# Illuminati vs. Jesus \[a debate about evolution\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 11, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889 "2012-07-11T12:55:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/341 "2012-07-12T10:53:55Z")
reef shark writes: \> Post the dates they were written please. But you claim to know that each of them isn’t as good a translation as the King James Version. You have said that the King James Version is the best translation. That means that you have looked at all the other translations into English. (And the list I made doesn’t include any obscure versions, just the reasonably well-known versions that can easily be found in bookstores.) How can you not know about these versions? Didn’t you read them to check your claim that the King James Version is the best one? Furthermore, why are you asking me to look up the dates they are written? They each have Wikipedia entries. You could look all of them up in a few minutes. Don’t you know how to use Wikipedia? Furthermore, you claim to be able to tell what the best translation is. That means that you know Greek and Hebrew, right? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/342 "2012-07-12T11:05:15Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Again, ambulocetus was a 4 legged land mammal with hooves. Not a whale. If youre an expert, how do whales mate? How do they attach to one another? … When mating, whales swim belly-to-belly, and the male has an extraordinarily long and prehensile penis to facilitate coitus. They do not “attach” to each other. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/343 "2012-07-12T11:31:09Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Read the first 8-10 chapters of Genesis (from the kjv). I cant explain it any better. > > [http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/](http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/) > > All the best to you. I read it, and it is not in there. The fact that you asked me to read the first 8 to 10 chapters, instead of answering my question directly, shows that you probably haven’t read those chapters yourself because you don’t know where in there the answer might be-you only believe some Creationist jive about what that section of the Bible “really” means. Are you afraid that if you post the number that your religionist leaders told you to believe is the date when life began you would look foolish? If this is _your_ best, you are failing massively. Either you can directly answer this question, or you can’t: _How long ago do you think life began on this planet?_ If you don’t know, have the guts to say so. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/344 "2012-07-12T11:44:35Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Again, ambulocetus was a 4 legged land mammal with hooves. Not a whale. If youre an expert, how do whales mate? How do they attach to one another? … Oh, and ambulocetus had a very long skull and big, carnivore teeth. Very much like a whale’s skull. Now, it is unlikely that modern whales are directly descended from the populations of ambulocetus from which we happen to have found the remains. This is much less relevant than it may sound, as we do not have examples of specimens from every population of related animals which ever existed. Ambulocetus shows clearly that there existed semi-aquatic animals with whale-like features in a time earlier than fully aquatic whales. That is what “transitional” means. Also, the question of what “whale-like features” are significant and which are trivial gets very technical and boring, and (and I mean this with no intention of disrespecting you) you do not have the background to understand the arguments or conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/345 "2012-07-12T12:11:54Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > How do you explain the fossilized clams on top of Everest? [Like this.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gXixxYKM80) Yay! Now we can add plate tectonics to the muddle too! ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/346 "2012-07-12T12:17:46Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > So you think reptiles turned into birds??? Scales to feathers??? Is this observable? Thanks anyway. Yes, dinosaurs turned into birds. We don’t know for sure if [feathers evolved from scales](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathers#Evolution), but that’s one idea. But we know they did evolve- and on dinosaurs (which, in a way, are a “transitional form” between reptiles and birds). We have fossils of feathered dinosaurs that didn’t fly- like [Pedopenna](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedopenna) and the [Troodontidae](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troodontidae) family. > [@reef\_shark](#): > > Again, ambulocetus was a 4 legged land mammal with hooves. Not a whale. If youre an expert, how do whales mate? How do they attach to one another? … Ambulocetus certainly spent a lot of time in the water. Here are some more transitional cetaceans: [Rodhocetus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodhocetus), and [Protocetus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocetus)- Protocetus was a whale that had toes (why does a whale have toes?). You can even see the “transition” in the fossil record from legs that are gradually changing shape into fins, and the rear fins get smaller and smaller until the only remnant are the floating, unattached tiny hip bones in modern whales. Whales mate side-to-side, or belly-to-belly, with a very large and agile phallus. The tiny hip bone remnants do nothing and are truly vestigial- you can’t even feel them along the whale’s skin. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/347 "2012-07-12T12:19:53Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > How do you explain the fossilized clams on top of Everest? How do _you_ account for the fact that they are fossilized and quite a bit older than any biblical flood? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/348 "2012-07-12T12:22:30Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Read the first 8-10 chapters of Genesis (from the kjv). I cant explain it any better. > > [http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/](http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/) > > All the best to you. I read it all, and I still can’t find the age of the earth. Where is it? Do you even know? Can you give us a hint? You’re not being very helpful here… ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/349 "2012-07-12T12:25:04Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > How do _you_ account for the fact that they are fossilized and quite a bit older than any biblical flood? And what about that [evidence of ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams](http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/smithsonian.asp)? ---
