Why are we so bad at this?

Percy, you wrote:The lesson that I think the rest of us are taking from your
participation here is that Christianity doesn't make one a
better person, the opposite in fact. Ignorance, intolerance,
dogmatism and arrogance seem to be the effects of your
brand of Christianity. Maybe it's time for another approach.***There is no more dogmatic than and evolutionists. You
can't see this because you are totally devoted to Darwinian
evolution.You seem to think that a Christian is to simply acquiesce to
everything that atheists and evolutionists spit out.There are thousands of preachers who are too afraid to say
speak the truth. They allow themselves to be bullied into
submission.All of the men of God mentioned in the Bible were despised
by humanity. Most were martyred. Some of them suffered
cruel deaths.You call me intolerant. Are you comparing me to the Democrats
that are sabotaging the Tesla dealerships?Are you comparing me to the Democratic Members of Congress
that was so intolerant of Trump that they sat on their rumps
while a young cancer survivor was being honored.Are you comparing me to the Democrats who found Trump
guilty of 34 bogus misdemeanors. And, levied a fine on him
of 455 million dollars.There is no one that I wouldn't go out of my way to help. I give
of my time freely. In fact, I work more hours per week than I
did before I retired.You do not know me. And, you have no idea what is in my
heart. However, I am not timid, and I will speak the truth.I did not evolve. I was created. I was created in the image of
God.

For the sake of argument let us grant that evolutionists are the most dogmatic people in the world. How is someone else's bad behavior an excuse for your own? Doesn't being a Christian mean working toward being a more open and generous person, rather than imitating the worst qualities in others? All I expect is discussion. In the best of all words, an informed discussion. Evolutionists are busting into churches during sermons and bullying preachers into submission? Granting all this for the sake of argument, how does that justify your own bad behavior? I'm not comparing you to anyone. Your participation here has been characterized by general intolerance. So you're accusing the Democrats of being intolerant of authoritarianism, use of the DOJ to pursue political opponents, racism and cruelty? So you believe Trump has the right to decide which court cases are valid and which are not? What about the separataion of powers? I can think of a couple ways you could help me out. Let your paragraphs wrap instead of using linefeeds after 60 characters, and learn to use the dBCodes. You sound like a wonderful person, if you do say so yourself. People are poor judges of their own character. I'm sure there is a great deal of evidence that you were born and little to no evidence that you were "created in the image of God."--Percy

There are numerous scientists who believe the Earth is flat. For some strange reason, reality doesn't change itself to match our beliefs. This is what separates scientists from creationists. Scientists look to reality to understand how it works. Creationists look to a book to tell reality how it works.You can put whatever percentage you want on our knowledge of the universe. The fact that doesn't change is that the theory of evolution explains what we do know in the field of biology. The theory explains why we see a nested hierarchy, why we see transitional fossils, why we see a changing fossil record over hundreds of millions of years. The theory explains why exons share more sequence between species than introns. The theory explains why CpG mutations outnumber non-CpG mutations when we compare the human and chimp genomes. The theory explains why we find the same retroviral insertions at the same location in the genomes of multiple species.Creationism explains none of this. If you want creationism to be accepted by scientists then you need to start tackling the actual data.

Percy, there is nothing wrong with my vernacular. I am
not cursing, nor am I degrading anyone. Sometimes I am a
little frank, but this is who I am.Have you noticed that not all men in the Bible were timid
and meek.King David, for one, was a killing machine. He was a man
after God's own heart. But he could lead his troops into
battle if need be.When Christ returns to set up His Kingdom David (under Jesus)
will be the ruler of all tribes of Israel.I am a gentle man. But God knows that this wasn't always so.
He has changed me and shaped me to a great extent. He has
also accepted me as I am.My pastor is a gentle speaking man. I admire this trait in a
pastor.Growing up in the orphanage I was accustomed to preachers
spewing their hell-fire sermons. It seems that they thought the
louder they were the more their message would come through.I don't mean to offend anyone. And if I have, I apologize. But,
God has not called on His Church to be pre-programmed robots.I despise the hold that Satan has on the world, but God allows
it.There will come a time when we must give account of our
present life. I will not be ashamed to say that I sometimes
was a little brash with my wording.This is serious business. Nothing in life is more important
than understanding how and why we were born.As I've always said, God wants everyone to come to Him.
But it will be at His choosing.However, what will soon happen on earth will be most
terrifying for those who do not have a close relationship
with God.Even though those who are under His protection will not
fear for themselves, they will feel great sadness and
compassion for those who are not.

If someone made the same argument for Zeus you would not convert to believing in Zeus. What you are writing is justification for the beliefs you already hold. They aren't at all convincing to those who don't already believe.

