Why are Some Christians Upset that Other Theists Accept Darwin?

[Tcg]

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Here is the reaction of one Christian when it was pointed out that some theists accept evolution:

"There are also plenty of theists that don't read the Bible nor attend Church, but they certainly like Darwin."

viewtopic.php?p=1142308#p1142308

Why would the fact that some theists accept reality bother a Christian? What drives this evolution phobia?


Tcg

[Difflugia]

If you mean with evidence, the bones or the DNA, I have not denied they can exist. I just don't believe the fairy tales some people develop from those.

Right. You don't deny that a fossil is a fossil or that DNA is DNA, you just deny that the phylogenetic patterns derived from them have any meaning. Similarly, someone that recognized twos and fours, but insisted that 2 + 2 = 4 is a fairy tale would be a math denier.

Your explanations are not the same as evidence.

That's right. The patterns themselves are the evidence. Similarly, I could show you two marbles added to another two marbles and then let you count four. That would be evidence. Explaining it to you after you denied it wouldn't be more evidence. It might help you understand it, but it wouldn't in itself be evidence.

Then again, horses to water and such.

What is your process for deciding what is and isn't a fairy tale?

For me one important thing is, the claim must be logically sound and fit to what can be observed.

So, put your money where your mouth is. I've shown the evolutionary patterns that exist in DNA sequences here and here. I logically explained my methods and showed you the results. You can observe it. If you think my methods are wrong, you can explain why. Better yet, you can conduct your own experiments using the DNA sequence data. Maybe you can find patterns that would be improbable if evolution were true, but have a plausible theological explanation.

Of course, denial is just so much easier.

If evolution theory would be a real scientific matter, it could be tested and falsified. Now it is cant be, which is why it is not a real science. Finding similarities is not good enough, because they can be explained also by other ways.

You badly misunderstand the science. These patterns are incredibly falsifiable. Evolution places so many constraints on the patterns that we expect that it's virtually impossible that there's a different mechanism behind the patterns we see. At a high level, something like a spider with wings, a mammal with feathers, or a fern with flowers would falsify evolution. There are infinitely more of these patterns available at a molecular level. If you can find a yeast with a ciliate gene for NADH, for example, evolution's toast. What's interesting is that's something we can do with genetic engineering techniques. We can "play God." Since we haven't found such an example in nature, it suggests that we're the only ones that can. Maybe someday, we'll find evidence of a god that's advanced enough to play human.

You're confusing falsifiable with false. The suggested mechanism behind evolution requires such specific patterns of the data that it would be easy to falsify. Unfortunately for creationists, despite the volumes of data we've collected, nobody's actually done so. The most likely reason for that is that evolution is in fact not false. Maybe you'll be the first one to identify the pattern that falsifies it, though. The available data and the tools to analyze them aren't really that complicated or hard to use. There's a lot of context to learn if you really want to understand what's really going on, but I'd bet you could learn how to set up your own experiments and what falsification would look like in a few hours. After that, who knows? You might stay a creationist for a few more weeks.

Of course, denial is just so much safer.

And I think evolution theory is not reasonable, because it really doesn't offer good accurate explanations, for example for how whales evolved from land animals.

Now explain to me again about how you're not in denial.

[TRANSPONDER]

...That may have been your own made up excuse, but didn't you get that piccie (and excuse) from an apologetics website? ...

I just read what atheists claim and then check is it true. And in search of the ruins of Tyre, or images of it, one can found lot of images, also google satellite image shows it nicely, which shows that it is a lie to claim it was built again.

I recommend for everyone to always check is it true what atheists claim. Very often their claims are not accurate or true.

Google images shows clearly that modern Tyre is built over ALL the mainland and island Tyre and slilted up causeway. Confess it, you are confusing what is true with what you want to be true.

Look, you have made a claim, not produced any evidence. Clearly you lifted some Roman ruins from outside the city and you neither knew nor cared. You accepted it was a debunk and you expected I'd fall for it as well.

I will say it isn't too easy to find the facts but Once you know the old geography and the modern map you know the old Tyre was all built over. The old Tyre archaeology is found under modern Sur. I know as I saw the old archaeology mapped on the modern city. The necropolis I know is outside NE of the modern city. It is all outside old Tyre (mainland). The ruins in the sea also look Roman. They were evidently built by the sea and fell into it. Big deal, but Bible apologists have pretended old Tyre was destroyed and never rebuilt. It is a lie, either deliberate or out of ignorance. Either way you have bought into it and even claimed you checked when clearly you didn't, or mixed up what you found with what you wanted to find.

Yet again I am thankful my brain doesn't do this to me.

