One of my favorite examples of evolution and how we can see it in living things today: The laryngeal nerve of the giraffe, linking larynx to brain, a few inches away — but because of evolutionary developments, instead dropping from the brain all the way down the neck to the heart, and then back up to the larynx. In giraffes the nerve can be as much as 15 feet long, to make a connection a few inches away. Richard Dawkins explains:
All mammals have the nerve, and as a result of our fishy ancestry, in all mammals, the nerve goes down the neck, through a heart blood vessel loop, and back up. In fish, of course, the distance is shorter — fish have no necks.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula’s Sciblogs site.
Yes, the laryngeal nerve is sometimes called the vagus nerve, because it originates off of the vagus nerve.
Giraffe’s laryngeal nerve, easily explained by evolution; paints picture of an evil, joker designer otherwise.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
To date, attention has focused on the giraffe as the ultimate example of the “unintelligent design” of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, perhaps because this nerve in the giraffe is the longest that can be directly observed. However, the longest-necked animals of all time are the extinct sauropod dinosaurs, and necks over 10 m long evolved independently in at least four sauropod lineages ( Wedel 2006 ). The longest-necked sauropod for which cervical vertebrae are available is
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[…] Here is a very strong piece of evidence that supports evolution of giraffes: https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/evidence-of-evolution-giraffes-laryngeal-nerve/ […]
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But let me do a little psychoanalysis of you.
The reason you again ran with your delusion that I’m not a Christian and the reason you prosetylized to me, despite knowing I don’t like it, is that you got backed into a corner on evolution and that was your way out of that corner.
And then you got backed into the corner again when I pointed out that Creationism is an example of weak faith you again tried preaching to me to get out of that corner.
It says quite a lot about your lack of an open mind and an open heart when you can’t defend your positions and you have to get out of them by being entirely disingenous. It’s you that isn’t in a good spot because as much as you try to deny it, Dan, it is your faith in God that is lacking. Which is why you can’t stomach the idea of God doing something in a way that your preconceived and human interpretation of Genesis doesn’t allow. And when someone like me or Ed comes along who are fully Christian who are strong enough in our faith in God to acknowledge the tools He used and continue to use then you can’t just help yourself in turning Christianity into a weapon to attack those whose faith is stronger then yours and show how weak your faith actually is beyond your ability to deny.
And you act patronizing towards and attack non-Christians because you’re oh so desparate to be superior to anyone because deep down, Dan, you’re scared to death that they’re not as lost or scared as you.
The strongest faith, Dan, is one that can stand all by itself without demanding that anyone else share that faith or bow to it. And on that score, Dan, you are sorely lacking. You claim you worship God but you deny His works at every turn.
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Oh by the way, Dan, I would not sell my soul to the devil like the fundamentalist Christians have so this isn’t about me being “not open minded” or acting with something other then an “open heart.” This is me rejecting your brand of Christianity because it has absolutely nothing to do with actual Christianity. The ones acting without an open heart and without an open mind, Dan, are the ones just like you.
So you can spout whatever prosetylizing nonsense you want and you can, in your arrogance, attempt to psychoanalyze me all you want but there is nothing you can say or do that would get me to surrender my faith as a Christian and act like a hateful ignorant fraud like you. I will not surrender my faith nor will I surrender my soul to the likes of you.
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Dan writes:
James. May I suggest you re-read your last post that I am responding to here. Your words are un-loving and un-kind. Please read my words with an open heart. I say with all care and concern. You are not in a good place my friend.
No..my words are annoyed and disgusted with you. You are the one who is being unloving and unkind because you are the one being an arrogant jackass in God’s name. So I say this with all honesty..you are not the one in a good place because you misuse Christianity in the same way the Taliban misuses Islam. Sorry, Dan, I’m no under no obligation to be kind to you when you insult my faith at every turn. I’m under no obligation to be friendly to you when you treat my God as a weapon to attack others with. In fact my moral responsibility as a Christian, Dan, is to oppose you and others like you. There is nothing loving or kind about what you say, Dan, it is just the blatherings of an arrogant little boy who thinks he can wrap himself in the mantle of God and make himself superior to everyone else and then act on that fake superiority. You are the unloving and the unkind one, Dan.
