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Author Topic:   Reduction of Alleles by Natural Selection (Faith and ZenMonkey Only)
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Message 46 of 87 (554893)
04-10-2010 7:07 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Faith
04-10-2010 5:19 PM


Re: RAZD and Ring Species -- wow what a miscommunication
Faith writes:
OK, I'll answer RAZD here instead of on the other thread:
My suggestion is that you focus on the discussion in this thread. You're still focused on the other thread, you're just posting your responses here instead, which is very confusing. If you choose not to follow my suggestion then you may as well at least post your replies in the correct thread.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 5:19 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 7:37 PM Admin has seen this message but not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2953 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(1)
Message 47 of 87 (554898)
04-10-2010 7:34 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by Faith
04-10-2010 5:29 PM


The men who witnessed evolution
Hi, Faith.
Faith writes:
Just because you see a series of codons in the place where an allele should be does NOT mean it's a functioning allele. It may simply be gobbledygook, and it MAY simply have knocked out a functioning allele that was sensitive to the antibiotic, thus providing the resistance. This is NOT proof of mutations making viable alleles!
Here is a link to the first abstract again (Hallet and Maxwell 1991).
Let me review what they did:
  1. Acquired a colony of bacteria with known genotype for the gyrA gene. This bacterium is known to be susceptible to to the antibacterial quinolone.
  2. Induced random misrepair mutations in the gyrA gene.
  3. Applied quinolone to the colony.
  4. Discovered that some of the bacteria were not killed by the quinolone.
  5. Sequenced the gyrA gene of some of the bacteria that survived the quinolone.
  6. Discovered that one resistant bacterium had a gyrA genotype that was different from the original colony’s genotype (where the original genotype’s 317th nucleotide was an A, the resistant genotype’s 317th nucleotide was a G)
  7. Discovered that the protein produced by the mutant allele was also different from the original protein of the colony.
  8. Isolated the gyrase protein that was produced by the mutant gyrA allele
  9. Tested the function of this protein under varying levels of quinolone.
  10. Discovered that the mutant protein could tolerate 10 times more quinolone than the original protein, and still function properly.
They saw a beneficial new phenotype, and demonstrated that it correlated with a change in a nucleotide, a change to the protein made by the mutant gene, and an improvement in function over the wild-type protein. They demonstrated that an undirected mutation, a mistake---a disease process, as you like to call it---can produce a product that outperforms what you would call a "normal allele.
In this case, the mutation involved was changing an A to a G. This can be classified as a point mutation, also called a substitution, and, more specifically, as a transition. In other cases---this one, for example*--- it has been shown that changing an A into a G can cause a loss of functionality or some other deleterious effect.
*I think this one is free for the public to access. Scroll down to the Results section, Molecular Genetics Analysis subsection, and you’ll see that 3 of 5 mitochondrial myopathy patients had adenine-to-guanine (A-to-G) mutations that caused the disease.
This is what I mean when I say that mechanism and phenotype are different: the same mechanism of mutation can result in either deleterious, neutral or beneficial phenotypes in different cases. There is no diseased process involved: it is just a process of change, and disease is only one of several possible outcomes.
Edited by Bluejay, : opening quote mark around "normal"

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 5:29 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 9:03 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 48 of 87 (554899)
04-10-2010 7:37 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by Admin
04-10-2010 7:07 PM


Re: RAZD and Ring Species -- wow what a miscommunication
OK, I'll move it back to the other thread.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Admin, posted 04-10-2010 7:07 PM Admin has seen this message but not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 49 of 87 (554916)
04-10-2010 9:03 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by Blue Jay
04-10-2010 7:34 PM