[1213]

Google images shows clearly that modern Tyre is built over ALL the mainland and island Tyre and slilted up causeway. Confess it, you are confusing what is true with what you want to be true.
...I will say it isn't too easy to find the facts but Once you know the old geography and the modern map you know the old Tyre was all built over. The old Tyre archaeology is found under modern Sur. I know as I saw the old archaeology mapped on the modern city. The necropolis I know is outside NE of the modern city. It is all outside old Tyre (mainland). The ruins in the sea also look Roman...

Sorry, I can't say some thing is true, if it is not.

But thanks, now I have to go to my map archives and check how it was drawn in ancient times.

[1213]

...So, put your money where your mouth is. I've shown the evolutionary patterns that exist in DNA sequences here and here. I logically explained my methods and showed you the results. You can observe it. If you think my methods are wrong, you can explain why. Better yet, you can conduct your own experiments using the DNA sequence data. Maybe you can find patterns that would be improbable if evolution were true, but have a plausible theological explanation.

It is sad, if you don't understand that pattern doesn't necessary mean any relation.

...At a high level, something like a spider with wings, a mammal with feathers, or a fern with flowers would falsify evolution...

If platypus doesn't falsify evolution theory, nor would a spider with wings, a mammal with feathers...

...The suggested mechanism behind evolution requires such specific patterns of the data that it would be easy to falsify. Unfortunately for creationists, despite the volumes of data we've collected, nobody's actually done so....

It would be nice to see the exact explanations for how whale evolved from land animal, what were the exact changes required for all the changes (in DNA) and what exactly caused them.

[TRANSPONDER]

Google images shows clearly that modern Tyre is built over ALL the mainland and island Tyre and slilted up causeway. Confess it, you are confusing what is true with what you want to be true.
...I will say it isn't too easy to find the facts but Once you know the old geography and the modern map you know the old Tyre was all built over. The old Tyre archaeology is found under modern Sur. I know as I saw the old archaeology mapped on the modern city. The necropolis I know is outside NE of the modern city. It is all outside old Tyre (mainland). The ruins in the sea also look Roman...

Sorry, I can't say some thing is true, if it is not.

But thanks, now I have to go to my map archives and check how it was drawn in ancient times.

I may have to do that myself as I was relying on memory. Especially if you come up with some lying apologetics material from a Christian apologetics source instead of looking at the actual information.

"Excavations have uncovered remains of the Greco-Roman, Crusader, Arab, and Byzantine civilizations, but most of the remains of the Phoenician period lie beneath the present town".(encyclopaedia Britannica)

Pre -Alexander (Nebuchadnezzar's siege doesn't matter as it was all rebuilt in order for Alexander to need to besiege it) Tyre was on the mainland E of the island. (I shall be interested to see whether you have any evidence it was called something else) and Alexander built a causeway to the island out of the rubble. From Google maps it shows the causeway silted up so it is all one land mass and the ruins of old Tyre can be found underneath. The remains outside (clearly not built on) are Roman or later as you can tell from the columns. The claim this is old Tyre is either a failure to check their information or deliberate lies.

If you find this true, will you then admit that it is and the Tyre prophecy fails?

[Masterblaster]

Hello TRANSPONDER

You say - " I may have to do that myself as I was relying on memory. Especially if you come up with some lying apologetics material from a Christian apologetics source instead of looking at the actual information."


Did you sort out your Sermon in Mark 9 debacle ,yet,T?

[TRANSPONDER]

Hello TRANSPONDER

You say - " I may have to do that myself as I was relying on memory. Especially if you come up with some lying apologetics material from a Christian apologetics source instead of looking at the actual information."


Did you sort out your Sermon in Mark 9 debacle ,yet,T?

As I recall, yes, in detail, showing that it was (on internal evidence) a document (also used by Luke, but not by Mark and - of course - not by John) transported into the text of the original synoptic material, but also that (because the material was used differently by Matthew and Luke) it cannot be eyewitness and has to be invented by a Christian writer, not said by Jesus.

[Difflugia]

It is sad, if you don't understand that pattern doesn't necessary mean any relation.

I thought you had something more than unsupported denial.

If platypus doesn't falsify evolution theory, nor would a spider with wings, a mammal with feathers...

If you made the effort to understand what the patterns mean, you'd understand why you're wrong. You see, mammals diverged from reptiles before mammals evolved viviparity. A mammal that lays eggs is, though obviously rare, no more a challenge to evolution than a marsupial with its lack of a placenta.

On the other hand, insects evolved wings long after spiders diverged from a common ancestor. A spider with insect wings would be a sort of anachronism and mean that the trait had somehow "jumped" from insects to spiders. Similarly, reptiles evolved the first feathers long after mammals diverged from a reptile-mammal common ancestor. Again, the feathers somehow "jumping" back to the mammal line isn't something we'd expect to see from evolution.

It would be nice to see the exact explanations for how whale evolved from land animal, what were the exact changes required for all the changes (in DNA) and what exactly caused them.