Thank you for that off-topic out-of-the-blue non-response to anything I said.Do you have anything on-topic to say, for instance about how you might better persuade us, or how we might better persuade you?My condolences about the orphanage thing. I don't think there are orphanages anymore, just foster care systems. Were you "evicted" on your 18th birthday? Regarding your negative reaction to preachers at the orphanage, it's usually best to go with your first reaction.--Percy

don't worry Percy, I'll never accuse you of that.I never noticed this thread of yours before. If you were more logical you might notice this opening post starts with a conclusion. (circular).The post is very similar to a video that came up on utube saying, "why do Christians hate so much".The hate is presumed in that video, and any discussion about the "hate" part would be deemed a foregone conclusion.In the same way you have an arrogance which shows in this post in that you can't even SEE the possibility that macro evolution might be specifically rejected because it is genuinely deemed to be false by intelligent, informed people. (many of whom exist even if you can't bear to tell yourself they do. Off hand I can think of a few such as Stephen Meyer, Hugh Ross, Jonathan Sarfati. Even the co-inventor of the gene gun, Sanford.)You broaden it to "science" being mistrusted, but evolution is a specific thing within science.This way you can pretend a rejection of evolution is, "science denial", by conflating the two.Perhaps that is subconscious, but it is not, "logical".There is also the fallacy of composition to consider.If I reject evolution generally, what does that actually mean in terms of the facts of the science within it? If I reject that a plane as a whole cannot fly as an argument, will that mean I believe the individual parts of a plane CAN fly?No. I won't.I accept many things you and those like you informed me about in the noughts. Natural selection, gene flow, allele frequencies, forms of speciation, nested patterns, sexual selection, etc....etc.....This axiom sums it up for me personally."Yes, you are partially right, animals clearly do evolve and to a significant extent.....but there is no reason or science that would make me believe they evolve over time into completely different animals."Now whether you like it or not, THAT is the reason I don't accept it. Not the reasons you gave.That you don't believe me? Well, I am sorry if you believe true things can only be true if they fit with your subjective concepts.CONCLUSION; your O.P lives to create the facade/false dichotomy of, "science and true and you accept it, or you reject it for reasons that are only erroneous".A false disjunction. (binary thinking)You concentrate too much on general groupings. Life is more nuanced than that.Disclaimer; I am not saying you are unintelligent, it isn't personal. I just think this is a typically self-serving type of topic that makes you look like the educators and us look like the students."WRONGO!" - The Grinch.

Also, my intention is not to DISRESPECT evolution theory.For me personally, it is a challenge to me because it is a compelling case from indirect evidence.I won't go into the reasons I believe evolution is false since it isn't my intention to bash on evolution and evolutionists.There's a lot of things I respect about evolution.- Homology. What an elegant explanation of the pentadactyl pattern it would be to suppose a common ancestor.OF COURSE I understand how a common, shared element in the past from an initial group can then explain a splitting of groups.In fact that reasoning is observed by me when it pertains to pyramids of similarity being found in far places of the world far apart from one another. Because once before they split up, they may have shared the knowledge of how to build them.- scientific investigation/attempts to explain things with methodological naturalism.This is a valiant effort and can be an honest one. Most scientists when I come across them, don't actually debate the issue all that much like with the vituperative anti-theists. They are honestly going about their work..That's fine, I have no problem with that. I only believe that their ultimate conclusion of macro is wrong but I don't reject their findings. Allele frequencies, mutations, heck even exaptation to a degree, have all been shown to exist. Adaptation exists.Why do you think I reject these things?It's not the science that is so much at fault for me Percy, it's the fantastic conclusion of it ALL being a result of evolution, that I reject.

Alright, so that's your stance on the matter. The problem is, this is very vague, you see Creationism talking about cats turning into dogs, or the mythical crocoduck.Yet those concepts are not something evolution could lead to.So I have a question then, what is the limit of change that can be achieved? If you say "Untill it turns into a completely different animal", what do you feel is a completely different animal in this case? Or at what point is it a completely different animal?And I'm asking this while keeping evolutionary theory in thought, like I said, things like cat dogs aren't something that evolution predicts can happen, so it's not an example within the context of evolution.

Thanks for your time.For me that is part of the problem. There is also the issue of the burden-of-proof. There is an axiom I observe; phantasticus axioma; "The more fantastic a claim the more fantastic it's evidence must be".To claim even the monstrously different phenotypes can bridge a gap by creating useful stages is a CLAIM of evolution. The burden of proof is reasonably upon Darwin EVEN NOW to show that evolution can.There are strange phenotypes that had to have evolve and there is no escape they had to evolve from something radically different. Such as the pteroid bone in a pterosaur. The elongated finger. Presumably it evolved from a quadruped, right?I expect evidence of that but it would be unreasonable to demand evidence of it. It would not be unreasonable to look for all such evidences, and then say, "now I demand to see how evolution at least created some of it".So shall we look at some gaps in the fossil record, windows of time where X MUST have evolved?Empirical evidence would satisfy my intellect.I have already looked at those windows-of-time. CONCLUSION; It can't be as simple as, "lots of micro = macro". Micro doesn't have to deal with overhauls of phenotype and no micro-examples do.I won't get into defining kind, these days I believe the kind would differ according to what God wanted to achieve with the animal in question. The law of identity suffices. All the evidence shows that X is X. Even if I don't define kind, that won't change that all the evidence has only ever shown humans beget humans. Even not knowing where the barrier is won't mean that once we were apes because not knowing where a barrier is, doesn't mean there isn't one."I don't know where the solar system ends!"Adequate response; so what.

