What exactly does the theory of evolution have convincing evidence for? Please be specific in your answer.

Also what exactly is gravity, please no answers in the form of an equation. Just exactly how and why do bodies attract one another? Come to that can you tell me what energy actually is?

Wow! I don't check the Forum for less than a day and ka-blooey! Explosion. :-) I want to respond to a few points. 1. Krellin and others, as Devon stated, I'm not trying to earn "God Brownie points," because salvation is a free gift--purchased by Jesus himself, "God with us," "God saves," the Prince of Peace. But Jesus sent us out into the world to spread exactly that good news about Him. 2. There's nothing wrong with the scientific method from a Christian point of view, as I think Krellin pointed out very adequately. The problem comes when people believe that direct observation of phenomena is the only way to discover truth, because there are other ways: logic, for one; and spiritual enlightenment, for another. Believing a credible source (maybe provisionally or with a grain of salt) is another. And yes, it may be that we don't understand the meaning behind the word "Day" in the 7-day creation account. But guess what? Seven literal days, or seven epochs referred to as days, or... whatever.. . It doesn't affect my trust in God. 3. The Bible is the word of God and as such is powerful just by itself. Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires." Of course discussion is good, teaching is good, but there is no substitute for the original source. Everything else is secondary. 4. I take the point made by more than one person that including a reason why I'm posting a particular section would be helpful. I will do that. At present I've been posting a bit from each book of the Bible in order, based on what I think best explains three things: 1--Who God is, 2--Who we are, and 3--How you can have the God of the universe in your life, not in some vague mystical way, but as a real relationship each day. I'll try to actually tell you my rationale for posting each day. Thanks all for your contributions and I'm looking forward to seeing more comments.

Similar to electromagnetic energy, it's mediated by particles. The larger the object, the more such particles it has, thus the stronger the gravity.

"What exactly does the theory of evolution have convincing evidence for"

Organisms developing from low-energy input to high-energy input forms.

"Come to that can you tell me what energy actually is?"

Energy is a condition - a number that remains unchanged after any process that a system undergoes.

Mujus - I'd give up just copying and pasting extracts from the Bible - most people could find these verses on the Internet if they wanted to read them and most homes have a Bible. It is a fact that the Bible is the most stolen book. Some people think the Bible should be taken literally and others aparantly think it should be taken, literally.

"his main point that people change their play based upon the style of game is probably fundamentally true -- and if such is the case, then you join the game with this knowledge, you will set your personal goals for the outcome of the game based upon said knowledge, and you will therefore act accordingly, if such is your desire."

Oscar, I know *exactly* the difference between theory and law...that was my whole point -- MOST PEOPLE claim things are law/fact that are in fact just theory.

I'm just going to make this subject a lot more hairier.....what about the idea of Theistic Evolution? That God used evolution as a mechanism to grow/create creatures......

/\ oops....wrong quote pasted in...lol

****

Mujus -- I think the point is clear -- if your goal is to get people to read the bible, have a discussion. A discussion was created here because people put their thoughts out to be discussed.

If you goal is to not have discussion about the Bible, then you are spamming the forum. One would hope, though, that someone that supposedly loves the bible and God (you, I think) would want discussion. We've demonstrated how you do that.

rollerfiend - *IF* evolution is true, and the Bible is true, then...ta da...Theistic Evolution is necessarily true.

non-theistic evolution is actually just as difficult to believe as theistic evolution...because it requires people to believe that we live in a universe of constant improvement, a tendency towards order and complexity, instead of constant decay.

"What exactly does the theory of evolution have convincing evidence for? Please be specific in your answer."

No theory in science provides evidence for anything. Again, a theory is just a comprehensive explanation of something. Such an explanation may be (partly) correct or incorrect. Rather than providing evidence theories in science instead need evidence for them to be considered plausible explanations.

