. Russ started the 'Bible' forum 4 days after I posted this here.



That can be said of anything, for sure, on the web or otherwise. I always explore with caution. I am a veritable skeptic.

Ah! I guess I wasn't paying attention. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />