Why TOE is not accepted

It's easier for you to think that, but most of the people I know that rejected ToE did so primarily due to the evidence, namely the misuse of the evidence by evolutionists and the fact they were taught lies, overstatements, exagerrations, etc,...as facts by evolutionists.In my own life, I like you accepted based on authority that I was being taught the truth. I remember telling another Christian who was a Creationist, "but what about all the evidence", and he challenged me to just look into the evidence for myself with an open mind. I was arguing and still do that the text of Genesis does not preclude and old earth or even evolution to a degree.As far as evolution, I confessed that up to that point, I just assumed all the stuff I was taught in school was true. By "school", at that time me education included an elite prep school and a top university. I was not raised by a religious family. My Dad was a surgeon, and my grandfather a doctor, and we were a fairly secular family, nominally Episcopalian, except we rarely if ever attended church, although my parents did go for a little while when I was little and they liked the minister.In no way was I raised around or near a fundamentalist influence.But I was raised to think for myself. I became a Christian while my brother is an atheist and Libertarian, and my Mom is a Democrat and Dad a Republican, but not a social conservative, as I am, to give you an idea of the diversity of thought in the family.I looked into the evidence, and considered that ToE is basically a sham. It does have merit, but it is so overstated and treated in such a quasi-religious manner, that it is as much a cultish ideology as real science, imo.This message has been edited by randman, 07-29-2005 12:33 PM

Maybe when you were a "literalist" or "fundamentalist", you did not have a real, personal relationship with Jesus, and therefore confused the political ideology of the people you were around with spirituality.I don't see Jesus' message as being primarily political, but in a limited democracy, as we have, it is our responsibility to participate politically. The message I got from Reagan was hope, confidence in America, limited government and anti-communism.I don't see those things as opposite to what Jesus taught.I do think what Reagan did in Central America was opposite of what Jesus taught, and that's the problem with ideology in general. Sometimes, ideology can pidgeon-hole a complex situation into a simplistic formula and distort one's perception.Anti-communism was thus commendable in Europe since it helped reinforce reality, which is the Soviet Union was an evil empire, no doubt about it.But in Latin America, it's hard to tell if the leftists or the rightists were the most evil. At least, the leftists seemed to want to help the people. Then again, communism was evil and needed to be stopped.But it seems like we could have done things better without backing the death squads and monsters down there.But the general hope and confidence, and appeal to limited government, seems consistent with Jesus' message since Jesus did not advocate politics or government action to advance His kingdom.

Predisposition is a good argument. No doubt people's subjectivity exercises a great deal of influence on their "objective thinking" (obviously subjective too).But that works both ways. People are raised in general within a framework of societal influences, particularly in the educational system, that strongly prejudices their beliefs towards evolution.In fact, the approach to teaching evolution is to generally deride it's critics as unscientific, and to teach belief in evolution prior to understanding the evidence for evolution. In other words, for students there is very little to no critical thinking encouraged or applied to ToE, until one is already steeped in the propaganda and ideology of it, or at least can parrot back those ideas.So basically I would argue that the people that accept evolution already belong to a faith that has a strong bent towards accepting ToE, and perhaps more so than the other way around, since it is possible to be a Christian and hold to ToE, but scientists that reject ToE are, imo, likely to be discrimated against. Just look at the reaction to the guy that published the ID paper. His career may be ruined by the evolutionist witch-hunters.

Actually, the fossil evidence was one of the strongest pieces of evidence against ToE. For example, species in the fossil record generally appear in a non-gradual manner, fully-formed, without any hint of the immediate prior theorized transitional forms. It is common to hear evolutionists speak of transitional forms, but imo, this is tantamount to deception since for the evolutionists, all species are by definition "transitional."But one would expect to see the fossil record, after so much time, showing the actual transitions. What we know about mutations and evolution in general consists of pretty small changes. The theory is these changes can add up to big changes over a long period of time, and that the fossil record shows this.But the fossil record does not show that. You don't see very small changes, gradually morphing one kind of creature into a vastly different creature. No matter how much you look into it, the fossil record is at best very weak evidence for evolution, and imo, is strong evidence against it.Let me give you an example. A few years back, Nightline did a whole episode on how a fish fossil had a bone in it that, wow, could be the precursor to an arm or some such. It was very, very little scant evidence, but it was treated as big news.Why?Because there is no real evidence of these transitions taking place.We see fully formed, vastly distinct species appearing and disappearing, some appearing and never evolving at all. The fossil record, imo, is wholly inconsistent with naturalistic evolutionary theories of universal common descent.The fact that smaller organisms appear first is not profound or significant overall, imo, since we see exceptions to that, although explained by layers being jumbled up, and we don't really see documentation of the transitions, and we see irregular appearance of fossils, such as the Cambrian explosion.This message has been edited by randman, 07-29-2005 01:07 PMThis message has been edited by randman, 07-29-2005 01:09 PM

Well, not to be mean to robinroham, but I'll use him as an example. He has argued pretty passionately for evolution, but confesses on this thread, and this is sort of mean to bring it up, but that he knows very little about the evidence, and just accepted it because he was taught it.Nonetheless he feels quite sure that the only reason people reject it is due to some political motive.His situation and perspective is not at all unique.Think about that.

Even a professional biologist has not examined the evidence "directly" as you state, but certainly one can examine the published evidence. One of the first rules of assessing the published material should always be examining the assumptions being made in interpreting the data.

Actually, Darwin said what we now call the phylotypic stage of emrbyonic development was the strongest argument for evolution, but that piece of data is a very dubious claim.Moreover, one of Darwin's strongest critics was in some sense the founder of modern embryology, and he claimed evolutionists and Darwin in particular misrepresented his data.

