[Coaster]

For school we need to a speach, I chose mine on Evolution, because it seems most people don't understand it and, well, therefor avoid it. Now, I havn't made it very biased and I made it clear that its only a theory but there are many other strongly disargeeing people and I argued with someone about it today. His defence was that evolution defies the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I told him that was glaringly untrue and added that creation defies even more then thermodynamics. He stared blankly and then left, but there are some stronly religious people in my in my school, with considerable physical power...

Basically, what are my chances of getting stoned? (the bad kind of getting stoned)

And I'm going to give the speach anyway. I just want to know how much armour to wear.
~Jeff

[Rat]

I'm on here a lot - just thought I'd let you know.

Just get some chain mail, a crossbow and some sort of bird. *laughs head off*

[Lunatique]

You might want to start by spelling "speech" correctly?

[roundeye]

evolution is gay! refute _that_ with your highschool grade "logic"!

[Rat]

Lunatique - Don't bother trying to correct him on anything. It never sinks in. Believe me, I've tried, and long since given up.


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the mace.

[Dr. Bang]

hey Rat, have you met Socar yet? You guys sure will make greeeeeeeeat friend!!

[Rat]

Yeah, I have. We looked at each other's rat pics. I complained 'bout her "Twilight Time" pic being turned into a religious thing.

She used to live within biking distance from where I live. About 20km or so. I'd've liked to meet her in person, but now she's in Sweden. That's how life works.

[Coaster]

Roundeye: Your even more logical exlpaination is allways welcome

Lunatique: I'd like to blame my poor spelling and grammar skills on my lefthandedness as I do many other things

Rat: I was thinking plate mail, it won't hurt as much against blunt force

~Jeff

[the_monkey]

care to explain the second law of thermodynamics and how the creation theory violates it, coaster?

[roundeye]

coaster, dont make me explain my jokes, theyll become even less funny. monkey, you got it backwards. look it up, its a fair argument.

[Steven Stahlberg]

I've never gotten a good look at the arguments of the other side, yet asking biblical fundamentalists about it will undoubtedly give me acid reflux.
So can someone who's not a fundamentalist please explain how they might explain several billion years of progressive fossil record neatly sorted and stacked in geological layers? Or maybe you have a link to a site that gives both sides?

[Rat]

Coaster - Fine. Chain mail over a thick layer of felt. Just as effective, more comfortable.

the_monkey - If Coaster actually knows anything about thermodynamics (he probably does), he'll launch into a detailed description of every law of it there is. Trust me, I know him very well.

[the_monkey]

hey, im just asking out of curiosity.

[Rat]

Just thought I might warn you.

[Coaster]

*deep inhale*
Thermodynamics is basically a branch of physics that deals with energy, the amout put in, the amout taken out etc.
Here are the rules:
1st law) Energy shall changeth from one form to another, but it shalt noteth be createdeth or destroyedeth. The amount of enery(eth) and matter in the universeth shall remain constant.. just changing from o
ne form to another.

2nd law) The secondeth law of thermoethdynamicseth declares upon all 'in all energy exchangeseth, if no energy enters or leaveth the system, the potention energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial(eth) state.' This is also knowed upon all as entropyeth. Example: a watchethspring-driven watch(eth) shall run(eth) until the potential energy in the springeth is convertedeth and not againeth until energy is reapplied to the spring to rewindeth it.

3rd law) Thou shalt not depriveth matter of energy. Energy(eth) will moveeth to a state with lessereth energy (I don't really get this one as much) But basically if somethings hot it's heat will move to something colder

If that was incomprehensable enough without the dialect, heres some simpleified explanations I found at http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae280.cfm

1. You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).

2. You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).

3. You cannot get out of the game (because absolute zero is unattainable)


Thanks to a dictionary and some website for remindering me of some of that stuff.
Asuming I'm not kept up all night staring at the ceiling in deep thought, good night
~Jeff

[Freddio]

wow you are smart :

[spooge demon]

Steven, I think it goes like this:

The fossil record is full of holes and incorrectly interpreted by secular humanist scientists with an axe to grind against Truth. Also scientists are under the pressure of publish or perish and invest their careers in a particular theory. This bias does not support the vaunted objectivity of the scientific process. Therefore scientists are not to be trusted.

The geological evidence can be explained in a variety of ways, many not in conflict with the Biblically recorded age of the earth. The age of the Earth is established by genealogies recorded in the Old Testament. It is just over 6000 years, I believe. Might be mistaken.

There are many scientists working today that are positing theories that are equally as valid and supportable as the theories of secularists.