The theory of evolution is in its core an explanation for how complex lifeforms on earth developed from simple ones through a process called natural selection over a period of billions of years. The body of evidence that supports this explanation is so overwhelmingly extensive that it is hard to even make a selection of a few specific examples. If you are interested to learn more about the overwhelmingly abundant evidence for the theory of evolution I suggest that you read the rather long and detailed Wikipedia page about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_evolution.


"Also what exactly is gravity, please no answers in the form of an equation. Just exactly how and why do bodies attract one another?"

Gravity is the mutual attraction between objects that have mass (or energy) as can be observed basically everywhere, for instance as objects fall to the earth or as planets revolve around the sun. How they attract each other is best described as an equation (math is after all the language of nature and science), but since you don't want that... The objects attract each other through a force each exerts on the other which depends on their masses and their distance. The larger the masses the large the force, the larger the distance the smaller the force.

As to why they attract each other... Nature is as it is and science tries to describe it as it is. Why nature is as it is is not a question that science aims to answer. Sure, science will try to find underlying explanations, but that doesn't help with the why question, as you can have an endless chain of why questions, one for each underlying explanation. That my friend, is a pointless exercise most often employed by 6 year olds.

"Come to that can you tell me what energy actually is?"

Energy is just a useful quantity (i.e. a number) to (partly) describe the state of a physical system. Similar to how speed is another such quantity. There are a number of different forms of energy (for instance kinetic, chemical, electrical, thermal). Energy is a conserved quantity, i.e. although it can be transformed from one form to another, the total amount within a system remains constant.

"Most our understanding, i.e. explanations, of how the world works have been figured out through application of the scientific method."

No, the TSM simply tests existing explanations, it doesn't generate new explanations. Most of the explanations we have for puzzles that remain today, for example, quantum gravity, the 'origins' of the universe via the Big Bang Theory, remain in the realm of speculation. Theory generation is necessarily speculative, as often times we don't have the technology to really test explanations. And TSM doesn't really help develop models of explanation at all. It can help confirm or reject hings, that's about it. It doesn't tell you which puzzles to solve or how to solve them.

theistic evolution makes sense to me because, take other naturally occurring phenomena, like the water cycle; in a religious verse you might read something like "God sends rain from the heavens", and a scientist may say "the water came from clouds/a gaseous form of water". But I mean it's the 'same' thing. I don't see a contradiction here. What did you expect God to do? Pour water at us out of a giant garden hose? He made the clouds....

Like I don't believe that all evolution and that all species came out of 'random' mutations. there had to be creator or atleast a benefactor to guide the process..... ESPECIALLY to produce something as intelligent, and dare I say superior, to other animals as a human being.

You falsely assume that speculation is not part of the scientific method. It is very much part of it though. To formulate a falsifiable hypothesis, as is essential to the scientific method, is by definition to speculate.

The fact that a theory is speculative, does not make it unscientific. In fact, in science, with its focus on falsifiability, any theory (not just the generation of it) is per definition speculative to some extent. Through observations and the scientific method a theory may become accepted as plausible, even to the point of almost certainty, but never to the point of completely certainty.

As newer theories (such as big bang or quantum gravity) have not had the chance to be verified and scrutinized as much as older ones (such as evolution and relativity), it is to be expected that they are less plausible (or more speculative if you will), and often in competition with alternative theories. All that is part of the scientific method though.

I will grant you that the scientific method in itself is not sufficient to generate new theories though. That requires in addition intuition, creativity and in many case a fair amount of genius.

"theistic evolution makes sense to me because, take other naturally occurring phenomena, like the water cycle; in a religious verse you might read something like "God sends rain from the heavens", and a scientist may say "the water came from clouds/a gaseous form of water". But I mean it's the 'same' thing. I don't see a contradiction here. What did you expect God to do? Pour water at us out of a giant garden hose? He made the clouds...."

When used in this way God is a useless concept. Whatever explanation is found for rain, you will just say that's how God did it. Therefore the hypothesis that God sends rain from the heavens is not falsifiable nor explanatory of anything, i.e. it is utterly useless.


