Damn. Looks like we got us another one of them there evangelical atheists here…
Oh, you are mistaken, DrF! CJD is clearly in possesion of all the facts of the universe, and is not a troll at all! Why, I think I will have to worship him now since he is clearly omniscient. All hail CJD!
Hopefully he’ll go away soon…
I’ll cut him some Slack (praise Bob). I remember most of what it was like to be a wise-assed student. The parts I don’t remember, well, my friends tell me I had fun and they have several anecdotes they are saving for blackmail purposes…
Hmmm, I told you, CJD, you’re not making any friends, but you are adding an… how can I put this… intersting slant on the discussion.
(For the benefit of those of you that haven’t noticed that CJD and myself go to the same college from our profiles, I can assure all of you that he is ALWAYS this extreme. Don’t put him down too hard… save him for me!)
Now what was it you said, CJD? Other people aren’t ‘enlightend’ enough to accept that religion is scientifically flawed? Answer my previous posting, please…
“Now be quiet before I rather clumsily knight you with this meat cleaver” - Edmund Blackadder
Gaudere said:
Hey! Remember, thou shalt have no other gods before me! (After me is ok, though.)
–CJD
I’m interested. Would you care to backup your hypothesis?
I suppose you meant scientific “evidence.” Do you really believe there was “no” evidence at the time?
Do you believe there is ample evidence now to draw a factual conclusion?
If yes, explain to me why you think this evidence is ample.
If no, how are we different from those before who hypothesized with their evidence?
There’s always another beer.
Oops, I thought I was the only one who attacked CJD. I should learn how to read.
There’s always another beer.
David, do not fear. I cannot be swayed by false Gods. Particularly not ones that manifest in the form of smug smart-ass college students.
Well, a new troll is always amusing…I look forward to the roasting.
"The trolls are roasting on an open fire
Straight Dopers nipping at their toes…"
Fighting my own ignorance since 1957.
Gaudere: thank you… (I think)
DrFidelius: How can an athiest be evangelical???
Beeruser: Of course I would like to back up my hypothesis.
1st point: at the time that most major religions started there was no evifence for evolution. By this I mean the fossils that show the evolution of a species such as the amonite over millions of years. They also did not have the skelitons of the pre-homo-sapien humans that have been found that clearly show that mankind evolved from apes and were NOT created by God (or Allah etc…), and that women were definately not created from the rib of the firat man created by God as stated by the bible.
As to your next point, I think this evidence is ample, in fact i think that it is irrefutable proof for evolution and not creation.
Gaudere: Me… Roasted… I think not!
“I think, therefore I am” - prove it!
CJD, glad you’re on our side, but please work on your spelling and other errors. You don’t have to be rush. We’ll still be here after you’ve done your proofreading. Anyway:
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Humans did not evolve from apes. The theory is that modern humans and modern apes have a single ancestor. This common ancestor has not yet been found, so the theory could be disproved. But I wouldn’t bet on it. Just because the evidence has yet to be found does not mean that it doesn’t exist. Other existing evidence indicates that this ancestor lived.
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The fossils of ammonites and trilobites have existed for millions of years. But only in recent times have we become able to interpret them correctly. For example, the Chinese first found dinosaur fossils hundreds (thousands?) of years ago. This is the basis of their dragon myths. Unfortunately, they attributed mythical abilities to dinosaurs/dragons, so it’s not considered a scientific interpretation of the fossil record, but a religious interpretation, not unlike Bible-inspired Creationism. (BTW, did you know there are Jewish Creationists? I don’t remember his screen name, but one of them used to post to the SDMB. He said he was a rabbi, IIRC.)
Fighting my own ignorance since 1957.
CJD -
do you ever consider the posibility that you may ever be even slightly… mislead when you make these sweeping statements? I can see and appreciate why your convictions are so strong, but marginally more careful wording can save you alot of trouble…
On the other hand, it’s always good for a laugh…
I agree that there is a very strong case for evolution over creation, but (although I’m not overtly religious) you do have to ask eventually, why did the ‘Big Bang’ happen in the first place. If, as has been discussed in other debates, the Big Bang represented the instant creation of everything, then what caused it in the first place - assuming (very reasonably, I think) that it’s pretty difficult to create something from nothing.