And do not presume to be my friend..you are not. you never will be. You are nothing but a fundamentalist wannabe Christian. You can’t even apologize for your arrogant presumption that I’m not Christian despite being told multiple times now, dan, that I am indeed a Christian.
So if you want me to tone down my umbrage at you, Dan, then the next words out of your mouth on this blog better be along the lines of “I apologize to you James for making a stupid arrogant assumption about you born out of my own ignorance.’ Until that happens, Dan, I will treat you in the same exact manner that Jesus treated the money-changers.
As for this:
Although species evolve over time, anyone who has witness the birth of their child, or looked into the micro-systems within our own bodies, or gazed into the vast universe is simply foolish to not recognize God in it. Simply said.. but true.
Belief born out of faith and opinion and nothing more. A Hindu would think something very different and be equally valid, Dan. But you in your arrogance don’t want to acknowledge that fact.
Quit trying to prosetylize to me you arrogant troll..even if I wasn’t Christian I wouldn’t be interested in the blatherings of an arrogant waste of a Christian like you. THe best form of prosetylizing isn’t words born out of arrogance..it’s action born out of faith. You act purely out of arrogance and ignorance, Dan. You can sit there and attack others for not being Christian all you want, Dan, but you will never convert anyone to Christianity in that manner. And make no mistake, Dan, that is indeed what you do. You try to convert people by insulting them..by attacking them. Where did Jesus say to do that?
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To quote someone I respect very much:
Although species evolve over time, anyone who has witness the birth of their child, or looked into the micro-systems within our own bodies, or gazed into the vast universe is simply foolish to not recognize God in it. Simply said.. but true.
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James. May I suggest you re-read your last post that I am responding to here. Your words are un-loving and un-kind. Please read my words with an open heart. I say with all care and concern. You are not in a good place my friend.
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Evolution is also accepted by the Catholic church in total.
You know…the vast majority of the world’s 2.1 billion Christians….
Dan is in the very small minority.
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Hi Dan!
Thanks for bearing witness to Jesus and His love. It’s a joy to know Him, commune with Him and walk with Him daily.
As has been stated, however, believing He used evolution to create the world is hardly a gamechanger for one’s faith. In fact, evolution is taught as the best currently available scientific theory at Wheaton College, Eastern University, Taylor University, Messiah College, The University of Notre Dame and almost all Roman Catholic institutions, and even at Nazarene, American Baptist, Methodist and many Presbyterians schools. The faculty who teach are committed Christians who love Jesus. And also believe Creationism hasn’t a leg to stand on. It’s built on hoaxes, lies, a thinly-veiled political agenda and bad science.
You might want to look up Dr. Francis Collins, erst of the Human Genome Project sometime. The story of how he came to a personal faith in Jesus through consideration of the Lewis Trilemma is powerful. He’s still a committed evolutionist, but he’s totally committed to Christ.
Best,
Jim
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Oh I forgot something, Dan.
My hope to God is that you find your brain, your soul and your morality and that you repent for your arrogant crap in misusing God, Jesus and Christianity and that you become the Christian you claim you are instead of the brainless right wing fundamentalist fake Christian you currently are.
And my hope is also that you stop treating God like a puppet because your faith is too damn weak to stomach the idea that God did things in a way that your interepretation of a human written book doesn’t allow because you’ve replaced faith with arrogance.
Yes, Dan, I am saying that as a Christian..that humans wrote the Bible. How do I know this? Because I’m Catholic and we don’t suffer this fundamentalist delusion that the Bible is the “inerrant and literal word of God” when it says things like it’s perfectly okay to sell your daughter into slavery. Well that and we’re the ones that put the Bible together. So our knowledge of the Bible quite far outstrips yours.
If one believes that God created this world and all life on it then one can’t look at the world and life on this planet and say “God didn’t do it the way the world says.” To believe in Creationism, Dan, is to believe that God is a sociopathic liar.