'"Like I don't believe that all evolution and that all species came out of 'random' mutations. there had to be creator or atleast a benefactor to guide the process..... ESPECIALLY to produce something as intelligent, and dare I say superior, to other animals as a human being. '

Like many religious evolution skeptics you don't know what you are talking about. It are not just the random mutations that explain where the species came from. It are instead the random mutations in conjunction with environmental pressures and natural selection over enormous spans of time. The combination of these factors are not random at all, which is for instance why several species in similar environmental conditions have developed to very similar shapes from very different starting points (take a dolphin, although a mamal, it looks very much like a fish).

In addition, a creator is a useless explanation as the next question is just how that creator came about. If you say that because life is intelligent it must have been created, then you must concede that that creator must have been even more intelligent. Thus, by your own reasoning, that creator must have been created as well, and so must have the creator of the creator and the creator of the creator of the creator, etc. etc. etc. Really, with this explanation you get nowhere and explain nothing.

I agree on your take on evolution (I prefer the term natural selection). I would perhaps put it a little more loosely and say that it is the best explanation for the variety of life on earth that we currently have. The elephant in the room is the application of the theory to other fields. For example, cultural memes, animal/human behaviour, psychology, economics etc. That is why I asked you to be specific, thank you.

On gravity someone, I can't remember who, ironically gave an explanation rooted in particles....oh dear. That is just what the theory of gravity lacks. The example was given of photons being associated with electromagnatism, I suppose that we might go on to associate gluons and bosons for the strong and weak nuclear forces. What, however, of the fourth fundamental force - gravity? What the heck, for example, is a graviton, has one ever been seen or measured? And why, for example, does our concept of gravity fall apart on the micro (quantum) and macro (black hole) levels? Why, for example, is the universe accelerating in its expansion? The only answer you could come up with is that gravity equals the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance and then berate me for having the temerity to ask why! I am forced, therefore, to conclude that you are happy to be given easily digestible bite sized information to reassure you that science really has it all under control - is that really how you perceive the scientific method?

Likewise on energy. You say it is nothing more or less than a quantity. Well, yes, anything that we might append a unit to is by definition a quantity, so what? Tell me why it is neither created or destroyed (while making the customary nod to Einstein). Or again are you happy with your "just is" explanation? I get it you will give me the circular elementary school ''capacity to do work'' explanation again, won't you?

"When used in this way God is a useless concept. Whatever explanation is found for rain, you will just say that's how God did it. Therefore the hypothesis that God sends rain from the heavens is not falsifiable nor explanatory of anything, i.e. it is utterly useless."

Uhhhh when used in this way, the idea of God gives an entire explanation to everything. Unlike science, which just stays "that's the way it is". It explains HOW but it doesn't explain the WHY. Its not even great at explaining the how, so belief in science is just as 'dumb' as believing in a God by your rational.

"Like many religious evolution skeptics you don't know what you are talking about. It are not just the random mutations that explain where the species came from. It are instead the random mutations in conjunction with environmental pressures and natural selection over enormous spans of time. The combination of these factors are not random at all, which is for instance why several species in similar environmental conditions have developed to very similar shapes from very different starting points (take a dolphin, although a mamal, it looks very much like a fish)."

Try to explain to yourself how a micro-organism turned into a slug or a fish or whatever. Through mutations, that had had to been 'random' because there is no intelligence creating them! Either way even you admit they are random, it's just you try to hide behind it being oh so environmentally pressured or by natural selection. Sure, I can buy that a bigger fish ate a smaller fish, and thus got to spread its genes instead. But where did that bigger fish come from? A mutation had had to caused it, yes?

Basically I'm saying God did it and you on the other hand think that in another billion years, we'll have X-men running around through mutations with natural selection or environmental pressures......

