• A new LGBTQ+ forum is now being trialed and there have been changes made to the Support and Advice forum. To read more about these updates, click here.
  • Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

The big bang or intelligent design

Status
Not open for further replies.
You obviously have more bible study to do if you think that you instantly go to hell at death.

Anyways if you are saying that the Dinosaurs need more time to evolve then let's look at this little suggestion:

Why haven't the smallest onecelled organisms ceased to exist? If they are some of the oldest living things and they have evolved in ways to suit their environment and everything but the thing is that they are still one celled organisms please exaplain?

Oh and Maddie it is true you can look it up and have icecream on me if I'm lying.

You don't understand the theory of evolution at all do you.

It's not about a constant march to greater complexity. It's about adaptation of species to environment. There is no need for those particular one-celled organism to evolve if they are 'content' in their environment.

That and there is so much evidence and such overwhelming evidence of species evolving that your last point is a bit of a giggle inducer to me.
 
...If they were, you're not asserting I.D., you're asserting creationism.

But the difference between creationism and ID is purely one of semantics. "We're not allowed to say who the Intelligent Designer is, but all you Christians know His identity."

I consider Genesis to be at best very good allegory.
You give it that much credit?

You obviously have more bible study to do if you think that you instantly go to hell at death.

Anyways if you are saying that the Dinosaurs need more time to evolve then let's look at this little suggestion:

Why haven't the smallest onecelled organisms ceased to exist? If they are some of the oldest living things and they have evolved in ways to suit their environment and everything but the thing is that they are still one celled organisms please exaplain?

Oh and Maddie it is true you can look it up and have icecream on me if I'm lying.

I've probably done more Bible study than you have. And I was referring to punishments inflicted by non-secular governments for crimes such as "blasphemy", which were considered worse than murder.

The reason one-celled organisms are still around is that they thrive in an environment best suited to one-celled organisms. Those that have evolved have done so in an environment that favours multi-celled organisms. And, before we forget, the time for a one-celled organism to evolve into a human being is, at a rough guess, around 280 days.
 
First off, we do have *some* link species.

Second, do you have an idea how exceedingly RARE it is for a skeleton to become fossilized?

The Tyrannosaurus Rex existed as a species for something around three million years. Now they were a fairly widespread animal (if rare, given that they were carnivorous). Over three million years, even assuming an incredibly ridiculous "one new T-Rex per year, worldwide" birth rate (the real birthrate would have to be much higher), that's still three million individuals.

We have less than fifty relatively complete T-Rex fossils all over the world. In fact, we're probably closer to twenty, plus a few odds bits and pieces - teeth of one, skull of another, claw of a third, hipbone of a fourth, that sort of things.

Out of several millions - more likely tens, if not hundreds of millions of T-Rex that ever lived. About twenty complete fossils.

For smaller population - which link species would likely have been - it's as simple as the odds being dramatically stacked against us.
 
Last edited:
First off, we do have *some* link species.

Second, do you have an idea how exceedingly RARE it is for a skeleton to become fossilized?

The Tyrannosaurus Rex existed as a species for something around three million years. Now they were a fairly widespread animal (if rare, given that they were carnivorous). Over three million years, even assuming a ridiculously low "one new T-Rex per year" birth rate, that's still three million individuals.

By my best count, we have something like twenty relatively complete T-Rex fossils, plus varied bits and parts of maybe another...twenty? thirty?

The odds of a given creature dying, fossilizing, then of us finding that fossil are astronomically low.

But we have lots and lots of fish and birds.
 
True enough; my aim was to demonstrate the relative rarity of fossilization and the imbecility inherent in the "we haven't found the link, so that's evidence against evolution" line of thought.
 
True enough; my aim was to demonstrate the relative rarity of fossilization and the imbecility inherent in the "we haven't found the link, so that's evidence against evolution" line of thought.

and mine that we don't need dinosaur evidence to determine evolution.
 
You don't understand the theory of evolution at all do you.

It's not about a constant march to greater complexity. It's about adaptation of species to environment. There is no need for those particular one-celled organism to evolve if they are 'content' in their environment.

That and there is so much evidence and such overwhelming evidence of species evolving that your last point is a bit of a giggle inducer to me.

It doesn't seem that he does. A google of "SMOGGM" should bring up a site that illustrates examples where greater complexity failed to be the best for the environment, amongst other things. (Not sure if I can post links.)

Indeed, the site alluded to also includes such examples. His example of the dinosaurs was not a particularly good one, given the huge variety of species involved, and the length of time they took. If there are any sentient species on Pangaea Ultima, they might go through their fossil records and classify Homo Sapiens as a subspecies of primate.


and mine that we don't need dinosaur evidence to determine evolution.

It's the difference between macroevolution and microevolution; one is observable in a petri dish, the other is observable through archaeological records that stretch back over several times the existence of humankind. He can accept the former, but not the latter.
 
Last edited:
One-celled organisms haven't ceased to exist because they're still highly competitive, going back to an earlier point.

Look at anyone, say, killed by the flu, or by meningitis. Alive and kickin', those bugs are!

And you also just asserted that "God doesn't cause disorder," but he also must "follow his own laws" according to what you also said--and by following his own laws, by creating order somewhere, he must cause disorder somewhere else.

