The "common creator" myth

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While the power of arrogance may be more obvious in the creationists, I think it is just as powerful but less subtle in the evolutionists since they have a lot of mutual support and more accumulated reserach.

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I think you are mistaking arrogance for confidence. Arrogance is egotism without justification or sufficient evidence while confidence is a form of trust through supporting evidence and fulfillment of expectations. I am confident that if I drop my pencil that it will fall towards the floor. I am not arrogant, but confident through previous experience and the support of previous tests. Creationists, on the other hand, put forth theories that have no evidenciary support and in fact are usually contradicted by them. They proclaim the accuracy of these theories not because of confidence derived from evidence but because of arrogance born of religious dogma. The attitudes of evolutionists and creationists are quite the opposite.

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Gen. 6:4 "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days -- and also afterward -- when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

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So, did the lineage of "sons of men" die out. That is, are there any descendents now that come from ancestoral lines not of the Nephilim? I ask that because if we have two divergent groups, then we should have divergent groups of Y chromosomes today, one from the sons of men and one from the sons of God.

I have no idea. All I'm saying is that according to the Bible some of man's ancestors genetic material has been tampered with by non-human beings. Perhaps they have all died out. This is supposed to be one of the reasons why God told the Israelites to completely destroy certain peoples: they were descendants of nephilim.

But why would God need man to do that? It's his playing board - why not just do it himself?In fact why create something that he must know that he will destroy?

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But why would God need man to do that? It's his playing board - why not just do it himself?

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I agree, it does seem inconsistent even within the Bible. On one hand we have the Israelites fighting hand to hand combat, and in another place we have them eating a meal to protect them from the Angel of Death. But, we are drifting away from the original topic. I think we have enough material here for a separate thread if someone wants to start one.

Yep, that's my view as well - although I'm not confident enough to start it.If anybody sees the kind of assumption that I referred to in the original post knocking around the forum, please direct them here. I think that the thread as a whole has presented quite an in depth rebuttal so far, and it would probably go some way to prevent topic drift elsewhere.

Please don't think I've been ignoring you. I've just not seen too much reason to reply in depth because others have done such a good job.Don't let the fact that you have found that there is a lot that you don't know (yet) put you off. Keep asking questions and learning from the answers. I hope I speak for most people by saying that we are neither smugly assuming you will 'fall into line', or hoping that you will suddenly run over the hill waving the white flag of evolution. We all have different points of view (as you pointed out a while ago - that's what makes it a debate), all we ask is that people don't dismiss evidence without thinking about it, and so far you seem to have managed it.If you have any questions about the molecular evidence (which as you learn more, you will) don't hesitate to post it here. Other than that, see you around

Hi, I am new around here. I just recently got really interested in the creationism/evolution debate, and this forum seems to be one of the best places to discuss and debate it. I enjoy the respectful and thoughtful atmosphere and I hope to participate and learn. This thread has been a very interesting read and has really made me think.After considering all that has been said, I think that I have a good explanation for the existence of pseudogenes such as GLO pseudogene that is supposed to produce vitamin C but is broken as well as the other 8,000 in the human genome.According to the Bible, in Romans 8, all of creation is suffering from "The Fall," not just humans. "The creation waits in eager anticipation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we oursleves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."The key part of that passage is the part that talks about creation "groaning" and being subjected to frustration becuase the actions of someone else. What I am trying to say is this. When "the Fall" occured, everything in nature started to go wrong, not just human DNA. God, either by direct action or perhaps through a specialized virus or other agent specifically designed to target certain sections of DNA, caused genes to become broken. These broken genes are the pseudogenes we see today. Humans have the GLO pseudogene as well as monkeys because all of creation was affected by the Fall, monkeys and humans both.In response to Loudmouth's saying the Fall would cause humans to lose 20% of their functional genes, I say, why would they have to lose them all at once? I believe that the loss of these genes is what caused the difference between the extremely long lifespans in the Bible and those of today. But did lifespans suddenly go from 800 years to 80? No, they slowly declined, becoming less and less as time went on. This seems to indicate that while the Fall marked the beginning of the corruption of nature, it was not the end. The corruption was/is? ongoing. Perhaps 1% of humans genes were broken every couple hundred years. 1% broken, lifespan drops a little, 1% more broken, lifepsan drops a little more, until finally 20% are broken and lifespans are dramatically shorter.Ooook said in the start of this thread that pseudogenes are either evidence for a common ancestor or evidence "for a creator who for some, strange, unexplained reason decided to make it look like there was a series of common ancestors!" I propose a third alternative: that pseudogenes are evidence for a perfect creation made by God that went wrong after the Fall.Thus, as far as I know and understand, if I may use Ooooks words again, "The evidence used to justify a common ancestor can just as easily be interpretted as evidence for a common creator."Comments? Do you agree/disagree? I want to find out the truth!This message has been edited by General Nazort, 07-31-2004 11:27 PM

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If you say there are no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure about that?