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Dan writes:
James. The truth is that the God of all creation calls you into a relationship with him as a child has with his father. Jesus says to us “unless you come to me as a child, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. My hope is that you will find him, and that he will be as real to you as anyone you know, and that his loving kindness will overwhelm you, and melt you, and that we all will humble ouselves before him, the all knowing creator of all :)
1: LET ME MAKE THIS REAL CLEAR FOR YOU DAN SINCE YOU ARE EITHER PLAYING THE SIMPLETON OR ACTUALLY ARE ONE: I AM CHRISTIAN, HAVE BEEN ALL MY LIFE.
2: What you blathered has nothing to do with the theory of evolution.
3: There is nothing in the Bible that precludes a Christian accepting evolution for what it is…one of the tools that God used and continues to use. You can sit there and pretend otherwise all you want, Dan, but you neither represent Christianity nor do you speak for it.
Do you know how absolutely arrogant you were just acting, Dan? Do you really think you’re going to get anyone to convert to Christianity by treating them like a bloody lost five year old? All you are doing, Dan, is making Christianity look bad and full of arrogant trolls. You are being a poor representative of Christ. If you were really the Christian you pretend you are, Dan, you’d apologize and repent for your stupid act of arrogance. But don’t worry..I’m not holding my breath on that happening.
No wonder Ghandi said ““I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
You sit there and use Jesus as an excuse to make yourself feel oh so superior to everyone else. That is not what Jesus taught. You use Jesus as an excuse to be an ass…and as a weapon you use to attack non-Christians..that’s not what Jesus taught either.
And yet you sit there and presume that you’re in a position to try to prosetylize to me you arrogant little child. Grow up little boy.
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That has absolutely nothing to do with evolution, Dan. Evolution doesn’t deny it, nor does that call in any way suggest a problem with evolution.
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James. The truth is that the God of all creation calls you into a relationship with him as a child has with his father. Jesus says to us “unless you come to me as a child, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. My hope is that you will find him, and that he will be as real to you as anyone you know, and that his loving kindness will overwhelm you, and melt you, and that we all will humble ouselves before him, the all knowing creator of all :)
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To quote:
James, you should re-read my posts. I argued that I felt that it was unreasonable think that evolution was responsible for mankind, and that it was downright silly. I also argued that I don’t think God from how I know him, a creative and living God, involved in everything intimately, and immediately, would choose to use a process, and sit back and watch, it’s not his style (nor does it make any sense to a reasonable person).
In response let me point something out for you. You say “…would choose to use a process, and sit back and watch, it’s not his style”…..
Except your only basis for that statement is the Bible…a book written by humans well after the fact. In other words you really don’t know what God’s style is. Even better..it’s your intepretation of that book because at no point does Genesis attempt to explain how God did it..just that He did.
And it does make sense to a reasonable person that God did use that process….when that’s what the evidence of life on this planet actually shows.
The unreasonable person..or more specifically the unreasonable Christian would continue to insist that God could only do things the way they think based on a misinterpretation from the Bible that other humans, with human level knowledge, wrote. The unreasonable Christian would continue to make God a puppet dancing on strings attached to their fingers.
If God created the world and all life on it..then God did it in the manner that the world and all life on it indicate. WHich means that yes God did indeed use evolution.
You can deny what God actually did because your faith in God is so pathetically weak all you want…but you aren’t worshipping God…you’re worshipping your interpretation of the Bible…a human written book.
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Dan…great pdf file on the laryngeal nerve. The problem still remains though. Giraffes have trouble making noise because of the length of the nerve, so evolution still rears its ugly head. Not so intelligent design-wise. Sorry.
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Hey Ed and anyone else buying into the subject of this Blog,
You should read this, and the documents linked at the bottom:
Click to access LaryngealNerve.pdf
As always, we as finite minded humans have simplified things to the point where we make tons of false assumptions in order to prove what we believe.
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James K:
I’d be curious to know your definition of a Christian. “Get this through your little mind. I’m a Christian”. Has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it James?
James, you should re-read my posts. I argued that I felt that it was unreasonable think that evolution was responsible for mankind, and that it was downright silly. I also argued that I don’t think God from how I know him, a creative and living God, involved in everything intimately, and immediately, would choose to use a process, and sit back and watch, it’s not his style (nor does it make any sense to a reasonable person).