Re: The men who witnessed evolution
Unfortunately, Bluejay, with the last few posts here and over on the other thread I've been getting more and more "stubborn" that mutations can't be a good thing, and although I see your point in this post -- yes, you made your case -- I refuse to accept it because a good thing for bacteria is not a good thing for higher living things, in which it has been made only too clear to me that mutations are NEVER beneficial.
Faith writes:
Just because you see a series of codons in the place where an allele should be does NOT mean it's a functioning allele. It may simply be gobbledygook, and it MAY simply have knocked out a functioning allele that was sensitive to the antibiotic, thus providing the resistance. This is NOT proof of mutations making viable alleles!
Here is a link to the first abstract again (Hallet and Maxwell 1991).
Let me review what they did:
Acquired a colony of bacteria with known genotype for the gyrA gene. This bacterium is known to be susceptible to to the antibacterial quinolone.
Induced random misrepair mutations in the gyrA gene.
Applied quinolone to the colony.
Discovered that some of the bacteria were not killed by the quinolone.
Sequenced the gyrA gene of some of the bacteria that survived the quinolone.
Discovered that one resistant bacterium had a gyrA genotype that was different from the original colony’s genotype (where the original genotype’s 317th nucleotide was an A, the resistant genotype’s 317th nucleotide was a G)
ONE resistant bacterium was studied? But there were other resistant bacteria? But you don't know for sure if they also had this G where normally there was an A? But do you even know for sure about that A for the whole original genotype? Unless you sequenced the whole colony you don't.
In any case I am now going to reject this example even though you proved your point, because I see where mutations are merely assumed by evolutionists in the preponderance of cases where there is no need for any mutations at all to explain the phenotype, and I see this more strongly because of what you've written than I did before.
And bacteria are a completely different creature from the higher animals. For one thing they don't even have junk DNA, they have a "packed" genome, which fits my creationist expectations in surprising if depressing ways. Evolutionists of course don't see it this way but I see this as the "healthy" state which is no longer the state of the rest of creation that have genomes full of dead genes as Jerry Coyne calls them. The fact that a packed non-junk genome is even possible tells me that that's the way it was for the original creation before the Fall. Bacteria were apparently less subject to the Fall if at all so they've got their original genetic package still pretty much intact. In fact, they are agents of the Fall really, they kill off the rest of us or would have if it weren't for modern medicine, which we wouldn't have if it hadn't been for Christ, which evolutionists are doing their best to misunderstand and ultimately destroy.
Yes, you proved your point but you also so thoroughly confirmed for me the nonexistence of useful mutations for the rest of creation, I have to assume that bacteria simply have a superior system for protecting themselves that is long since lost to us. They must have some kind of chemical process that can recreate useful alleles in a way that seems out of the blue, not mutations but alleles that are part of their repertoire chemically speaking such that rare ones can appear under special conditions. For the rest of creation you get disease causing mutations and junk where the lowly bacterium gets new ways of killing us and making us sick.
Their huge numbers are probably a big part of their adaptability and the retention of their packed genome. Found an article online a while back that had concluded something like this.
Not accepting any comparisons with bacteria. Consider the whole evolutionist attempt to reduce all health and unhealth to neutrality sick in the head.
Discovered that the protein produced by the mutant allele was also different from the original protein of the colony.
Isolated the gyrase protein that was produced by the mutant gyrA allele
Tested the function of this protein under varying levels of quinolone.
Discovered that the mutant protein could tolerate 10 times more quinolone than the original protein, and still function properly.
They saw a beneficial new phenotype, and demonstrated that it correlated with a change in a nucleotide, a change to the protein made by the mutant gene, and an improvement in function over the wild-type protein. They demonstrated that an undirected mutation, a mistake---a disease process, as you like to call it---can produce a product that outperforms what you would call a "normal allele.
In this case, the mutation involved was changing an A to a G. This can be classified as a point mutation, also called a substitution, and, more specifically, as a transition. In other cases---this one, for example*--- it has been shown that changing an A into a G can cause a loss of functionality or some other deleterious effect.
*I think this one is free for the public to access. Scroll down to the Results section, Molecular Genetics Analysis subsection, and you’ll see that 3 of 5 mitochondrial myopathy patients had adenine-to-guanine (A-to-G) mutations that caused the disease.
This is what I mean when I say that mechanism and phenotype are different: the same mechanism of mutation can result in either deleterious, neutral or beneficial phenotypes in different cases. There is no diseased process involved: it is just a process of change, and disease is only one of several possible outcomes.
In evolution's sick world I guess, but in the real world there is a big difference.
Thanks for the example and I see that a useful allele was created from the point of view of the bacterium. But again, since the vast majority of mutations are not useful, and since you haven't a single one in human beings despite many opportunities to find one if it ever occurred, I'm still going to refuse to accept this.
And now I'm not even going to accept mutations AS IF they can produce alleles. I don't believe it and don't see the point any more.
So if we're going to discuss my claim that the processes that lead to and include speciation also involve decreased genetic diversity we're going to do it without that assumption.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Blue Jay, posted 04-10-2010 7:34 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 52 by Blue Jay, posted 04-10-2010 10:38 PM Faith has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2953 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(2)
Message 50 of 87 (554917)
04-10-2010 9:11 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by Faith
04-10-2010 5:29 PM