**Author:** ![Rubixcube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Rubixcube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubixcube)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/350 "2012-07-12T12:37:07Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I read it all, and I still can’t find the age of the earth. Where is it? Do you even know? Can you give us a hint? You’re not being very helpful here… I think that **reef shark** is referencing Genesis 5 which lists the ages of biblical characters from their first born and then again at their death, as well as the time frames mentioned in the next few chapters. If you crunch all the numbers you get 2006 years from the birth of Adam to the death of Noah. However this doesn’t actually say how old the earth is. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/351 "2012-07-12T12:37:44Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I read it all, and I still can’t find the age of the earth. Where is it? Do you even know? Can you give us a hint? You’re not being very helpful here… I’m betting this is one of those, – you have to add up the ‘begets’ and work backwards from the crucifixion then multiply by pi-r[sup]2[/sup] – things or something. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/352 "2012-07-12T12:50:00Z")
The evidence for an “old earth” and old universe encompass far more than biology, and include geology, physics, and astronomy. For example- there are over 300,000 craters on the moon bigger than 1 KM (and countless more smaller ones). If the universe (and hence, the moon) is only 6000 to 10000 years old, then that accounts to 30 or more large impacts on the moon _per year_- about one every week or two. Amateur astronomers have observed even relatively small impacts in real time- so one only needs commonly accessible telescopes to see many of these- and the largest, like the impacts that made the large craters visible to the eye alone, would certainly have been visible from earth. So **reef shark** , how do you think the craters on the moon came about? ---
**Author:** ![Rubixcube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Rubixcube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubixcube)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/353 "2012-07-12T12:51:50Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > I’m betting this is one of those, – you have to add up the ‘begets’ and work backwards from the crucifixion then multiply by pi-r[sup]2[/sup] – things or something. Basically, but there aren’t that many dates in that part of the bible. Like I said 2006 years pass between the creation of man to the death of Noah. Somehow we managed to get from two humans to what is presumably a very large amount and pissed off god royally in the process. I went ahead and added in up to the birth of Abram in Genesis 11 and got 2406. At this point it’s been about 400 years since the fall of the Tower of Babylon. I could keep going but I doubt it would do anything for the “debate” at hand. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/354 "2012-07-12T13:14:49Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > I’m betting this is one of those, – you have to add up the ‘begets’ and work backwards from the crucifixion then multiply by pi-r[sup]2[/sup] – things or something. Probably. I’d like for reef shark to have the guts to say it. I’m guessing he doesn’t know. I’m also guessing he is lying about being the author of the stuff he plagiarized from the God site. I’ll guaran-damn-tee you the real author of that site would spit out a date in a heartbeat. If I have some time today I might email that site. Speaking of reef sharks, **reef shark** , how long have sharks swam the oceans? ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/355 "2012-07-12T13:32:40Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Read the first 8-10 chapters of Genesis (from the kjv). I cant explain it any better. > > [http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/](http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/) > > All the best to you. Not only are there two creation accounts there, there is no evidence that the earth was created before the Sun. Further, the account in the first chapter of Genesis is incoherent for a variety of reasons: 1. Plants are created a day before the Sun (did they all die off)? 2. The moon is not a ‘light’, it generates no light of it’s own, it _reflects the light of the Sun._ 3. How could their be ‘morning’ and ‘evening’ without the Sun? Those just popped out at me. How is this anything other than an obvious creation myth? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/356 "2012-07-12T13:42:43Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > Those just popped out at me. How is this anything other than an obvious creation myth? One time I had a nightmare where I had to run away from an explosion through very tiny holes until I found myself trapped in a room about the size of those old McDonaldland plastic hamburgers and it was under twilight conditions yet upon awaking I realized there was no light source. And shit. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/357 "2012-07-12T13:43:03Z")
Jeez, people. It’s 5772. Stop dragging this out. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/358 "2012-07-12T13:49:23Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > You completely ignored my whole post about fossils and the flood, huh? Again, you’re dodging the question. I didn’t ask about floods, or about _how_ animals came to be fossilized. I asked why, in your view, do we find a different set of animals that existed at different times. At every time period, there are different animals in existence - all the animals that existed at the time of the dinosaurs do not exist on Earth now, and no animal in existence now, was alive back then. How do you explain that? Does God shake up his etch-a-sketch periodically and start over with the creation of the animal types, but changes them just slightly from the previous set of designs? Does he do this in order to trick us into thinking that the animals evolved naturally and gradually? Because that’s sure what it looks like. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/359 "2012-07-12T14:10:00Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > Joshua, when the walls fell. Bartimaeus, his eyes uncovered. CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889/360 "2012-07-12T14:18:53Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > I knew you were lurking! Thanks for the appearance! Any comment on how Pearl Harbor and 9/11 werent false flag ops? Well, it’s off-topic but… they weren’t. That’s all I’ll say about them in this thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illuminati-vs-jesus-a-debate-about-evolution/627889.md?page=19)