Creationists / Intelligent Design understand Evolution?

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McCulloch
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Creationists / Intelligent Design understand Evolution?

Post #1

Post by McCulloch »

Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design are often critical of the theory of evolution. But their criticism leaves their opponents with the feeling that they don't actually understand evolution.

Question for Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design: can you explain what is meant by evolution?
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Post #11

Post by rikuoamero »

[Replying to post 9 by 2timothy316]
I have only seen things come into existence by another living thing.
What do you mean 'come into existence'? If you mean 'creation ex nihilo', then no, no-one has seen that.
Again, have to remind you...NOT EVOLUTION.
So I have no problem accepting that the first living thing was also made by another living thing.
So what was this living thing? Oh God? How is God a 'living thing' like the rest of us? Consider all the various creatures on Earth to be part of a set called 'Living Things', we all share some characteristics (such as respiration, reproduction, digestion of food, mortality etc).
God would have to be in his own special category wouldn't he? So why lump him in with the rest of us?

Again...NOT EVOLUTION.
If it is ever observed that a living thing coming from a non-living thing,
Done. At our most fundamental level, we are made up of non-living particles, such as oxygen, carbon, potassium etc. By themselves, each one is non-living. If they start combining (for whatever reason), somehow we end up with living things.
Is your belief that things came about by accident beyond reproach?
Hold the phone. I never said I believed in things coming about 'by accident'. Besides, this thread isn't about what I believe.
This thread is about how much creationists/ID'ers understand about evolution. So far, you are not exactly showing a stellar job.
If I saw things being made by accident then I might lean the other way.
There's no other possibility is there? It's just design or accident?

Oh...yeah...not evolution. You're still not talking evolution.
As it is, I really do make my decisions based on what I see.
And yet, despite not seeing God creating or designing creatures, you believe God created or designed creatures.
So until that changes, the theory for me is, everything comes from another living thing because it's the only thing I have ever observed.
Which is precisely what evolution is, until that is, we get to abiogenesis.
Because creation/intelligent can be observed
Where? When? Can you show me a creature being designed (not by humans) and show me the designer?
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Re: Creationists / Intelligent Design understand Evolution?

Post #12

Post by rikuoamero »

2timothy316 wrote:
McCulloch wrote: Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design are often critical of the theory of evolution. But their criticism leaves their opponents with the feeling that they don't actually understand evolution.

Question for Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design: can you explain what is meant by evolution?
I'd like to point out here that evolution is not about intelligent design. Evolution is about what happens life has already started.

The correct term for the origin of life debates are called abiogenesis versus biogenesis. Or perhaps abiogenesis vs intelligent design.
Great. Congratulations. You have it!

I'd like to ask a follow up question. Why is it that your responses on this thread have criticised evolution for the problems surrounding abiogenesis, when here you seem to demonstrate an understanding of the difference between evolution and abiogenesis?
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Some force seems to restrict me from buying into the apparent nonsense that others find so easy to buy into. Having no religious or supernatural beliefs of my own, I just call that force reason. -- Tired of the Nonsense

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Post #13

Post by 2timothy316 »

rikuoamero wrote:
Because creation/intelligent can be observed
Where? When? Can you show me a creature being designed (not by humans) and show me the designer?
Ah you have conditions, 'not be humans'. Ok no problem. Every single cell comes from another cell, never have they been observed coming from nothing.

See piece of cake.

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Post #14

Post by rikuoamero »

2timothy316 wrote:
rikuoamero wrote:
Because creation/intelligent can be observed
Where? When? Can you show me a creature being designed (not by humans) and show me the designer?
Ah you have conditions, 'not be humans'. Ok no problem. Every single cell comes from another cell, never have they been observed coming from nothing.

See piece of cake.
Since you assert that there is a First Creator or First Designer (I presume you wouldn't disagree with those labels?), I had to delineate from humans. I had to make sure that if you were going to show an example of a life-form being created/designed, that it was not one done so by humans.
Now, what you assert up above is NOT showing life being created or designed. Ok, we have cells coming from other cells.
At this point, that is all we have, apparently. Cells from other cells. This does not in and of itself do anything to explain where or when those cells came from, or whether or not there is design involved.
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Some force seems to restrict me from buying into the apparent nonsense that others find so easy to buy into. Having no religious or supernatural beliefs of my own, I just call that force reason. -- Tired of the Nonsense

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Post #15

Post by rikuoamero »

I have just brushed up on the rules for this sub forum, and the rules disallow debating. As such, I am going to create a new thread in C&A, where we can continue. Please click the following link.

viewtopic.php?p=888265#888265
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Some force seems to restrict me from buying into the apparent nonsense that others find so easy to buy into. Having no religious or supernatural beliefs of my own, I just call that force reason. -- Tired of the Nonsense

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Re: Creationists / Intelligent Design understand Evolution?

Post #16

Post by 2timothy316 »

rikuoamero wrote:
2timothy316 wrote:
McCulloch wrote: Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design are often critical of the theory of evolution. But their criticism leaves their opponents with the feeling that they don't actually understand evolution.