I win?
 

In your dreams.

Seriously though, I've been involved in quite a number of forum threads such as this (the Guardian newspaper's Comment Is Free forums), and it's a pleasure to see the topic being debated, rather than ad hominem attacks starting from post #10 and Godwin's law invoked on post #3. Maybe Pokémon fans are more intellectually mature. So thank you, from all sides of this discussion.

When it comes to the issue of whether we should convince, for example Ganondorf, of the existence of evidence for evolution, we can only provide the evidence, and let them decide for themselves.

(And it's midnight with me so bedtime, though with the PPN thing going on, I don't know if I can sleep soundly.)
 
Why is it that science and religion can never seem to get along in this forum? Why can't I believe that God created the universe through the Big Bang. Why can't I believe in the process of evolution, yet still believe that God had planned for all of this to happen.

Why can't I believe that God is so great that he works in such strange and mysterious ways such as evolution, that it makes it so hard for people to actually believe in Him after all the evidence is laid out? A good number of scientists who believe in the big bang theory also believe that it was caused by a "higher power".

Besides if there were any proof that a higher power did have something to do with our world than religion stops being faith and starts being fact.
 
Last edited:
Science and religion can get along, but people spewing nonsensical...nonsense aren't conducive to forum-wide agreement in our discourse.
 
I have nothing against believing in God.

I have something against people openly saying "My Holy Book is better than your Science".

A Holy Book - and this is true of pretty much any Holy Book, whether they be the Koran, Bible, or Nihon-Shoki - is a societal construct that is a mishmash of (ancient, and, in some cases, outdated) social laws; oral history, legends (of varied origins), and Theo-nationalistic propaganda.

Science is the logical and thorough study of the universe.

One of these things is better than the other. Period.
 
Uh, I would just like to apologize for my lack of preparation for my debating earlier and would like to thank everyone who participated and hope then don't hold anything against me personally.
 
It isn't that you were unprepared...you need to think arguments through to their logical conclusions or you're going to take some hits for what you say. But I respect your views--although I (obviously) disagree with them, and I won't have any qualms pointing out where I think you're wrong.

Debates are just a fun chance to stretch one's mind a bit competitively.
 
It isn't that you were unprepared...you need to think arguments through to their logical conclusions or you're going to take some hits for what you say. But I respect your views--although I (obviously) disagree with them, and I won't have any qualms pointing out where I think you're wrong.

Debates are just a fun chance to stretch one's mind a bit competitively.

I agree and thinking up answers while trying to listen to a class isn't exactly the best idea XD I just didn't want any permenant enemies here. I may not have all the right answers at the moment but I will always stand for what I believe in and I think that's all that really matters when you believe in something.
 
I agree and thinking up answers while trying to listen to a class isn't exactly the best idea XD I just didn't want any permenant enemies here. I may not have all the right answers at the moment but I will always stand for what I believe in and I think that's all that really matters when you believe in something.

I think it's friends you've gained here, rather than enemies :)
 
Wow, thanks so much *sniff* You have no idea how much that means to me.
 
Ganondorf said:
How is free will mechanical? How can randomly formed chemicals that make up you and I assume any form of intelligence? Free will is the act of choosing to go out with girl A or girl B, for instance, and you go with the girl you like for either looks or personality or whatever you like. (Choice) It applies for the girl too, she might not like you and she'll choose to go with someone else.

How are these moods, choices and everything else a product of randomly formed chemicals?

What are observations in the evidence of theories (aka scientific faith)?

If anything you have a lot more faith than I do at this point supposing that life just came to be all by itself.

Here is how I defined free will over at serebii: It's like colors. Colors do not, in fact, exist. You have an object whose surface properties react with light in certain ways. The cones in your retina access that data and send it to the brain, which interprets them as color. In other words, colors are all in your head.

Free will is the same way. You do not choose to go out with Girl A or B. Either girl must stimulate you (bear with me :p) by activating your hormones which promote social and sexual feelings. Your genes help determine which girl would be more your "thing", as well as brain chemistry introduced during and after fetal development. Even if you say the only reason you dated Girl A or B is because she wore a nice perfume ... you still didn't choose her. Your olfactory senses are attuned to prefer certain smells over others and she won the toss.

You want to know how mood is affected by brain chemicals? Take drugs. Fastest way to figure that out. :p

We've recently figured out how to create the sensation of out-of-body experiences. Even without drugs.

Your brain works in the physical realm and all that you think is courtesy of your brain. Thus, your thoughts are physical.
 
Careful, there.

The nature versus nurture debate in how our brain works is hardly a settled matter. Yes, genetics certainly play a part, but saying "it's all brain chemistry" is a claim nobody can prove.

Whether or not you are ATTRACTED to a girl is (primarily) a matter of your brain chemistry. Whether or not you actually chose to try to take this matter further is a whole other ball game.
 
Nature vs Nurture is not what I was talking about. Even nurture influences a physical brain. The reason athiests feel that there is no spiritual component to life is that all our instruments imply or just outright tell us that life is physical. Physical instruments will detect physical phenomena only. You go to philosophy if you want to discuss things that can't (as yet) be detected.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom