"But they're still bears, right? They're not turning into seals, or puffins, or lemmings (or cats)."

To even USE that as a dis-proof of evolution is to misunderstand the very concept. Of course bears don't "turn into" totally different species. Bears came from a 'line' of creatures which have followed a totally different evolutionary path for multi-millions of years. Now, IF you go back several HUNDRED million years to single celled entities, then it is true that there are common ancestors.....but the splits occurred so long ago that we can't directly trace them. Whatever bears are, they have such distinctive DNA that they will always just be 'slightly different' bears!

I'm not saying that we ought to be able to watch a bear turn into a seal/cat/etc. I'm just saying that we see tons of adaptions and no evidence that a bear has come from a different creature . I can go to any museum and see tons of variations of species, but no transitional forms in fossils--just drawings and speculations. How do you know that evolution happened? What is your evidence that over millions of years a single cell organism became all the life we see today? If evolution were true, we ought to see in the fossil record simple organism and then as we work up, more and more complex creatures. But we don't. We only see fully formed creatures in fossil layers, and even then they are out of the supposed 'order' that they ought to be if evolution were true.

but the point is, it (your religious stand) does not NEED to be 'defended'. You can believe in the Bible and no one can 'prove' that it is not "the word of God"...but we **CAN** prove certain things about ourselves and our history that the Bible simply does not and can not deal with! We are what we are...and we evolved how we evolved, and IF you don't see all that described in the Bible, is is because those humans who wrote, translated, edited and **interpreted** the Bible had no access to the data that we have today.

You need proof that the Bible is true? Look around you! Nature screams "Creator!" wherever we turn. The amazing detail of a leaf, a cell, a tree, an insect, the human mind. What do you mean "The Bible simply does not and can not deal with proving things about ourselves"......what do you want proven/dealt with? The Bible applies to every area of life, even if it doesn't mention it directly. Give me a situation, and the Bible has an answer for you. No, speeding tickets are not mentioned in the Bible. But there are doctrines in God's Word that can be applied to speeding--or anything else.
Everything has a cause. You can trace anything back to a cause, but where did the causes start? Are causes eternal? What set them in motion? What is the original cause? The very scientific method is based upon the law of causality; that effects are in and like their causes, and that like causes produce like effects. We are inevitably led to the question "What is the cause of causes?" What started the causal universe? was it an infinite chain of primary causes? or was it an uncaused primary Cause of all causes (the One absolute Cause that initiated everything)?

When you...or anyone else... demands that evolution would require "bears turning into...etc." before our eyes, that is simply, as someone mentioned before, a "straw man"... which means an obviously incorrect premise which was not claimed.

I was using bears as an illustration. I wasn't saying that we ought to see a bear turning into a salamander (or whatever) in a lifetime. I was saying that if evolution is true, bears ought to be able to change into a different creature other than a bear. Evolution teaches that, given enough time and mistakes, a creature can turn from a monkey-like creature to a human. We don't have proof for this, we don't have fossil records, we don't have evidence--just speculation.

Inventing terms like micro-evolution ...just to have a word that 'sounds' like a distinction does not change anything.
I didn't invent the term, it's in the dictionary. It's also on Wikkipedia: Microevolution and Macroevolution. Adaption vs. the ability of a creature to turn from one species into another.

Now... if you care to see & explore some amazing data and genuine, real, touchable evidence of evolutionary paths that didn't survive....Google "Burgess shale". and...ummm...be VERY glad we are not related to the organisms in THAT sample of this Earths history
I'm familiar with the Burgess shale. It is an amazing collection of marine invertebrates fossilized in a layer of shale, discovered in Canada in 1940. There is a huge diversity of creatures there, even ones previously undiscovered, but nothing simple or primitive that would indicate them being an ancestor to any other creature--instead we see an amazing variety of sea creatures, intricately designed and unique. Simply because some of them are extinct is not evidence for evolution, it's just what happens- it happened to the dinosaurs, it happens to other creatures like the mammoth, the american lion, etc. etc.