Your earlier comments make it obvious to me that you're just bluffing and think you've presented a difficult bar to hurdle, but on the off chance that you're even a little bit sincere, here's a link to a book for you: The Rise of Marine Mammals: 50 Million Years of Evolution.

If you really are interested, though, I recommend that you start a bit smaller. Here are a link to an Open Access textbook on phylogenetic analysis. This could help you understand what's going on: Phylogenetic Comparative Methods.

[Difflugia]

Questions and reservations posed by 1213 and myself are 'denial'?

Yes. Apologetic nonsense presented as rhetorical questions is denial.

We ask simple questions like, why do people age, why are people getting weaker and unhealthy and we are told to leave this for scientists to answer.

Simple questions? "How does biochemistry work?"

1213 and I reject the scientific narrative.

The whole "scientific narrative," huh? That's a pretty big umbrella. That would be like me saying that I "reject the theological narrative" and expecting it to carry any meaning. Any scientific specifics that you disagree with? Maybe you could narrow it down to the botany narrative, the petroleum geology narrative, or the neurophysiology narrative. You know, something a bit smaller that you might be qualified to have an opinion about?

I reject that it has a control or a central morality to it

Did someone sane say that it does? I reject that Christian soteriology has a lovely citrus tang to it.

and I summarized it's general influence as a dangerous folly. Science as a real answer, is dogma in so far as it is left unchallenged.

What specifically do you think you're challenging?

I extract more insight from Genesis 1 than I do from the blueprints of Boeing.

Which is why I'd expect more from you if you were discussing details of Genesis than offering an opinion on 747 design flaws.

We have been listening to scientific ....., on this site in the Christianity section for a long time now.

Have you? Have you actually been listening to what's being explained?

This often graduates into a high level of sophistication that excludes the non qualified.

If you're not qualified, you're not qualified. Wanting to understand evolution (or whatever) enough to offer a qualified critique doesn't magically provide that understanding.

And to be fair, the level of sophistication hasn't gotten that high.

If a Muslim or Jew presented obscure, theological source material ,full of jargon and inference,they would likely be banned.

Why? We have discussions involving obscure, theological source material. Not as many as I might like, but enough to be pretty certain that nobody gets banned for them.

There is an exasperation, when you want to make it clear as a simple theists that you object to this 'high science.

That seems to me to be like someone that just knows that the Bible is silly and worthless, but has never bothered to read any of it. They show up here sometimes, too, but they get pretty short shrift as well.

You come along and wring your hands and ask how we could be rejecting the simple discovery of Darwin. That is not what I am doing. I am attacking the extrapolation (scientific deductions)(new science) (whatever) (small word and I too will be banned).

Yes. You're "rejecting the simple discovery of Darwin," but trying to mask your lack of qualification to reasonably do so with broad, sweeping, but ultimately empty claims.

As I mentioned before, the data and tools that can potentially falsify evolutionary theory are freely available to you. How and why requires specialized knowledge, but it's not really that complicated. I've offered to explain it before and I offer again.

Science builds on itself and it's hosts, like ivy. It dances to the tune of an evolving agenda that is usually self-serving in some way.

Vague conspiracy theories?

How much science does our effective evolution as a species need?

"Effective evolution?" I find it strange that the cognitive dissonance between your Christian identity and our evolutionary past is so powerful that your solution is to deny the entire scientific process. How much science do we need, you ask? How many kids are dying of cancer? How many are starving? How many can't sleep through the pain of a guinea worm in their leg? Assurance of religious truth may offer some false hope while weeping over their graves, but that seems a poor reward for giving up actual hope of a longer, better, and more comfortable life.

Are we science-dependant junkies , at this stage ?

Perhaps, but in the same way that the Inuit are igloo junkies and the residents of Phoenix, Arizona are air conditioning junkies. They're not necessary for our continuation (or "evolution," as you put it) of our species, but they're sure nice for the people whose lives they so directly impact.

It is fundamentally flawed and as such is false. Its cocktail of complicated truths add up to a big lie.

And the wonderful fruity flavors of theology are a great part of this complete breakfast.

Just stringing words together doesn't somehow force them make sense. If you can justify your string of words through more than just repetition, maybe I'll revise my opinion of them.

That is another discussion.

I look forward to it.

[Masterblaster]

Hello Difflugia

Thank You for at least. considering my ideas which were given within the very specific remit of this OP, as per forum etiquette and rules. I would love to more specifically engage with our ' grievances ' within a more defined and confined space.
I have had too many efforts in this regard shunted to Ramblings or re sectioned, for me to bother, attempting to set it up.
I am generally ignored by the few other poor creatures that remain in this Zoo. You may be a longer serving exhibit around here , so you set it up. TRANSPONDER, (God Bless Him), may well turn up, 1213?, and , I'm a vulture for any scientific corpses left unattended. Who knows who will turn up. Offer up your sacrifice for rejection on the High Altar of DC.