Yet another ID challenge.

[Box Whatbox]

I've just spent the afternoon with a relative who was introducing her 4-month-old son to our local section of the family.
The poor little blighter spent a lot of time pushing his hand into his mouth, screaming in pain.
Teething, it's called.
Who designed that?

[rookiebatman]

...randomly-assembled microbes morphed into men over great goobly-gobs of time --

That's still not an accurate description of what evolutionists believe. It will continue to not be, no matter how many times you say it.

[Volbrigade]

Volbrigade wrote:

...randomly-assembled microbes morphed into men over great goobly-gobs of time --

That's still not an accurate description of what evolutionists believe. It will continue to not be, no matter how many times you say it.

It still is precisely (though succinctly) what they believe, no matter how many times denizens on here deny it.

I am continually bemused by the refusal of the m2m evolutionist to own up to the premises of his own belief. (shrug)

[Replying to post 1 by Box Whatbox]

Hi Box,

Hi Wootah.

Are you familiar with Christianity?

Very

I'll only defend ID from the Christian perspective.

What other perspectives are there?

1) God declared the world good not perfect.

Well obviously! If He had declared it perfect, everyone would have laughed at Him. Or said 'Aww, bless!'. Or cursed Him roundly. Depending on how bad their day had been..

2) The world was cursed after the fall. Many things that are painful now would not have been painful before.

So do you, Wootah, personally worship a God who has let every innocent babe spend weeks or months howling in pain, when He could have made a minor adjustment to the design of the infant mouth?
If YOU could think of a way to ease the pain of these infants, would you go to the trouble of doing it?
If you knew of a normal human who clearly had the talents and the means to relieve JUST ONE such infant from such pain, and chose not to do it, what would you think of that person?
Do you think this Designer (the one that you believe in and worship) could have saved these innocents from this agony, and chose not to? Do you really believe whoever Designed the infant mouth was loving AND caring AND powerful AND merciful AND intelligent? Explain please!

I accept your objection to the existence of God, based on the fact that infants have the capacity for pain.

So do unborn babies, by the way -- who pitifully try to escape from the merciless forceps and chemical solutions that abort their short lives. I don't have to assume you're ardently anti-abortion, and commend you for your position.

Do you accept my objection to the idea that "once there was nothing, and then it exploded", creating a universe of order and apparent design, in which randomly-assembled microbes morphed into men over great goobly-gobs of time --

based on the love and compassion expressed by the baby's mother, and others in their presence, who would do whatever they could to alleviate the baby's pain?

[rookiebatman]

It still is precisely (though succinctly) what they believe, no matter how many times denizens on here deny it.

Not unless you're redefining the word "morph," which I've explained before is commonly understood to be a single thing taking on a different form, not the distant descendants of something having a different form.

If I have a son, are you claiming that I morph into him? If you are, then you are using the term "morph" incorrectly. If you are not, then you can't claim that evolutionists believe microbes morphed into men.

I am continually bemused by the refusal of the m2m evolutionist to own up to the premises of his own belief. (shrug)

Did you ever stop to consider that maybe we're not owning up to it simply because we don't actually believe it? There's nothing to be bemused about here. You are describing evolution wrong, and people who understand evolution better are telling you so.

If someone is ignorant about something, they can accept correction and stop being ignorant, or they can blind themselves to correction and become willfully ignorant.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 13 by rookiebatman]

Okay. I just want to be clear.

It's not okay to say "microbes became men", because I didn't become my son?

I'm just taking notes here.

What, precisely, is the part y'all disagree with in the following:

AFTER microbes became assembled (however that happened...), then they began to become more and more complex, as a result of mutations to their genome.

This resulted in the acquiring of such traits as circulatory and nervous and respiratory systems over time; as well as muscle, bone, and other tissues and structures; and organs that developed for specific functions (eyes, ears, etc.)

And we're just talking about the animal kingdom here. Plants took a whole different "path" early on.

Anyway, the net result of this, over time, is that those first microbes eventually turned into us -- human beings.

Where am I wrong?

Is that still too embarrassing to embrace?

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 14 by Volbrigade]
There is nothing embarrassing except your inability to grasp the concept and repeated flailing attempts that seem, inevitably, to get it wrong in the end.

For example, I don't know that one might properly refer to the common ancestor shared by men and bacteria as "microbes," a rather unspecific non-technical term.

[Box Whatbox]

I accept your objection to the existence of God, based on the fact that infants have the capacity for pain.

So do unborn babies, by the way -- who pitifully try to escape from the merciless forceps and chemical solutions that abort their short lives. I don't have to assume you're ardently anti-abortion, and commend you for your position.

Do you accept my objection to the idea that "once there was nothing, and then it exploded", creating a universe of order and apparent design, in which randomly-assembled microbes morphed into men over great goobly-gobs of time --

based on the love and compassion expressed by the baby's mother, and others in their presence, who would do whatever they could to alleviate the baby's pain?

And how does any of this relate to the OP?

[rookiebatman]

Okay. I just want to be clear.

It's not okay to say "microbes became men", because I didn't become my son?

It's not okay to move the goalposts. You weren't saying "microbes became men," you were saying "microbes morphed into men," a false description of evolution which tries to make the theory look ridiculous, because (as we all agree) the idea of a microbe just suddenly morphing into a human being (like the blue chick in X-Men) is ridiculous. But even so, saying "became" instead of "morphed" is really just a softening of the same falsity. Microbes don't become men; creatures have offspring, some of which are more complex, and so it is the commonly accepted theory that current complex life forms are the distant descendants of prehistoric simple life forms. If you're bound and determined to describe evolution with the words "microbes" and "men" in the same sentence, then I wouldn't have any major problem with "prehistoric microbes were the ancestors of modern man." But I suspect you won't much care for that, because it doesn't make evolution sound ridiculous enough.

If you truly believe the real scientific theory of evolution doesn't make sense, then argue against that. All you've done so far is knock down straw men.

What, precisely, is the part y'all disagree with in the following:

AFTER microbes became assembled (however that happened...), then they began to become more and more complex, as a result of mutations to their genome.

This resulted in the acquiring of such traits as circulatory and nervous and respiratory systems over time; as well as muscle, bone, and other tissues and structures; and organs that developed for specific functions (eyes, ears, etc.)

And we're just talking about the animal kingdom here. Plants took a whole different "path" early on.

Anyway, the net result of this, over time, is that those first microbes eventually turned into us -- human beings.

Where am I wrong?

I put the part I disagree with in bold. As was mentioned here before, the only thing that's ever turned into human beings are zygotes. Those first microbes did not turn into human beings, they died millions or billions of years ago. You were not a prehistoric microbe at one point in your life, therefore you cannot say that a prehistoric microbe turned into you, any more than you can say you turned into your son. "Prehistoric microbes were the ancestors of modern man." On the off-chance that you actually do care about describing evolution somewhat accurately, just use that.

Is that still too embarrassing to embrace?

It has nothing to do with embarrassment, and everything to do with inaccuracy.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 17 by rookiebatman]

Okay, okay. I'm convinced. I agree.

Microbes did NOT morph into human beings.

Not in one generation. Not over great expanses of time. Not ever.

Nor did they assemble by random processes.

Nor did the universe burst into existence, uncaused.

Very good.

Now, let's talk about what actually DID happen.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..."

[rookiebatman]

Okay, okay. I'm convinced. I agree.

Microbes did NOT morph into human beings.

Not in one generation. Not over great expanses of time. Not ever.

...Which you never actually believed in the first place, so don't act like you're coming around to some new point of view now.

Now, let's talk about what actually DID happen.

That's all I ever wanted.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..."

I'm supposed to be convinced by this? I thought you wanted to talk about things that actually DID happen, not unsupported presuppositions. This is a debate forum; you make a claim, there should be evidence to back it up.

[Volbrigade]

Okay, okay. I'm convinced. I agree.

Microbes did NOT morph into human beings.

Not in one generation. Not over great expanses of time. Not ever.

...Which you never actually believed in the first place, so don't act like you're coming around to some new point of view now.

Now, let's talk about what actually DID happen.

That's all I ever wanted.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..."

I'm supposed to be convinced by this? I thought you wanted to talk about things that actually DID happen, not unsupported presuppositions. This is a debate forum; you make a claim, there should be evidence to back it up.

That's what I've been providing -- pages and pages of it, on several threads -- and for a few weeks now.

The evidence is both empirical -- the same evidence, looked at with different presuppositions (which I maintain are ultimately epistemological in origin) will yield different interpretations -- as well as philosophical: e.g., a universe that has a beginning requires a cause for its existence.

As I stated... somewhere ... perhaps to you: I'm under no obligation to repeat the arguments for each new skeptic that arrives. That would be an endless sisyphean task. Please feel free to do your own investigation of the arguments I've made, and where they take you.

My modest hope is that occasionally, someone who has labored under the lifelong deception of being indoctrinated into the m2m myth, will question that indoctrination, and perhaps conclude that it is absurd on every level; and perhaps even turn to the alternative of Biblical truth, as a result.

Well -- we can hope, can't we?