There are SO many versions of the Bible, and many 'books' that were left out, that even 'reputable' scholars lament.
Add to that the translation problems and the many THOUSANDS of different interpretations and "reliable collection of historical documents." becomes quite an issue.

"So many versions of the Bible" But there are very few actual documents/parchments copied from the originals. Those are the true word of God, and the 'translations' are only the word of God insofar as they are true (verbal plenary) to the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. The "Other books" so called are perhaps interesting accounts, but they are not the inspired Word of God as the Bible is. The Bible alone is perfect, it is the ultimate authority, and, as I've said before, an ultimate authority can't be judged by something else or else it isn't ultimate--whatever it is judged by is!

also..." But there is no support for the claim that a bear can turn into another species, as Evolution says that they ought."

One more time: That is NOT what evolution does...or would.. claim! If you continue to assert something that is NOT part of the basic theory of evolution, you will simply be like a mother stating "I KNOW MY son would never do something so terrible, no matter how much evidence you have!"

Please show me, what *do* you say? That a bear is the pinnacle of evolution, and even though it is a descendant of a different species (as obviously bears haven't been around since the big bang), it can't evolve into something new? Show me the 'transitional forms' in the fossil record that prove that the bear has evolved. The platypus too, while you're at it. *good natured grin*

Believe in a god... and draw comfort & inspiration from the wisdom and parables and content of your Bible... but IF you believe God created everything out of nothing, you are not so far from what cosmologists assert today. You are simply naming that first big 'creation' differently...which is fine. What happened AFTER that we can study, and as I said... it is what it is.

I don't believe in any 'god', I believe in the God of the Bible as He has revealed Himself. I believe that the world was created, in six literal days. There is evidence for that. Evolutionists believe in eternal matter, while I believe in an eternal Creator. Evolutionists believe that nothing created everything. Christians believe that God created everything. I quite agree with you "What happened AFTER [the world came into existence] we can study, and.......it is what it is. And it's my contention that the evidence fits much better with the Creation/Flood model, not the evolutionary model.
And if we are both on the same page and just name our 'first big creation' differently, then why do you even bother to debate me on this? It's just 'different strokes for different folks', right? Ah, no. There are complications to both of our worldviews. And that's why you--and I-- find it worthwhile to discuss this!
Remember, there is only one truth. The blind men may feel different parts of the elephant and call it what they will.......but it's still an elephant.

The Bible just does not provide, anywhere near, a good enough standard of evidence in support of a creationist model of the world.

The fossil evidence all points to a catastrophic water burial. Fossilization does not take millions of years. In Texas we've found fossilized fence posts, and a man who was murdered (in the 1950s or 60's) and buried was found later, with his leg petrified inside his leather cowboy boot, proving that it does not take millions of years to fossilize an item, it just takes the right conditions.
This fits perfectly with the Biblical account of Genesis, that all the animals except two/seven of each kind (meaning two of the dog kind, not two of every dog variety, two of every cat kind, etc), drowned in a catastrophic flood, which would have produced conditions perfect for fossilization. If the Genesis account is true, we would have to find millions of fossils showing evidence of a water burial. We should find millions of clams and other sea creatures buried alongside of flying animals and dinosaurs.
What do you know? This is exactly what we find.
Evolutionists attribute all this water-evidence to slow and calm seas over millions of years, or small floods, or rivers. But if this were the case, the fossils ought to show evidence of exposure to the elements. We ought to be able to see wear and tear on them, of wind and rain and millions of years of gradual fossilization. But we don't. The evidence points to a quick and catastrophic burial--every time.

Pretending to be interested in evidence when you're not is lying. You'll go to @#!*% .