Now, that said… you look back on my posts, and the paragraph above is exactly what I was saying. I have no idea what in the world you’re talking about me lying, etc. And how that’s using God to make my argument. It’s what I believe! If we’re going to argue, do you want me to not say what I believe?
You’re angry, and aren’t making any sense.
I’m at the point, I think I’m kinda done talking to you at this point… there’s no sense in it, we’re getting nowhere ‘cept you’re getting more and more angry for some reason.
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Jim,
You spawned a memory, that I have of saying the creed in a Baptist church as a kid. I totally forgot about that.
Wow, you have quite a background in religious studies, goodness. I know about the debates with the timeline and have dealt with that myself. One time at a Scout meeting I was showing the boys a very old sharks tooth and I mentioned it could be millions of years old, and man, I* was slammed by a number of folks who had a huge problem with that because of scriptures.
I appreciate the 3 points of views on scripture and I too take the 1st point of view. I believe that if God were to try to lay out everything about him, what and how he’s done everything, that it would be beyond our comprehension, and also, I believe we would be so focused on his power, his might, his grandness, his awesomeness to the point that all we would see is all of that and would not be able to develop an individual relationship with him.. we’d be blinded by the rest of it. I feel that’s why he chooses to not just outright reveal himself to us.
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Eeek!
Ed, break out name tags
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To quote:
In fairness, it probably doesn’t help that I am almost named “Jim” and that I go around calling you “Nick” all the time.
Yeah well family are the only ones that ever called me Jim or Jimmy :P
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Errr…shoulda said in the previous post — I am ALSO named Jim. Yeesh, it would help if I could type!
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Nick says,
Oh and you probably shouldn’t make “blindingly stupid” cracks when you can’t figure out the difference between a James going by the last name of “Hanley” versus one going by the last name of “Kessler.”
In fairness, it probably doesn’t help that I am almost named “Jim” and that I go around calling you “Nick” all the time.
I’ll say this for Knocky and OlePap — no one ever mistook them for anyone but themselves! LOL!!
Jim
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To quote:
Take God out of the equation… well, to me, as a semi-reasonable person… doesn’t make sense either
And yet to other perfectly reasonable and rational people the thought that a deity had a hand in it doesn’t make sense.
Oh and Dan get this through your little mind: I’m Christian.
Kindly quit being stupid enough to try and preach to me or convert me or whatever in hell you think you’re doing.
Oh and you probably shouldn’t make “blindingly stupid” cracks when you can’t figure out the difference between a James going by the last name of “Hanley” versus one going by the last name of “Kessler.”
Dan writes:
I hope you haven’t been totally serious with your “pissyness”… I think the way you have been, and the way I have been haven’t been really Christ-like.
Yeah here’s the difference. I recognize I was being pissy and not perfectly a Christian but I wasn’t using God or Christianity as a reason to be pissy or insulting. You were being insulting, stupid and lying and doing it in God’s name. Which do you think is worse?
Or to put this more simply: You are lying through your teeth, you are being ignorant and you are being insulting and doing it in God’s name.
So…again..which do you think is worse?
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Dan,
I don’t take “God” out of the equation either – but as Godel once said – “It all depends on what you define as God”
The (R) …. :) …. on another blog, my nom de guerre was being used by another inappropriately, so I needed a way to designate the “real” Black Flag from the interloper.
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Howdy Dan!
Thanks for recommend “The Truth Project”. It’s very well produced. In a couple places, I come close to actually agreeing with it. (I worked in Christian Broadcasting from 1980-2000, so I am very familiar with Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family, the Institute for Creation “Research” and the larger Christian Reconstructionist movement.)
My affirmation of the Apostles and Nicene Creeds comes not from Roman Catholicism. We first said the creeds in the Baptist Church I was raised in. I studied them and weighed them against the Scriptures while I attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago…and, with my professors, found them to be in perfect harmony with the Bible. We say them today at the seminary I attend and in the Episcopal Parishes I have served as a lay minister.
The creeds summarize what is necessary belief for one to be truly Christian. And there is nothing in them about HOW the world was created. Only that it was. That the earth cannot be six thousand years old is scientifically proven. Even among creationists, there is much debate about that between the young earth and old earth schools.