Also, in a way, isn’t the Big Bang theory a kind of creation theory - e.g. everything suddenly coming into existence as if by some transcendent design?
“Now be quiet before I rather clumsily knight you with this meat cleaver” - Edmund Blackadder
jab1
If modern apes and man had a common ancestor, why wasn’t that ancestor an ape? A purely semantic question.
Nothing I write about any person or group should be applied to a larger group.
- Boris Badenov
CJD:
Rather easily, actually.
Evangelical simply refers to bringing the Good News. It is a simple matter to bring the Good News of skepticism, rational thought, and the obvious nonexistence of (a) god to people if one is sufficiently convinced of those positions.
Most of the atheists that post here are shy and retiring and would never preach their Good News. However, I have met people of similar convictions and more strident personalities who have, indeed, been evangelical in their approach to the discussion of the topics we discuss here.
Tom~
tomndeb: the term ‘evangelical’ refers to the bringing of ‘good news’ by angels therefore the existance of God which an athiest does not hold to be true.
BIGmatt: You have to take into account the possibility that the big bang was caused by the collective gravity of pre big-bang matter compressing the matter into such a small space that it reached a kind of ‘critical mass’ and exploded thereby causing the universe we know & love to come into being.
You are right that there was a creation involved in the Big Bang, I am just arguing that it was not “THE” creation refered to in religious texts and that it may not have involved a transcendant design or being.
Jab1: It helps to know these things - I might have to go & do some research before I go & slag off creation next time so that I get all my facts right. My current arguement was based on the evidence that I had come across.
“I think, therefore I am” - prove it!
CJD, you’re sort of right: ‘evangel’ comes from Greek* euangelos = eu , good, + angelos *, messenger. So we’re talking about a good Angelos, i.e. not Peter Angelos. 
Seriously, for Christians the messenger might be an angel; for atheists it might be Rene Descartes, bearing the message of logical thought.
CJD,
In response to an earlier statement that religion has no place in a scientific debate over the cause behind our existence, I must say that I would have to disagree. You see, science is basically us comming to conclusions about things derived from our knowledge of what are the most likely and often most logical explanations.
Many people, including myself (and I feel I may not gain many friends saying this) would therefore argue that the theory of creation, and indeed religion itself comes from people best guesses (at the time) as to the awnsers of the fundamental questions we still ask to this day. As much as we would like to argue against the fact today, we actually are no closer to knowing the truth than we were at the time of writing the bible. We can still neither proove or disproove the existance of a creator any more than we can say for definate that the universe was created via a bib bang.
Thanks
Also, please don’t ask me if I am religious. As I have no proof either way I would prefer to remain Agnostic on that one.
Actually, “angel” is not a necessary component of “evangelical.” Angel, as noted above, meant “messenger” and the beings referred to in the Bible as “angels” were simply “messengers of God”. That which an angel brought (the message) was the 'aggelías or news. In the earliest Gospel, Mark, (who mentions the angels only once or twice in his Gospel, and never as active participants in any event) begins with the phrase “Beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ,. . .” using the word e’uaggelíou. He means good news or glad tidings, but provides no association to messengers from God.
To date, *CJD, I would say that you seem to fit the general profile of an evangelistic atheist. (No harm in that.)
Tom~
CJD said:
Indeed, it does help to have one’s facts right before one accuses the other side of having their facts wrong…
Since this is the Creationism vs. Evolution thread, I though I would mention that last week’s Science magazine contains an interesting article on the discovery in China of vertebrate fossils which are 530 million years old. The existence of the comparatively complex body development within only 10 million years of the beginning of the “Cambrian explosion” of species during which most of the major groups of animals developed.
There is also some support from one of the fossil species for a very early development of bilaterally symmetric fin structures, the structure believed to underlie the quadrupedal structure of more advanced vertebrate skeletons. There is some evidence of a structure on one of the fossils that might be an eye.
The sedimentary beds being examined in China are particularly well suited for the survival of traces of fine structures, and many of the recent finds in this region are of profound importance in increasing the completeness of our picture of the earliest of animal species. As has been pointed out, the fossil record is very incomplete, and each new example from this early period of our planet’s history is an opportunity to increase our understanding of the development of life.
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