I am interested in hearing what the evolutionists call evidence for their belief. So far all I've seen is a lot of adaption, served up with a generous helping of insults insinuating that I'm an idiot who can't seem to open her eyes and see the facts. When I look around the world, all I see is a ton of evidence for a worldwide flood and a creator who designed every creature intricate from the start. I don't see any evidence of millions of years or random acts of chance that created everything. Plus, I just don't have enough faith to believe that!


By the way, scientists DO recognise that organisms are designed- but they are designed by the other organisms with which they interact, and with the physical environment, rather than by an external party.

And what was the original 'designer' of these organisms? Here again is the causal argument. Are causes eternal? Or was there an original uncaused Cause? The "Physical environment" didn't just *bang* come to be out of nothing--did it? Is "Nothing" the cause of everything?

If you truly believe that the old testament is a truthful and accurate collection of facts, then you have obviously never heard of, let alone played, the childhood game of Chinese whispers. It is not known at what point it became a written, as opposed to verbally transmitted, entity and there is no reason to suppose that there were no alterations due to the personal bias, prejudice, or intentions of the many scribes who must in 6000 years have been involved in its transmission.

We call it 'Providential Preservation". While we do not have the original penned-by-Paul (or whoever the author of a book may be) documents, we do have accurate copies of them. God gave man His words to write down, and He has also seen to it that His word is preserved in its perfection. Now, translations of those original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts are (as I've said before) only the word of God insofar as they are literal to the original languages. Of course to an atheist, this is no argument at all because God 'doesn't exist. But that doesn't mean that it's false, it just means that they don't have the foundation that a Christian does.

As to the New Testament, being based on the gospels which were written a hundred years or more after the death of Jesus, and exposed once more (as was the Old Testament too) to the machinations of generations of MEN with widely divergent ideals and interpretations of meaning.

To regard it as the definitive word of "GOD" is at the very least naive, and at worst self deluding dishonesty.

It's a funny thing. The manuscripts that we have access to today of the New Testaments can take us back to A.D. 120 or 150--and people say that 'to be sure they are corrupt out of men's different opinions (surely they can't be word-perfect copies!). After all, that's an awful long time after the originals.'
Really?
How about Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars (Commentarii de Bello Gallico)"? The manuscripts we have are 900 years after the original. People don't seem to be up in arms about that!
Aristotle's "Poetics", the oldest age of the manuscripts that we can put our hands on is about 13 or 14 hundred years.
Homer? the oldest one we have is about 21 hundred years.
The New Testament? a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty Within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.
'but of course we can't trust them, because they report supernatural events. We all know that the supernatural is impossible'
Well, they *are* called 'supernatural'. Beyond what you normally see in the orderly world. Miracles aren't contrary to nature, they're just contrary to what we know about nature. God made the rules, He can breach the laws of nature whenever He pleases to--if you call it a breaching of laws. really, it's just a breach of what we see as laws of nature. An athiest of course isn't going to accept that argument, because it can only be understood if one has a Christian worldview.

When Jesus was crucified, He quoted Psalm 22. "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?"
Psalm 22 is a perfect description of the crucifixion of Christ. The odd thing?
Crucifixion hadn't even been invented yet when David wrote the Psalms. I know that because the Romans invented crucifixion a thousand years later. So here's David, writing a description of a death that he never witnessed in his life, but that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That's just one of many prophesies that were fulfilled in Holy Scriptures.
Assuming that there were a God, omnipresent and omnipotent, he would surely find a better broadcasting medium than several thousand years of mere men with a generous helping of bigotted control freaks, zealots, and genocidal murderers, wouldn't you think?
"you can't trust the Bible because it was written by men!"
God used men to write the Bible. Isn't that amazing? That He would transform perfectly wicked murderers like Moses, Paul and King David into regenerate followers of Christ, that's astounding, and it proves that if we repent, even the most wicked of us can be saved from our just punishment because of what Christ did.
But if you say that we can't believe the Bible because it was written by men, you'd better burn all the books that you own. 'Cause I'm pretty sure that they were written by men too. The difference between Encyclopedia Britannica and the Bible is that the Bible, while it was put pen-to-paper by men, it was inspired by God--He put the words in the men's mouths, the very words that they were to write down. And the fact that God used sinful men to execute His purpose is just a case in point--That God saves, even the most heathen of sinners. It's not an argument against the Scriptures, it's an argument for it.