DNA evidence is some of only real evidence, imo, out there, but even there, we don't understand the nature of mutations enough to assess the data. For example, you would be hard-pressed to determine to what degree mutations are random and non-random, but ToE is presented consistently as the result of "random" mutations, often without the qualification that mutations are known to be non-random in some aspects, and really we don't know to what degree they are random or non-random.That doesn't stop evolutionists from insisting they have conclusive proof. Oh, they will say, science cannot prove anything, but they then turn around and show they don't believe that. They are more dogmatic about evolution than the jihadis are about Burkas.And that's the problem. Evolutionists are always continually overstating the evidence. I don't see it as an intellectual honest endeavor.

Sometimes. Like I said, I looked into the evidence and claims for myself.I first began to do this back in the 80s, and to give you an example, in looking at creationist criticisms, they claimed that evolutionists used faked drawings in their textbooks, and sure enough, that was true. Anyone could look into that, and determine, for instance, that the claims on embryos were faked, that they used faked drawings, and sure enough, the depictions shown to me to convince me of embryonic similarities and a phylotypic stage were false, not resembling reality.It wasn't until 1997 that the evolutionist community did anything to correct this error for the most part, despite critics for decades claiming the evidence was faked. In 1997, Richardson did a study and published the conclusions, most of which had already been claimed and published in creationist literature, and subsequently, many textbooks began to remove these errors.But if you look at the terminology, much of the deception is still in use. Evolutionists will still refer to gill pouches despite their never being human gill pouches.in general, this MO seems to the dominant method of indoctrination employed by evolutionists. They used faked evidence, and overstatements of real evidence to convince the naive who more or less blindly trust them based on authority.

No, emrbyonic evidence is not. It shows no more similarities between embryos than exists for adults, and in some respects it is very strong evidence against evolution since the early stages are often far more different than they should be, more different between species than their adult forms, which is the opposite of what evolution would predict.That is softened a little though by the fact that embryos occur at all, but to call the data evidence for evolution, imo, is a form of delusion on evolutionists' part.

Great point on the sediment deposition.Have you read about my ideas on the Fall on some of the other threads?My theory, but which involves some concepts associated with quantum physics, is that the universe was changed with the Fall in a wide-reaching manner. Specifically, things like anatomy were changed in the animal kingdom to make eating meat, etc,...workable.Where you may disagree with me though is my conclusion that based on looking at time as part of the universe instead of the universe flowing through universal time, is that God probably changed the universe, or at least our part of it, from the beginning to the end.Relativity showed how time was not constant for all, and quantum physics appears to show causal effects from the present and thus future back towards the past, although perhaps very, very small in relation to the effects of present towards the future, thus "making all things new."So in a sense, death could now pre-exist Adam since we are essentially working with a changed and continually changing time-line. Even the past is made new because a more biblical and scientific perspective on the universe is to view it not just as a whole spatially, but to view at as a whole time-wise, time being just part of the space of the universe.What one should expect, based on my idea, is that the patterns laid down in Genesis would be shown to be correct, but there would be details or aspects that don't fully match because the universe's time-line has changed over time. So you would see evidence of sea animals before land animals, just as the Bible says, but it may not fit like we think it should, meaning you probably won't discover the forms of creatures like porpoises that existed prior to death.All that has been wiped out by the changes, down the quantum level, of what the universe is presented as to man's consciousness.

I just looked at it, but have looked at this stuff quite a bit, abnd have read this whole FAQ before. It's total hogwash. I suggest you read your own link. For example, That's a bunch of bogus claims. Please note the phrase "coupled with common descent": None of this is evidence of common descent. It is merely an attempt showing how if common descent was true, evolution might have occurred. To use it as evidence for the very assumption needed to prove the interpretation of the data is correct is deeply fallacious.Just look at the claim. The assumption is development occurred, and then the argument is made, "this developmental information, coupled with common descent" blah, blah, blah.It's all smoke and mirros and precisely the reason I reject most evolutionist claims. There are numerous claims that start out with how something evolved and then that's used that evolution is true.Let's look even deeper at the claim.Why should we expect that any single claim concerning similarities between reptile jaws and mammal jaws and ears to be the result of evolution?The reason is far less similarity than the 3 ear bones of mammals is posited as could only be the result of common ancestry, and yet we see an example of greater simalarity now being spoken of as being produced independently via convergent evolution. In other words, we have greater similarities than cannot fit into the common ancestry passing the similarity down argument.Case closed, if you ask me.He uses that as evidence but never explains that. It's just total hogwash.

So much greater similarities can arise independently according to evolutionists, such as with the 3 mammal inner ear bones, but lesser similarities automatically prove am evolutionary pathway?LOL?Sorry, but you need to deal with the data and not overstate things. Sure, one explanation could be the sequence of similarities between the reptilian jaw area and mammalian jaw areas could possibly be common descent.In no way is the data mutually exclusive to any other just-so story. Just add a little imagination, and anything could be possible.Certainly, the data does not indicate that the bones evolved from one another. They could be created that way, or there could well be that some species evolved similarities independently due to convergent evolution.But to claim reptiles evolved into mammals is unfounded.

That's not true. The fossil record does not show the process. Evolution happens gradually, and we don't see that in the fossil record.Moreover, mutations are not random either.The claim that patterns are screaming out a universal common ancestor instead of a universal common Creator, imo, is totally illogical.

Yawn. What a stupid and absurd rant on your part, but by all means, enjoy yourself!