Question for Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design: can you explain what is meant by evolution?
I'd like to point out here that evolution is not about intelligent design. Evolution is about what happens life has already started.

The correct term for the origin of life debates are called abiogenesis versus biogenesis. Or perhaps abiogenesis vs intelligent design.
Great. Congratulations. You have it!
Well, the OP was not quite clear as to the intended debate. Many people throw abiogenesis and evolution together so it seemed me the OP was doing the same.
I'd like to ask a follow up question. Why is it that your responses on this thread have criticised evolution for the problems surrounding abiogenesis, when here you seem to demonstrate an understanding of the difference between evolution and abiogenesis?
Evolution is still incompatible with intelligent design. The main components to evolution is that simple life evolve into more complex life. Like a cell through numerous random accidental changes, somehow, these cells turn into a much more complex organism. That if this does happen (which there is nothing in the fossil record of cells doing this) evolution says its random and accidental. Whats more that all life came from a single source. (Currently I think that hyrothermic vents are current suggested starting place).

Here's a chart: http://glad-you-asked.blogspot.com/2009 ... retty.html

Lets pretend that chart is right and correct. To say all that happened by trial and error with out intelligent design is like saying that very jpeg was made by accident. That conclusion is unreasonable and not what is observed in nature today.
Last edited by 2timothy316 on Thu Oct 05, 2017 3:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Creationists / Intelligent Design understand Evolution?

Post #17

Post by rikuoamero »

[Replying to post 16 by 2timothy316]

I'm going to answer your Post 16 in the thread I created in C&A. Check Post 15 for the link. After this, I will not be responding to you here.
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Some force seems to restrict me from buying into the apparent nonsense that others find so easy to buy into. Having no religious or supernatural beliefs of my own, I just call that force reason. -- Tired of the Nonsense

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Post #18

Post by Tcg »

2timothy316 wrote:
I have only seen things come into existence by another living thing. So I have no problem accepting that the first living thing was also made by another living thing.
Then the thing you describe as the "first living thing" wouldn't be the "first living thing" as it would have been created be the "another living thing" that came before it.

To follow your logic, we'd have to agree that there was some other living thing that created the "another living thing" that created the "first living thing" you claim was the first living thing. Of course then you'd have to admit there was another another living thing the came before the "another living thing".

We'd eventually end up with an endless stream of anothers that could never support your claim that there was a first living thing because all the anothers would have an another that created them. In any case, this endless stream of anothers has anything to do with evolution which answers the question as to whether or not creationists / intelligent design supporters understand evolution.

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Re: Creationists / Intelligent Design understand Evolution?

Post #19

Post by Divine Insight »

2timothy316 wrote:
McCulloch wrote: Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design are often critical of the theory of evolution. But their criticism leaves their opponents with the feeling that they don't actually understand evolution.

Question for Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design: can you explain what is meant by evolution?
I'd like to point out here that evolution is not about intelligent design. Evolution is about what happens life has already started.

The correct term for the origin of life debates are called abiogenesis versus biogenesis. Or perhaps abiogenesis vs intelligent design.
I would argue that what you just said here is actually quite wrong.

Those who argue for intelligent design do not allow for evolution. They aren't merely saying that some God is responsible for abiogenesis and then things evolved normally from there. To the contrary, they have God creating entire species they call "Kinds of animals" fully developed in their mature form, and then just procreating from there.

They also have their God creating humans as a totally independent "kind" of creature.

So Intelligent Design is not an argument over abiogenesis. It's an argument against evolution.

If the creationists were going to argue that God simply created the first living cell and then everything evolved from that cell, they wouldn't argue against evolution. To the contrary they would totally embrace it.

But they can't have that because then they would need to admit that humans evolved from primates and are just one species of the group called Great Apes.

So Creationists and proponents of Intelligent design can argue for a God created bio-genesis. That wouldn't work for them because they would still then need to embrace evolution from that point forward.

So the Creationists cannot allow for anything that even remotely points to live slowly evolving over long periods of time from simpler life forms.

They need a "Designer God" who designs fully mature "kinds" of creatures.

So the Creationists shoot themselves in their own feet when they even mention that a God would be required to start bio-genesis. That already defies their arguments for Intelligent Design of fully designed "kinds".

So a creationist is totally lost the moment they even try to claim that their God was required to explain abiogenesis.
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Re: Creationists / Intelligent Design understand Evolution?

Post #20

Post by The Barbarian »

2timothy316 wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 2:28 pm
McCulloch wrote: Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design are often critical of the theory of evolution. But their criticism leaves their opponents with the feeling that they don't actually understand evolution.

Question for Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design: can you explain what is meant by evolution?
I'd like to point out here that evolution is not about intelligent design. Evolution is about what happens life has already started.

The correct term for the origin of life debates are called abiogenesis versus biogenesis. Or perhaps abiogenesis vs intelligent design.
Yes. It's worth remarking that may IDers are evolutionists. They just think God "designed" the universe to work this way. Some of them, like Michael Behe, think that God has to step in now and then to make it work correctly. Others, like Michael Denton, think that it was set up to work properly from the beginning.

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