Loose Ends
Hi, Faith.
I didn't address that entire post in my last response, because I didn't want that response (which I consider more important) to become too cluttered with other things.
Still, I'd like to address a few other comments you made in your last couple of posts. This is kind of scrambled mishmash of stuff that loosely ties in with the topic. You can completely disregard this post if you don't feel like responding to it.
Faith writes:
YOU are... possibly not playing with a full deck yourself.
I think you're mistaken, but I certainly won't deny it outright.
-----
Faith writes:
Thirteen mutations to a SINGLE gene? Two genes with 26? What kind of "mutation" could that possibly be? What sort of random process changes the same gene thirteen times all toward the same result and another at the same rate yet? Something very weird about this idea. Sorry, this gets curiouser and curiouser. It may superficially look like a mutation but anything that behaves with such consistency has to be built into the organism somehow or other. No way I can concede anything with such a strange example.
They were only able to report beneficial mutants because their method for determining whether beneficial mutations happened was to apply a lethal substance and see if any bacteria could survive it. So, all the deleterious and neutral mutants perished during the process. There were probably a good number of non-beneficial mutations in the pool, as well, but we’ll never know that for sure, because they’re all dead.
-----
Faith writes:
"Deleterious" used to desribe the phenotype is new to me, but whether it can be used that way or not, the word is CERTAINLY used to describe mutations...
As I just explained, when one says "deleterious mutation," one is not saying that the process that produced the mutation is inherently deleterious: one is saying that the phenotype that results from the mutation is deleterious to the organism.
You quoted from the Wiki article on "Mutation." From that same article:
quote:
A deleterious mutation has a negative effect on the phenotype, and thus decreases the fitness of the organism.
You are classifying mutations by their phenotype, and not by their mechanism. A more mechanistic classification is provided in that article under the heading By effect on structure. There is a disconnect between this classification and the phenotypic classification: any one of the mutation types listed under By effect on structure could feasibly produce deleterious, neutral or beneficial phenotypes.
-----
Faith writes:
But apart from that, whatever happens in bacteria is a pretty sorry example for answering the glaring fact that there are thousands of known disease-causing mutations in human beings, which has been my example here. There is NO reason you can’t produce a normal allele from a mutation in human beings unless they don’t do what you think they do. Sorry, that’s what you need, not bacteria.
It is completely unfair to shrink the goal after I’ve taken my shot. It’s like changing where the bullseye is after I’ve thrown all my darts!
Nevertheless, there is a good reason why I can’t produce a normal allele from a mutation in human beings: think about the process that was needed to identify beneficial mutations in that bacterium.
Would you suggest we apply a lethal substance to an entire population of humans to see which, if any, are resistant to that lethal substance, and then sequence the relevant genes of the survivors to determine if the resistance is due to a mutation?
Of course you wouldn’t. Neither would I. So, we rely on people to volunteer for genetics studies in humans. Most people who volunteer are people who know they have a problem, and hope that the research will uncover the cause of the problem.
Furthermore, what if there were a beneficial mutation in your genome? Would you even notice it? Think of something about yourself that you are better at than anybody else you know. Did you ever not catch a cold when everyone else in your family caught it? Are you more attractive than other people in your family? Does everybody in your family except you need glasses? Do you have more natural talent for basketball than your sister or mother? Etc.
Did it ever occur to you to wonder whether or not these sorts of things were due to beneficial mutations? Of course not: nobody ever considers that. And, those who do consider it rarely (if ever) feel the desire to go get their genomes sequenced to find out. So, naturally, our sample is skewed towards deleterious mutations, because there is more motivation to work with deleterious mutations.
By the way, why do I have to provide an example from humans, anyway? I thought we were talking about cheetahs and elephant seals.
-----
Faith writes:
One new allele per individual at birth? Or half an allele? I can't work with .6
Why not? I already did the math back in Message 24.
Use one-half: it’s more friendly to your argument, and will prove my point better that way.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 5:29 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 10:36 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 51 of 87 (554932)
04-10-2010 10:36 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Blue Jay
04-10-2010 9:11 PM