I believe the Bible because it was written by eyewitnesses...

And there you have it - a completely delusional individual and "true believer" with no knowledge whatsoever about how the book known as "The Bible" came to be.

You want scientific evidence for the Bible? okay. But of course you know about the scientific method. In order for something to be proven scientifically, something has to be observable, repeatable, and measurable. Unfortunately, historical events can't be observed, measured or repeated in a lab. You can't use the scientific method to prove that George Washington was our first President. If you have a problem that we can't prove the Bible by the scientific method, then you have a problem with history.
If something is written, the only way you can question it is if you don't have corroboration or there's internal inconsistency. We can't find any internal inconsistency, and we've got multiple corroboration. We have three languages, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, we have three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe. We have over fourty authors, most of whom never met one another, because they wrote over the period of some sixteen hundred years. According to your dictionary, that would be the very defintion of corroboration. So unless you have anything that would negate what we find in the bible, you have to accept the fact, based on the evidentiary method and not the scientific method that he Bible is a reliable collecion of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.,,,,,


If a friend of yours told you that his mule had just spoken to him, and given him a message from God, what would you think, and how would you reply?
I would respond by going to the Bible and seeing if what the donkey said was in accordance with the Scriptures. If not, then it was not a message from God, but it could have a number of different explanations.

If a friend of yours told you that his plans for the day included killing his child, because God told him to, what would you think, and how would you respond?

See my response above.


quite a few scientists do recognize God as creator.

Yep. And quite a few architects design absolutely @#!*% buildings.

I think you are quite mistaken, unless you call some of the world's greatest scientists bungleheads. For instance, Johann Kepler (scientist in the fields of Physical Astronomy and Celestrial Mechanics) said:"...and thou my soul, praise the Lord thy Creator, as long as I shall be: for out of Him and through Him and in Him are all things….To Him be praise, honour, and glory, world without end. Amen."—J. Kepler, Harmonies of the World, 137

Isaac Newton was a strong Christian and a great scientist (known best as the man who discovered gravity, he worked with calculus and dynamics):
"Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."—I. Newton

Robert Boyle (Chemistry and gas dynamics),: "The last service that, I hope…is to induce men to pay their admiration, their praises, and their thanks, directly to God himself; who is the true and only creator of the sun, moon, earth, and those other creatures, that men call the works of nature."—R. Boyle, 1725

"When man thus perceives, that in respect to all these vital operations he is more helpless than the infant, and that his boasted reason can neither give them order nor protection, is not his insensibility to the Giver of these secret endowments worse than ingratitude?"—C. Bell, 1852 (Bell worked with Surgery and Anatomy)

"In no part of creation are the POWER, WISDOM, and GOODNESS of its beneficent and almighty Author more signally conspicuous than in the various animals that inhabit and enliven our globe."—W. Kirby, 1835 (worked with Entomology)

"The consciousness of the presence of God is the only guarantee of true self-knowledge. Everything else is mere fiction, fancy portraiture—done to please one's friends or self, or to exhibit one's moral discrimination at the expense of character."—J. C. Maxwell, 1858 (Electrodynamics and statistical thermodynamics)

"I see everywhere the inevitable expression of the Infinite in the world; through it the supernatural is at the bottom of every heart."—Louis Pasteur (Microbiology, Bacteriology, Biogenesis Law, Pasteurization, Vaccination And Immunization)

"If I know the answer, you can have it for the price of a postage stamp. The Lord charges nothing for knowledge, and I will charge you the same."—G. W. Carver (Modern Agriculture)