So we’re left with the option of believing the Bible is true, but understood in certain places allegorically and/or metaphorically…or that it is not true at all…or that it is to be taken literally in every instance.
I prefer the first option. The second also has an intellectual consistency to it, though I find it sad. The third? That’s the stuff of which empires, crusades and inquisitions are built.
No thanks.
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Black Flag,
You have a compelling argument there, no doubt. I can see where you’re coming from.
No matter how things were formed as we seem them here on earth… or in the universe… no matter what… some kind of “magic” had to take place. Just the mere fact that organized matter of any sort is even here surpasses all of our understanding and knowledge, it is beyond comprehension. This will always be a mystery to us, perhaps some day we will understand.
I don’t see that God came to this universe to manipulate it. I see that he formed the universe from a void, and then, yes, used elements of it to create the earth, the sky, the land, the oceans, all living things.
Yep, he could use evolution to do this if he wanted to, but it’s just not how I see it because knowing God personally as he’s chosen to reveal himself to me… how I know him… he’s creative, active, current, present, and involved in all sorts of details with everything, so for me, evolution as his means to create doesn’t make sense.
Take God out of the equation… well, to me, as a semi-reasonable person… doesn’t make sense either. Perhaps you can conceptualize it all coming together through the evolution process from an amoeba to what we have today, but for me it’s beyond reason.
Love the Black Flag, just don’t know why you had it as a registered trademark though…
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James H:
I very much appreciate your sincere post. It makes perfect sense to me. I totally agree that God will be “on the hook” so-to-speak to make Himself known to you.
Thank you for sharing where you’re at… I very much respect where you’re at and the clarity and honesty you put out as to your position with things… really.
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Dan
So, you believe some external force outside of the Universe – since this force cannot be subject to the laws of the Universe – entered this Universe -which would make such a force subject to the laws of the Universe – and purposely manipulated …”what?”… to create intelligent life for a reason known only to itself.
In other words, you insist on the existence of magic.
Evolution is a theory.
Equally, we have the history of dogs, where from merely a pair of wolves every type of dog in the world exists by the manipulative hand of man.
However, all of this is a matter well within the Laws of this Universe and does not depend on magic.
We may not know or understand all the forces at play upon evolution nor understand how “self-awareness” manifests inside a biological entity.
But we do know this – it all is subject to a Law of Nature and does not depend on magic to exist.
Black Flag is used for many things.
We have many symbols for many things – we have symbols for peace, for war, for nations, for baseballs teams, etc.
But I found no symbol for freedom that wasn’t perverted by some Nation-state symbol.
I contacted a world famous freedom fighter about this, and asked “What is the symbol for freedom?”
His short response was:
“Whatever is opposite of surrender”
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Dan,
I understand your perspective on that. I mean, I was brought up very deeply inculcated in an evangelical protestant church, not as a mere occasional attender, but with the church and Christian belief being one of the central organizing principles of our family and my own beliefs. So your perspective on my falling away is understandable to me, because in the past I experienced precisely the same feeling about other people. So I’m not going to mock or belittle your thoughts on that, and in fact I don’t object to them at all. They’re pretty much what, in my perspective, a Christian ought to feel about someone like me (I realize not all Christians do, but that response is what is consistent with my particular Christian upbringing).
But for my own part,I just increasingly came to realize that I had no good reasons to believe in God. I’d seen nothing that I found persuasive of evidence of the divine, either in terms of the material world or in terms of my own inner, spiritual, life. I’ve actually been more content, less frustrated and spiritually/emotionally agonized, since I gave it all up.
I’m not ant-Christian or anti-church. I more or less enjoy it when I go (enjoy the singing, enjoy the company, even enjoy the sermon if it’s a good thoughtful one that intellectually interests me). I’m just here on earth trying to live a pretty decent life, and if God’s real and wants me, he’s got the means to do it. But if the response is that I have to go to him, well, that’s what I did for twenty years, frequently in real desperation.