Re: Loose Ends
As I just explained, when one says "deleterious mutation," one is not saying that the process that produced the mutation is inherently deleterious: one is saying that the phenotype that results from the mutation is deleterious to the organism.
But you aren't getting it. I don't care what "one is saying" -- it's CLEARLY the case that the mutations are a pathology in themselves, not normal occurrences but something twisted and pathological that happened to the genetic code over the millennia.
You are classifying mutations by their phenotype, and not by their mechanism. A more mechanistic classification is provided in that article under the heading By effect on structure. There is a disconnect between this classification and the phenotypic classification: any one of the mutation types listed under By effect on structure could feasibly produce deleterious, neutral or beneficial phenotypes.
No, I was merely insisting on the normal nomenclature which you were denying. But there is NO SUCH THING as a mutation that could produce anything but deleterious and neutral, meaning really I think, dead, alleles so it's all academic anyway.
Faith writes:
But apart from that, whatever happens in bacteria is a pretty sorry example for answering the glaring fact that there are thousands of known disease-causing mutations in human beings, which has been my example here. There is NO reason you can’t produce a normal allele from a mutation in human beings unless they don’t do what you think they do. Sorry, that’s what you need, not bacteria.
It is completely unfair to shrink the goal after I’ve taken my shot. It’s like changing where the bullseye is after I’ve thrown all my darts!
I know, terrible thing to do to you and it gets worse if you read the next post. I'm sorry, this is the first time I've ever done this, but I have to do it. I got a new view of all this in the midst of your work. I'll send you some cookies if it would make you feel better.
Nevertheless, there is a good reason why I can’t produce a normal allele from a mutation in human beings: think about the process that was needed to identify beneficial mutations in that bacterium.
Would you suggest we apply a lethal substance to an entire population of humans to see which, if any, are resistant to that lethal substance, and then sequence the relevant genes of the survivors to determine if the resistance is due to a mutation?
Of course you wouldn’t. Neither would I. So, we rely on people to volunteer for genetics studies in humans. Most people who volunteer are people who know they have a problem, and hope that the research will uncover the cause of the problem.
Furthermore, what if there were a beneficial mutation in your genome? Would you even notice it? Think of something about yourself that you are better at than anybody else you know. Did you ever not catch a cold when everyone else in your family caught it? Are you more attractive than other people in your family? Does everybody in your family except you need glasses? Do you have more natural talent for basketball than your sister or mother? Etc.
But if you could count 70 unexpected differences between children and parents, as in that study, all mutations of course, that is, you can actually pinpoint them in the genome, then you could check out if any of them act like normal alleles. Some methods should include prior knowledge about what in the human genome does what so not require anything invasive.
I'm more and more convinced of my own position as this thread proceeds.
Did it ever occur to you to wonder whether or not these sorts of things were due to beneficial mutations? Of course not: nobody ever considers that. And, those who do consider it rarely (if ever) feel the desire to go get their genomes sequenced to find out. So, naturally, our sample is skewed towards deleterious mutations, because there is more motivation to work with deleterious mutations.
Yes, you're very convinced. No, I've always thought in terms of Mendelian principles: it's always been there and just gets shuffled around from generation to generation, producing all our differences from one another according to various rules, so we all get whatever we get simply from the luck of the draw as it were, from the available gene pool. Even beneficial mutations are no help in this scenario, in fact they're simply unneeded -- there's plenty of material for inheritance to work on. Put that together with the evidence of thousands of BAD mutations and you have normal process on the one hand, disease process on the other.
By the way, why do I have to provide an example from humans, anyway? I thought we were talking about cheetahs and elephant seals.
-----
Because it's for humans that we have such an impressive catalog of genetic diseases that can be traced directly to mutations. So that's where we should have evidence of a normal allele if such a thing ever occurs. Thousands really. At least ten times the number of disease mutations. A hundred times if evolution could ever really happen. A thousand times.
Chocolate chip?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Blue Jay, posted 04-10-2010 9:11 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by Blue Jay, posted 04-10-2010 10:41 PM Faith has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2953 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 52 of 87 (554933)
04-10-2010 10:38 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by Faith
04-10-2010 9:03 PM