Hi General,Thanks for participating in this board.I am of a similar view as you, however, in relation to this discussion there are some problems.From the Biblical perspective, there were not just changes at the fall. There were also changes after the flood. Apparently, after the flood, men became carnivorous, and only in the first 1000 years or so after the flood did lifespans drop off from the 800-900 year range to the 100 year range.It's certainly possible that God could have supernaturally modified the genetic code of organisms at different points after the fall to bring about the desired changes; however, this argument carries no scientific weight unless there is evidence that supports divine intervention over natural selection.And right now, from what I've learned in this debate, the evidence weighs on the side of natural selection due to the fact that phylogenies (am I using that term correctly) based on the genomes of different species also reportedly match the phylogenies found in the fossil record (although I'm not perfectly assured of this correlation). But I know that our knowledge of genetics is far from complete, and there will certainly be new insights gained as research continues.There seems to be evidence of a bottle neck in recent history by measuring DIFFERENCES in mutations and mutatino rates which implies a massive environmental change in which only a very few of a species survived or a special creation, but by looking at similarities in genome mutations an evolutionary origin is supported. I could be wrong, but I don't believe the current rate at which random mutations are accruing is high enough for 20% to be broken in 6000 years. There would have to have been something to cause an increase in mutation rates in the past. Heh... good luck. Not saying it's not possible, but you won't get anywhere unless you truly understand the subject and you've got some hefty evidence up your sleeve. Dittos. I've found thats a lot more difficult than it seems, but never quit searching.This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 08-01-2004 01:46 AM

Not at all. You all have done a great job of explaining it all to me. I shall. Well, here's my position. I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and therefore, with the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, truth can be gained by study of it. I also believe, that faith in God and his creation should never contradict what we know as truth by means of rationalism or empiricism.The current models of cosmology and evolution have more than a few built in assumptions. Since the correlations in the evidences have made these theories very plausible, these assumptions are acceptable. However, I feel that since certain aspects of these current models go against certain aspects of what the Bible says is true, then within these assumptions, the current models have gone astray to some extent. I think there exists the one absolute true model of creation and evolution of life that fits what I have percieved by faith, rationalism, and empiricism.I have thrown whatever models aside I used to believe in and am examining all models to try and separate what MUST be true, from what COULD be true. And on top of that I am unceasingly praying to know what IS true about how God accomplished His creation. I will not again be guilty of this. Thanks again for your posts, information, and encouragment.Have a good'un

A limit. That is all I will say for now. The question of the second color change or cipher change is difficult. I had my own thought. I thought that THE EIGHTH DAY OF CREATION would provide enough material from the early 60s to answer this but alas it does not seem to and I am begining to suspect that it wont in the USA for lack of continued discussions on nonadaptive traits in extra WHITE of FORD but instead HFreelandJudson ONLY talks about the LEVELS of the Buildings in Moscow which Gladyshev has already covered and in Western NY were simply a "time capsule" put under the biology building at SUNY after the Buffalo contractors worked with with Grandfather on the blue printed prints.I need to give it more thought-

what I am noticing is that there is a failure to understand the cultural Tension of e/c and the issue of THE WHOLE of heterozygote changability vs alleomorph sequences in terms of your simley. But as this would require a revision of what I wrote today I will have to await a better repose. It is obvious to me that there IS a 'condition' here but even Provine was indifferent at this admonition. "residue" came to mine mind.

Lol! That is pretty funny nonsense. It is interesting how a bunch of complicated words can make something seem like it almost makes sense. Bravo, Mr. McFall. Now could someone please delete this post and the previous two so we don't junk up this thread?

While a lot of people seem to disagree with you, General. I agree. It doesn't really contain meaning. It is like a Rorschach inkblot. We read into it what we want not what is there.

Hi general,I'll try and tackle your post regarding 'the third way' of interpretting the evidence in a while, but I'm a bit busy at the moment so for now I'll just say that I agree with you about Brad. I think most people misjudge just how witty they are: just enough vaguely relavent stuff in there amongst the gibberish to make you wonder whether he is actually saying something. A recent example of A-grade Brad was when he used a list of statements broken up with colons and all starting with the letter P (the result was a series of nonsense punctuated with - pure genius.I gave up directly replying to him long time ago as the only way to do this is in kind and (sorry Brad) I'm just not up to it. Don't ever ask him to simplify or summarise - I did that once and immediately regretted it.I'll get back to you later on today in order to try (in vain) to stop the thread veering off on one.

I've seen this argument before - it's not very readily falsifiable, at least. But it seems odd that, in the case of the GLO and urate oxidase pseudogenes at least, the great apes were the ones standing next to Eve when the Big Guy aimed the Curse at her. Why else would these genes (as well as some for olfactory receptors) be broken in the same place only in these species? It sounds just a little ad hoc to me.