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James,
About “Fundiespeak”, I could re-word “Personal Relationship” to “My own knowledge back and forth between God and I”… but that seems awkward. Perhaps you could offer another phrase that better captures what I’m saying. Things have titles, such as “Apostles Creed”… perhaps that Catholispeak? Again, you have knee jerk and pre-conceived reactions to things… shows where you’re at.
I can’t prove to you that my faith doesn’t feel threatened, any more than you can prove to me that in your heart you know something is not right about your stance on evolution.
You ask my why “I feel threatened” about evolution.. faith wise. You assume I am because I express my belief. Well I guess I’ll turn the question around and ask you… why does your faith feel so threatened? Just like me, you’re arguing what you feel is right. I’d say you’re even stronger than I am about it… to the point of being rather nasty about it…. Funny you ask that question of me, because James, I think you are the one feeling threatened.
I’ve never said God couldn’t use evolution, and that wouldn’t be possible. I said I don’t believe it because it doesn’t go with who I know God is personally.
I’ve written down the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Dr. Mark Noll. Noll… and will pursue that… sounds reasonable. Now you try to get ahold of “The Truth Project” sometime. Video series.
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Black Flag:
Interesting question. No, I don’t feel that animals evolved from an amoeba either. Sure, things can change through time due to mutation, survival of the fittest, etc, but I don’t believe animals evolved through this process either.
I do however believe that we are set apart because of our Spirit, which God put in us.
BTW, I see you have a registered trademark symbol before your name. Black Flag is the name of a bug spray?
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Dan,
If you look at the Nicene and Apostles Creeds, I embrace both fully and with every fiber of my being.
I have what you might call “a personal relationship” with Jesus, though I am reticent to use nomenclature that sounds remotely like Fundiespeak. Most of it reeks of dumb and much of it actually contains pretty crappy theology.
That you are unable to admit you feel your faith threatened or diminished in some way by evolution is sad. As has been pointed out many times here at MFB, there is absolutely no conflict whatsoever between the truth of the creeds and the truth of evolution. That millions of Christians…including many evangelicals…accept evolution and still joyfully serve Jesus and their fellow human should be sufficiently convincing, though one might hope fact and reason play a role too. As I’ve said before, the hacks at the Institute for Creationist Propaganda (one cannot honestly call it “research”) don’t have even a thimble-full of the intellectual heft of devout Christian scientists like Dr. Francis Collins, Dr. Karl Giberson, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Dr. Richard Colling, Dr. Keith Miller, Dr. Joan Roughgarden, Dr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Dr. Edwin Squiers — to name just a few. And that’s just those in the hard sciences.
Nazarene Theologian Dr. Thomas Jay Oord says it well:
“The Bible tells us how to find abundant life, not the details of how life became abundant.”
But leaving the arguments in favor of evolution aside and even overlooking its compatibility with both the Bible and the creeds, why would you think Jesus wants us to lie to children about something as clear cut as the origin of life? We can tell them quite truthfully that YHWH set creation in motion in an evolutionary fashion. He did. Why does that threaten so many of my fellow Christians?
I’d strongly encourage you to read a book that only briefly touches on the evolution issue, but speaks to the broader phenomenon that seems to afflict so many. It’s called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Dr. Mark Noll. Noll, himself quite Evangelical and very much devoted to the Lord Jesus, makes a compelling case for the need to love God — not just with all our heart and soul — but with all our mind. And that love should be rooted in humility and nurtured by honesty. Such an attitude doesn’t quash or sully true faith in Jesus. To the contrary! It opens marvelous new vistas of wonder and awe and worship.
A mind really is a terrible thing to waste. It’s downright sinful.
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Dan,
Do you think God made a different set of Universal laws for humans then for, say, dogs?
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James K and Pangolin,
Guys, once you know God… you know him, and his Spirit bears witness in your Spirit within you as to the reality of who he is.
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Pangolin,
There is only 1 God. The Creator. There is only 1 son of God, Jesus Christ. There is only 1 Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.
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James K:
About the popes. I believe Catholicism is a false religion. It was definitely based on Christianity, but has become a hypocritical, heretical, mess. Jesus, when he was living among us reserved his most pointed words for the Pharisees because they “loaded on heavy burdens with their religious rules”. This to me is exactly what Catholicism has become.