Re: The men who witnessed evolution
Hi, Faith.
Faith writes:
I refuse to accept it because a good thing for bacteria is not a good thing for higher living things, in which it has been made only too clear to me that mutations are NEVER beneficial.
DNA is DNA, Faith. It may be organized differently in different groups of organisms, but the underlying chemistry, and thus, the underlying mechanisms for mutation, are the same throughout the Tree of Life.
And, beneficial mutations are always defined with respect to the organism in which they occur, so your anthropocentric reasoning here is pretty pathetic.
-----
Faith writes:
Yes, you proved your point but you also so thoroughly confirmed for me the nonexistence of useful mutations for the rest of creation, I have to assume that bacteria simply have a superior system for protecting themselves that is long since lost to us. They must have some kind of chemical process that can recreate useful alleles in a way that seems out of the blue, not mutations but alleles that are part of their repertoire chemically speaking such that rare ones can appear under special conditions. For the rest of creation you get disease causing mutations and junk where the lowly bacterium gets new ways of killing us and making us sick.
I’m glad: now it is patently obvious to everybody that your intention is not to understand reality, but to rationalize your own silly beliefs at any cost. That bacteria can be benefited by mutation is proof positive of the principles behind the Theory of Evolution, but it is somehow also proof positive that nothing else can be benefited by mutation.
I wish I could have convinced you to listen to reason, but, instead, I’ll have to be content knowing that it was me who finally got you to reveal to the world your obvious idiocy.
Look, I realize how depressing it is to be faced with unequivocal evidence that the worldview you have held and defined yourself by all your life is actually inferior to some other worldview. I’m facing it myself, and it hurts like nothing I’ve ever experienced before: my family are all very disappointed in me (I’m scared of even going near my grandfather anymore), I don’t fit in with any of the communities I associate with anymore, I live in perpetual fear of my next ecclesiastical interview, and I have utterly failed to convince myself that I am not deeply saddened by the prospect of disappearing into oblivion after I die, which I now regard as a very real possibility.
It sucks, but I have never been good at deluding myself. You do not seem to have this problem.
-----
Faith writes:
Thanks for the example and I see that a useful allele was created from the point of view of the bacterium.
Great! At least I’ve accomplished something for all my effort.
-----
Faith writes:
But again, since the vast majority of mutations are not useful, and since you haven't a single one in human beings despite many opportunities to find one if it ever occurred, I'm still going to refuse to accept this.
And now I'm not even going to accept mutations AS IF they can produce alleles. I don't believe it and don't see the point any more.
So if we're going to discuss my claim that the processes that lead to and include speciation also involve decreased genetic diversity we're going to do it without that assumption.
I think it’s safe to say we are done here. I suspect that this was your intention: to say something like this that you knew would make me back out instead of you, so it would look and feel to you like you won. But, I think you're the only person who is fooled by this.
Good bye.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 9:03 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 10:40 PM Blue Jay has not replied
 Message 57 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 10:51 PM Blue Jay has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 53 of 87 (554935)
04-10-2010 10:40 PM
Reply to: Message 52 by Blue Jay
04-10-2010 10:38 PM


Re: The men who witnessed evolution
No, you got it wrong, but it's probably time to end it anyway now that you've resorted to the typical dissing of creationist thinking.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by Blue Jay, posted 04-10-2010 10:38 PM Blue Jay has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2953 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 54 of 87 (554936)
04-10-2010 10:41 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by Faith
04-10-2010 10:36 PM


Re: Loose Ends
Hi, Faith.
Faith writes:
I'll send you some cookies if it would make you feel better...
...Chocolate chip?
It would make me feel better, actually.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 10:36 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 10:43 PM Blue Jay has seen this message but not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 55 of 87 (554937)
04-10-2010 10:43 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by Blue Jay
04-10-2010 10:41 PM


Re: Loose Ends
With or without nuts?
And send your address via Messaging.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by Blue Jay, posted 04-10-2010 10:41 PM Blue Jay has seen this message but not replied

  
anglagard
Member (Idle past 1092 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 56 of 87 (554939)
04-10-2010 10:49 PM


{Content deleted}
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Not a designated "Great Debate" participant.

Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 10:52 PM anglagard has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 57 of 87 (554940)
04-10-2010 10:51 PM
Reply to: Message 52 by Blue Jay
04-10-2010 10:38 PM


worldview clash
I’m glad: now it is patently obvious to everybody that your intention is not to understand reality, but to rationalize your own silly beliefs at any cost. That bacteria can be benefited by mutation is proof positive of the principles behind the Theory of Evolution, but it is somehow also proof positive that nothing else can be benefited by mutation.
I'm convinced you're convinced. It would help a great deal if you could say the same about me.
I wish I could have convinced you to listen to reason, but, instead, I’ll have to be content knowing that it was me who finally got you to reveal to the world your obvious idiocy.
I could say the same thing back to you, Bluejay, which would fly in my favorite venues while you can get away with your view here and I couldn't -- the only real difference.
Look, I realize how depressing it is to be faced with unequivocal evidence that the worldview you have held and defined yourself by all your life is actually inferior to some other worldview.
That is simply not the case with me -- or I dare say with any Christian who believes as I do and has spent some time thinking about it. I didn't become a Christian until late in life and a creationist even later. I believed in evolution and read a fair amount in it up until then.
I’m facing it myself, and it hurts like nothing I’ve ever experienced before: my family are all very disappointed in me (I’m scared of even going near my grandfather anymore), I don’t fit in with any of the communities I associate with anymore, I live in perpetual fear of my next ecclesiastical interview, and I have utterly failed to convince myself that I am not deeply saddened by the prospect of disappearing into oblivion after I die, which I now regard as a very real possibility.
That is a very sad story, Bluejay. Apparently your conversion to evolution, and also atheism (?) is pretty recent? In a way I did go through that conversion myself as a teenager but I wasn't a strong Christian at the time, and my parents never went to church, so it was easy for me to lose the little I had. Science was just about worshiped when I was in high school, Sputnik and all you know. And the scientist types all sounded so sophisticated and they seemed to know what they were talking about. I had a teacher in an "accelerated" geometry class who pretty much said since we were all geniuses (or we wouldn't have been in his class) he could cut the math part down to a few minutes at the beginning of class and then he'd spend the rest of the time convincing us we shouldn't believe in God any more. He spent hours ridiculing religion much as people here do. 1957.
I did have a sense of loss, briefly, a pang of grief over losing God. God is to be loved. I didn't think about eternity but that's certainly something to think about.
I remained an atheist and evolutionist for the next thirty years, sometimes a fairly aggressive one.
I wish I could convince YOU that you've bought a lie.
It sucks, but I have never been good at deluding myself. You do not seem to have this problem.
Well, I think you are deluding yourself with evolution, with evidence that isn't really evidence. It's all an amazing complex of smoke and mirrors.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by Blue Jay, posted 04-10-2010 10:38 PM Blue Jay has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 58 of 87 (554942)
04-10-2010 10:52 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by anglagard
04-10-2010 10:49 PM


Re: Faith is Absolute
Anglagard does jnot belong on this thread. Please remove his post.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by anglagard, posted 04-10-2010 10:49 PM anglagard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 59 by anglagard, posted 04-11-2010 12:14 AM Faith has not replied

  
anglagard
Member (Idle past 1092 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 59 of 87 (554957)
04-11-2010 12:14 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by Faith
04-10-2010 10:52 PM


Re: Faith is Absolute
My apologies, at the moment of posting I failed to see it was exclusive.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by Faith, posted 04-10-2010 10:52 PM Faith has not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 13108
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002


Message 60 of 87 (554966)
04-11-2010 6:10 AM


The Road from Here
What would the participants like to do? I see two ways to go: I can either close this thread or replace BlueJay.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by Blue Jay, posted 04-12-2010 9:13 AM Admin has seen this message but not replied

  
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