Another tendency of the evolutionist lobby is to put every morphological feature down as a product of natural selection. as an antidote to this suspect belief system I recommend:

The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programm

http://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/GouldLewontin.pdf

Can the people that believe in God at least admit that it's possible that the concept of God is man-made in order for us to think humanity has a higher purpose in life than it really does? I admit that of course it's possible a higher power exists, it just doesn't seem likely to me based on what I've observed in my lifetime. Someone who believes in God or anything for that matter to a point that they could never be convinced otherwise isn't worth debating with. I don't completely believe that evolution is exactly how we came about, it just seems like a likely explanation given the data. So you go with it until proven otherwise.

Francis Bacon:
“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts: but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

That's a good quote that I definitely agree with.

@Mujus

In response to your original question, it would all depend on your motive for stopping.

If you want to stop posting about Jesus because you need a break, then by all means stop. You have provided as much testimony as any mortal might be expected to. Vaya con dios, amigo.

If your motive to stop is because you tire of all of the trolling that your posts draw, I would instead suggest that you simply mute the trolls. Your postings provide pretty good publicity for Jesus. After all, you are downright articulate compared to the people that attempt to troll you. In theory, anyone who is sitting on the fence, and reads your posts, will probably be swayed gently towards the light side of the Force. More valuably, the athiest/trolls are wasting plenty of ammo attempt to ridicule positions that you aren't actually taking, so as long as you are successful at ignoring them, I feel that you're successful.

Personally, I enjoy your postings and think any opportunity to learn about Jesus is a good opportunity.

Ideally, we could actually get into a multi-faith polite theological discussion, but I personally feel that this can only begin once the rest of us are successful at clicking ignore for the trolls. Currently your posts serve to draw them out and expose their positions. Quite valuable indeed.

What would Jesus do? It seems to me that Jesus passed up plenty of opportunities to argue with trolls, especially if their antics appeared as distractions from whatever his purpose was at that moment of time. Part of the essential genius of Jesus seems to have been that he knew when to strike, when to ignore and when to engage people through dialog.

No?

"Also what exactly is gravity, please no answers in the form of an equation."

Also where exactly do you live, please no answers using a map.

"On gravity someone, I can't remember who, ironically gave an explanation rooted in particles....oh dear. That is just what the theory of gravity lacks. The example was given of photons being associated with electromagnatism, I suppose that we might go on to associate gluons and bosons for the strong and weak nuclear forces. What, however, of the fourth fundamental force - gravity? What the heck, for example, is a graviton, has one ever been seen or measured? And why, for example, does our concept of gravity fall apart on the micro (quantum) and macro (black hole) levels?"

The description of forces as mediated via particles (including the graviton) is in essence just a mathematical trick. It is completely equivalent to describing them as quantized fields, but often an easier way to deal with them mathematically. The word particle in quantum theory is just a word to refer to a certain type of phenomenon. It's kind of a misnomer really because these force mediating "particles" (or any quantum particles for that matter) do not at all behave like particles as we intuitively understand them from our macroscopic perspective. They are also called waves in other contexts, which is equally inaccurate in the classical sense. The truth of the matter is that they have some characteristics of classical particles, some of classical waves, and some characteristics entirely different from either classical particles or waves. These words, particle and wave, in quantum theory are basically just a carry-over from previous, pre-quantum theory, understandings of how the micro world works (much like a car still has "horse power") and also for lack of a better word to describe a phenomenon so counterintuitive to our daily live experience.

So that's a graviton for you: a mathematical trick to describe quantized gravitational fields in an alternative but equivalent way.

In any case, per the above, each fundamental force is per definition associated with a particle, the graviton being the only one that is yet to be detected. Failure to detect them so far might very well be due to the extreme weakness of the gravitational force in comparison to the other fundamental forces, making gravitons undetectable by even the most advanced detector technology we currently have. It may equally well be due to quantum field theory not describing gravitation correctly. From our inability so far to 1) unify gravitation into one theory with the other three fundamental forces (which have already been unified into one theory) and 2) reconcile general relativity (the currently most plausible theory about gravity) with quantum theory, it is clear that there are things about gravity yet to be discovered. It is one of the exciting challenges of current day cutting edge physics.