I do not believe that the Popes have been true men of God.
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Ed,
I jump in here for a 1/2 hour at a time, probably 5 times… I don’t have time like you do, I have a full time job, run a ministry, and two civic organizations, and have a large family. I started to go down the road of arguing each of your points, but frankly, it’s pointless for both of us.
Ed, you’ve heard all of the counter arguments, and I’ve heard of the counter arguments to all of my arguments and so on. You’ve obviously read a lot of others opinions on the matter, gathered them, and have your own, and aren’t open to anything that sheds light on other views…. you’re closed, and frankly because if what I know, so am I because I know to the point I’d put my life on it that I’m right.
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Ed,
Understand what you were saying about it not being chance, but a process. I can see how you feel it’s capable of something even so grand as the human, but I don’t think you’re grasping the complexity of humans. There are so many systems in our bodies alone that just SCREAM of an intelligent design, to deny that and turn a blind eye to that is a bad choice.
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James K.
And when I pray (although I don’t enough)…
I pray to be more Christ-like ’cause I need it. I pray that God will show me how to lead others to Him, but I don’t pray for the destruction of anyone.
James, you have a lot of hate. That’s not so good…
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James K.
Oh, and what I was trying to say with all of that is, I’m not trying to defend, I just don’t like the way the lie of evolution of man causes people to not understand who God is.
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James K,
You were asking why I need to “Defend God against evolution”. I don’t feel the need to defend God, nor do I.
I believe every human who is old enough and has the capacity to think believes in God. May not admit it, but they do. I think many people have huge mis-conceptions of who God is… because of what MAN has said about him through the various religions. We’re all screwed up on who God really is generally.
One thing I know from personal experience, that is as real as this chair I’m sitting on… God can interact with us, he can move in our lives, he can speak to us, and listens, and responds. He is an active, creative, living, current God, and knowing him this way, I know he also has created everything as he wanted, in his way, creatively, lovingly… so that we can share the joy and what we see and experience in this world we live it… and so that we can see him in these things.
Evolution of mankind, I believe is a huge distraction from who God is. Even if it was a gazillion year old process that he put in place. The notion that he wasn’t REALLY involved intimately with the many aspects of creation, but what somewhat pleasantly pleased as he watched things develop, just simply doesn’t go with the personality of Him as I have grown to know him. It’s not now he rolls.
And then there’s the fact that you dis-agree with that I feel the notion that the complicated systems, our brain, vision, hearing… that all of these emerged through a natural process of randomness and selection…. well you can’t see it, but from where I stand, it’s foolish.
Anyways, I think we’ve said enough. I see where you’re coming from, and wish you the best in your quest for truth.
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James K,
I hope you haven’t been totally serious with your “pissyness”… I think the way you have been, and the way I have been haven’t been really Christ-like. To say ones self is a believer… sure thing. To say ones self has placed their trust in Jesus for their eternal destiny, accepting his forgiveness… sure thing. But to say one is a Christian… a follower of Christ… well, we’d have to act a bit more like Christ: Love, kindness, forbearance, gentleness, self-control.
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James,
Wow, this is getting serious now with your comments on you having prayed for 20 years or so. You know I’ve enjoyed bantering with everyone in here by myself, riling people up…. I really do believe that evolution isn’t responsible for creation, but is definitely IN creation, and I don’t believe it’s morally wrong or anything that someone believes otherwise.. and I do believe someone can believe in God and also believe in evolution of man… for sure.
However, where this got serious for me is that you have fallen away in relationship to God. I wonder what happened. I know for sure that God is real, and cares for us, cares for you, and wants to have a relationship with you… personally. I think it sucks royally that your relationship with him has been broken.
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Cthulhu, definitely Cthulhu.
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Well I was assuming Puff the Magic Dragon actually, Pan.
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It’s interesting that they never specify which God they’re talking about. As if there were no other manifestations of the religious impulse that included a Deity(s).
Are we talking about Shiva, Thor, Pan, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Quetzalcoatl, Coyote, Pele or Isis? Be specific man. If you just go asking for “god” they’ll regard your prayer as insincere and ignore it.
Just ask Rick Perry.
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