Or, very simply, the Earth was created with the appearance of great age to test your faith.

These are not my beliefs, or anywhere close to them. I personally am an atheist, but I have fundamentalists on both sides of my family, I thought I would paraphrase their beliefs, as I understand them. Family holidays are an exercise in patience for me

[edraket]

You forgot to mention that the bible is counting in "Godyears" So the days that God took to create the earth are equal to the human years that it actually took according to science.
Thats a mormon thing. They even have the exact numbers calculated of how God years relate to human years.
I am probably not using the right terminology but you get my drift.
My wife used to be mormon. Before she met me.

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: edraket ]

[strata]

I wrote my leaving thesis on Darwinism VS. Religion at school... and it's a VERY complex issue, and quite a daunting task if you're to represent it in speech form since there's such an amount of facts...

The thing in short strokes is a little bit like this: As Craig nudged on the fossil record is not complete, and there are little holes here and there. What the pro-creationists use as their main arguement though, is that before a certain time there are no fossils at all! All of a sudden they just start showing up, and this is what they view as when creation took place. The fact that we can clearly see species evolving after that is of little or no importance.
Scientists (wrongful use of the word since being a scientist does not exclude being religious and vice versa) however are not really quite sure why there are no fossils before this time, but they believe that the earth or actual soil was unable to fossilize objects at that point in time. The do however claim that evolution is blatantly visible after this.

Further proof of evolution has been shown by Darwinists in the famous situation of the moths and the street light. The situation is this (and these are facts): A scientist observed a number of moths that were fluttering about under a street light for an extended period of time, and what he noted was this: During the summer period of the year when it's bright for many more hours of the day the moths have white backs, but as we slowly progress into winter time when it naturally gets darker, the moths also start turning their back color into black, to be almost completely black during winter time. This is believed to be an evolution of it's own taking place over a very short period of time and place, as moths in an controlled environment did not show the exact same signs.

There is also the example of the shipload of monkeys (or parrots, can't remember which) that were simply left on an island to be undisturbed for many a year... I think it was monkeys that didn't climb trees or something like that... turns out on this island, all the food was in the crowns of the trees, so in order to survive the monkeys had to learn to climb. This was 70+ years ago... the monkeys have now developed an extra thumb or something of the sort to be able to climb trees much more effectively.
Again evolution taking place.

I can't seem to remember all of the creationists arguements, but they were much about not wanting to be descendants of apes and such things.

I however had an interesting discussion with a super-religious guy at school about extra terrestrials. The arguement went like this: He believed that god was only god for mankind and god is only god for earth. So when I asked him what god he in that case believed aliens would have he simply shrugged and told me it wasn't our god. So I then asked him if he believed that god created ONLY earth? He said, no... he believed that god created everything.
But that aliens did not exist since god had created man and man alone in his image.
There was a LOT more to this silly arguement than I can remember, but basically it was just a factless arguements, and since you can never prove beyond a doubt that someone's belief in something that's unseen and unrecorded is WRONG (since you can't prove it either way) we just gave up. He did not, however, have many good arguements other then that that was what he believed.

Other then that there's also the amazingly interesting discussion about the bible code, but that has nothing to do with evolution/creation.

So in conclusion to this unnessesarily long post, scientists state the facts they have found, creationists state the beliefs they happen to have, and neither one can prove the other wrong until either God shows himself or scientists find facts beyond any reason of a doubt that we went from A to B to C.

And even then I doubt they'll stop though...

for the record it should be stated here that I am an atheist, and that the views listed above may seem biased towards Darwinism since the larger amounts of arguements listed are those of evolustionists. This was however not the intention but merely a by-product of my poor memory =)

[a_sh]

i'm agnostic.

up until quite resenlty i used to love these discqussions where science are pitted against religion.
but then, after an unusually serious discussion with a fellow engineer who had just 'found his faith' i understood something that ended my 'love' for it.

here's what i understood (or came to believe):
religion in its very nature is based on belief and faith. to be religious you do not only have to BELIEVE in something. you have to have FAITH in that belief even though you can't prove it. if you believe in something that you CAN prove, it's not religion, because as you can prove it, faith is not required. the stuff that you CAN prove is what is called science.

the very fundamental difference between a religous person and a scientist (as mentioned earlier in this thread, people isn't divided neatly into either one category. i'm talking more about religion and science now) is that the religous person must have faith, ie believe in stuff without evidence or even in stuff that can be proven false, while the scientist must DISBELIVE EVERYTHING that he CAN'T prove, and because the knowledge that his theories and 'rules' likely is flawed, he can't fully believe even what he can prove.

these differences makes any kind of argumentative discussions impossible. science is based on proof, while religion is based on faith (which basically is the opposite of proof)

no matter how you argument, the scientist will always be able to say
"hmm... that is not 100% certain"
and the religious can say
"well, doesn't matter if it is certain or not, i BELIEVE IT!"

the way i see it, religion should be avoided at any cost whenever logic is used in a discussion!

so my advise to you coaster is, leave religion out of the speech. consentrate on wether evolution really took place or not. you don't have to include 'creation' at all. if evolution don't exist, then it happened in some other way that we simply don't know about.

edit: spelling...