Just one last post. (sorry if I sounded harsh Percy, I have a strict style, and perhaps "arrogant" was a touch harsh).I don't mean to go back far into the horse and buggy days of EvC forum but it does seem to me that message 1 deals with the issue.I am not saying this to implicate you Percy, but I think the real problem was your cyber-genocide of most of the evolutionists that used to come here. (so to speak).It seemed such a decidedly odd thing to do. All my friends are there, and hey presto now they are gone. ANd what were they replaced with? Tangle for example?Did it ever occur to you that coming into a lion's den to basically get chewed up and spat out, just isn't all that appealing?At least the classic atheists conversed with me. Talked to me like I wasn't something on their shoe, etc.....But these days it seems the pejoratives and dysphemisms and epithets and vituperative vitriol is pretty much what the whole woke position is, including a lot of non-believers in that.It seems to be a post-truth, post-intellectual era, where calling me the dumbest prick on the planet is all that is needed in debate.Well............okay then. But is it really going to enamour creationists?Look at Faith and Buzsaw. Your style was to basically argue THEM. It was just an echo-chamber for their verbal slaughter.That doesn't speak of objective people. What it does show is ideology and prejudice. Are you self-aware enough to change?Most people aren't.It's probably much easier to just instead stereotype the creationists, right?

Zucadragon, I don't only reject macro evolution because of macro evolution, but because of the strength of the design argument; Forums - Evolution Fairytale ForumYou can find more at EFF forum; (above link)

Let me point out the problem with this argument:

quote:

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If you have all the identifying features of sophisticated intelligent design, then you have something intelligently designed. (This is the law of identity, NOT circularity, most laymen conflate the two)

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The Law of Identity requires that the two identical statements have exactly the same meaning. Therefore, for this to be the Law of Identity it must be the case that having “all the identifying features of sophisticated intelligent design” is all that being “intelligently designed” means. Therefore if something had those features but was not designed by an intelligence it would still be “intelligently designed” - according to your claim.I think we may rightly reject this as an equivocation. Unless it can be shown that only an intelligent designer can produce something having “all the identifying features of sophisticated intelligent design” then that is an assumption - and arguably one that begs the question.

Hate to break it to you, but Darwin died over 100 years ago.The burden of proof most definitely rests with biologists who propose common ancestry and evolution, and they are doing the work to meet this burden. At the molecular level is the field of evolutionary developmental biology which is focusing on the changes in DNA responsible for changes in phenotype. At the macroscopic level is paleontology which continually finds more and more fossils that are filling those phenotypic gaps, be it the tetrapod transitional fossils, cetacean transitional fossils, or the wonderfully step-like evolution of the mammalian middle ear seen in the fossil record.Evolutionary developmental biology - Latest research and news | Nature
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1 (evolution of the mammalian middle ear)What I haven't seen is any research being done by those who disagree with the evolutionary proposals. Research is ongoing, and new finds are giving us new insights:ScienceDirectThere are unknowns in biology, but that isn't stopping the research. What about the evolution of the mammalian middle ear linked above?Would you consider the differences between humans and chimps to be macro or microevolution?

How do you determine if you have all the identifying features? More to the point, how many of these identifying features are based on subjective opinion, rhetoric, and semantics?The most basic problem for ID and various forms of creationism is that they can't deal with the data in biology. For example:Why do we observe a nested hierarchy among complex eukaryotes?Why do CpGs make up just 1% of animal genomes when an even distribution of bases should result in about 4% CpGs?Why are there 35 million substitution mutations separating humans and chimps and not some other number, like 5 million or 100 million?When we compare the human and chimp genome, why is the ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous mutation rates the same as the non-synonymous to intron mutation rate?Why do we see the same ratios of transversion and transition mutations in human de novo mutations, human genetic variation, and in the comparison of the human and chimp genomes?Why do we see the exact mixture of features in the fossil record as predicted by the theory of evolution, such as the mixture of basal ape and modern human features seen in Australopithecines, or the mixture of lobe finned fish and tetrapod features seen in T. roseae? Why don't we see mixtures of features that the theory says we shouldn't find, such as a mixture of bird and mammal features?These are just a few off the top of my head, and I have never seen an ID proponent or creationist address them convincingly without tacitly agreeing that these observations are the product of common ancestry and evolution.