"And why, for example, does our concept of gravity fall apart on the micro (quantum) and macro (black hole) levels? Why, for example, is the universe accelerating in its expansion?"

A Nobel prize for you if you can figure it out. The best current theories about the universe, although they fit very well with observations, have the universe consist mostly of dark energy and dark matter, phenomena in which the adjective dark basically just indicates the fact that no one really knows what the hell it is. They are basically just terms in an equation that are required to make the theory fit observation. The dark energy term is the one related to the accelerating expansion.

"The only answer you could come up with is that gravity equals the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance and then berate me for having the temerity to ask why! I am forced, therefore, to conclude that you are happy to be given easily digestible bite sized information to reassure you that science really has it all under control - is that really how you perceive the scientific method?"

I had no way of knowing your a-priori knowledge of the subject, so yeah, I tried to not make my answer overly complex. I didn't mean to berate you though. So my apologies if you interpreted it as such. Hopefully the above is more satisfying to you, even though obviously it doesn't answer all your questions as some of the answers are simply not know yet.


"Likewise on energy. You say it is nothing more or less than a quantity. Well, yes, anything that we might append a unit to is by definition a quantity, so what? Tell me why it is neither created or destroyed (while making the customary nod to Einstein). Or again are you happy with your "just is" explanation? I get it you will give me the circular elementary school ''capacity to do work'' explanation again, won't you?"

I don't know why it is neither created nor destroyed. Again, science doesn't aim to answer such why questions. All I can tell you is that an insane large amount of experiments of an extremely wide variety, executed over the course of several centuries have all consistently confirmed the hypothesis that it is neither created nor destroyed. So, the reasonable thing to do is to accept it as an experimental fact.

The why question is in anyway irrelevant. It does not help in to predict or explain anything nor tell you how to apply the knowledge. It's possible that we might find some underlying explanation to energy at some point, much like we discovered that thermal energy is actually kinetic energy of atoms. But that underlying explanation will necessarily again employ some other quantity to describe the phenomenon to which you can ask what is it and why does it exist. No matter how detailed and accurate our description of nature, you will always be able to ask the why question and it can never be satisfactorily answered. Fortunately though, again, it is an irrelevant question.

"Basically I'm saying God did it and you on the other hand think that in another billion years, we'll have X-men running around through mutations with natural selection or environmental pressures......"

X-men are a fiction, same as God.

ockham's razor 1, theistic evolution 0

"Another tendency of the evolutionist lobby is to put every morphological feature down as a product of natural selection"

If you are implying that evolutionist claim every characteristic of a living organism is an *adaptation* this is untrue. Characteristics fall into one of three categories: adaptations, side-effects and accidents. For example new born infants suckling is clearly an adaption (this instinct offers a survival advantage compared with not having this instinct). Thumb sucking on the other hand cannot be shown to offer any survival advantage, thus it is a side-effect of suckling. Then there are traits that are neither an adaptation or a side-effect, rather are purely accidental. For example when people interlace their fingers, the thumb on top is nearly always the same thumb - yet this has no adaptive signifigance.

In fact there are many examples of silly characteristics (or imperfections if you will) that an intelligent designer would never have created but that make perfect sense in an evolutionary scheme.

One example would be the laryngeal nerve, which in our bodies runs from the brain all the way down to our heart just to then go up again to end up right next to where it started. That's not an intelligent design. That's a stupid design. Even in giraffes the nerve takes that route all the way up and down their neck.

Now if you realize that this nerve had already evolved in fish, which don't have much of a neck, then for fish the route around the heart isn't really that silly. And while necks slowly evolved rather than having a major redesign to reroute the nerve along a more sensible path, the nerve instead just involved to slowly get longer as well. Exactly as you would expect for something that evolves in small steps as per the theory of evolution. Exactly opposite to what you would expect from an intelligent designer.