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: a_sh ]

[edraket]

I advise you all to read Joseph Campbell.
He wrote on the subject of Myth. Which is basically the foundation of religion. He comes from a scientific background but argues that a mythic structure is needed for humans to survive.
It's all mighty interesting if you like to be in discussions like this.

What I just wanted to point out myself is that people are inclined to believe anything depending on what their roots are. Truth is a very relative thing. People that quote science as the only truth are the same to me as people that quote the bible.
It just shows that if you take away enough factors you can make anything sound like truth. But in the end it will probably be only partly so.

[Gimbal8]

If you take hard core biology courses in college things will become much more clear on this. High school in some ways either doesn't fully explain things or sometimes completely omits things. I won't go into any detail as to what I know of evolution and ridiculous amount of proof there is to back it all up because there is no way I can convey such understanding in a few sentences when the labs and reading take so long to go through. All I can say is if someone really wants to know about it, they are going to have to learn about it. I would highly suggest embryology or vertebrate morphology and the classes prerequisite to them.

Even as an atheist, these classes were a real eye opener. I would like to mention this though: Before you were born you had gill slits. How cool is that? Whatever you do, don't believe me..that would be faith. Learn about it yourself. That way if someone argues with you about it you won't be stuck regurgitating things you overheard, you would instead have a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding at your disposal.

[Rat]

The_Monkey - I warned you.

Freddio - Coaster skipped a grade and is in gr 8 this year. Yes. He is smart.

How the hell did a discussion on a speech turn into something even vaguely related to religion?

Not my absolute favorite topic.

(If God made man in his image, and man is not perfect and sins, then God is not perfect and sins as well - HA).

[balistic]

http://www.talkorigins.org

Everything you could want to know about evolution.

[the_monkey]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rat:


(If God made man in his image, and man is not perfect and sins, then God is not perfect and sins as well - HA).

---

not exactly, according to the second law of thermodynamics, something cannot beget something as powerfull or more powerful than itself, right?

if God created man, then man is not as good as God himself, no? man is sinful, but God is not.

(at least, thats according to my understanding of the second law of thermodynamics. i could be off.)

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: the_monkey ]

[Tinusch]

Both theories are full of holes. I think we need to accept that maybe we don't have the mental capacity to understand something as complex as the origin of life and not try to cling to simplistic theories and ideas just to give ourselves peace of mind. Just my opinion... It seems that there isn't nearly enough evidence to support either theory.

[Ruptured Spleen]

Ummm... I think plate mail sounds just find. Unless they are throwing grenades. Then maybe some Tri-carbon steel armor with gel insulation. Or if they are antitank grenades, then maybe something a bit heavier, like A heavy Assault Combat Armor. Also I might suggest a 3 chambered assault Rifle with motion Tracker with smart link conneted to onboard computer to target incomeing projectile.

[Dr.Squirley]

To answer the initial question: alot of armor, as you can see from this thread, such a topic has very flamable opinions.

[fellipe]

hmm..maybe god created the monkey, and the monkey evoluted to adam...or eve..or both..er

[balistic]

Guys, evolution NEVER discusses the origin of life, only the development of it. Seriously, before posting to the thread, read the primers over at talkorigins . . . at least know what evolution IS before trying to engage in a discussion about it.

Evolution is easy to comprehend . . . there's no reason for us to have DNA if it /doesn't/ happen. We've seen it happen. Hundreds of times. Evolution is an observed, understood process.

Evolution is a theory. That doesn't mean its just an idea. A theory is a description of something that has been observed.

Gravity is a theory too.

So is relativity.

Science doesn't call things facts . . . a theory is just about as solid as anything gets.

There's no point in arguing that which has been hashed out a thousand times before . . . read the documenation:

http://www.talkorigins.org

You can argue about the mechanisms of evolution, but not evolution itself. As surely as gravity keeps your butt in your chair, evolution creates new species over time. To deny that evolution occurs is akin to denying gravitation or time dilation . . . you just make yourself look foolish.

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: balistic ]