WrongPlanet.net an anti-christian site?

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AngelRho, there is more than one type of radioactive dating used to date rock layers. If the principles upon which radioactive dating are based were bogus, then nuclear power plants would not work. They are the same principles. Some of these different radioactive dating methods overlap. We see a clear progression in the fossil record of simpler forms evolving and diversifying over time. The oldest rocks have the simpler life forms. The newer rocks have more recent forms. The in-between age rocks have in-between transitional forms. This can be demonstrated for many different lineages. That is how we know that all the different transitional forms didn't exist at the same time.

Now it isn't necessary for an ancestral species to die out just because it has descendent species. Evolution often occurs at the fringes of population areas, where the conditions are marginal for the species. The pressure of the environment shifts the relative frequencies of the alleles expressed in the gene pool of a population. Those traits within a population that are more favorable for the extreme limits of its range become expressed more as natural selection favors them for those conditions. (It is important to realize here too that individual organisms don't evolve; populations evolve). Eventually there are enough differences between the fringe population and the original population that they can no longer interbreed and are considered separate species. Given more time, more branching of the tree of life occurs so we have fish becoming amphibians (but some fish remain fish), amphibians becoming reptiles (but some amphibians remain amphibians), and so on until we have some apes becoming human (but some apes remain apes). Go back far enough, and it is correct to describe human beings as highly derived fish.

There is abundant evidence to show this happens. Nested hierarchies of many different types of data all produce the same tree of life. That these hierarchies match is yet another piece of evidence. Such a pattern is predicted and explained by evolution, and is also backed up by genetic studies AND by the fossil record. How do you explain that? We have fossils of fish with legs from when some animals went from water to land, and fossils of whales with legs from when some land animals went back to the water, and these fossils are found in exactly the sequence expected and predicted by evolution. Look up the story of how "Tiktaalik" was discovered and be amazed.

And the argument that living fossils such as coelacanths somehow disprove evolution is bogus. If a species is well adapted to its environment, there is no pressure for it to evolve. Saying that a dog never gave birth to a cat is silly. Of course not! Evolution is based on the idea of inheritance that even pre-scientific humans knew about. IF a dog WERE to give birth to a cat, that would disprove evolution as we know it today. It's so funny that some of the stuff some creationists demand to see as proof of evolution would, if it were found, actually disprove it. It just goes to show how ignorant they are of what science is and how it works.

And to answer your question about evidence for macroevolution, Look up 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. It's a few years old, but still valid. More has been discovered since then. That gets me too. Even a hundred fifty years ago the evidence for evolution was overwhelming. Now with our knowledge of genetics, and with the thousands of transitional forms and lineages found, it is several orders of magnitude more overwhelmingly obvious. Yet some still deny it is real, mainly because they have been LIED to by sources they trust such as misinformed pastors or creationist web sites that spread LIES.

It's not my job to educate you, or defend science. You don't think macroevolution can be proven one way or the other. I say it was proven way beyond a reasonable doubt long ago, and to deny it shows either ignorance, stupidity, insanity or malice (or some combination of the above). As techstepgenr8tion did with leejosepho, let us stop this conversation peacefully agreeing to disagree.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 28 Apr 2011, 11:20 pm, edited 8 times in total.

TheBicyclingGuitarist, I wish you the best of luck in trying to convince him.

So how does all of this derailment relate to the thread topic, which is "Is WrongPlanet.net an anti-christian site?"

WP is not so much an anti-Christian site as it is a non-religion site.

There just happen to be a lot of Christians who seem to feel offended if everyone isn't singing hosannas to their god. They should just get over it. The rest of us can think for ourselves, and do so without any superstitious nonsense or arbitrary dogma getting in the way.

I guess my answer to that is that I am not anti-Christian, I am anti, what I perceive to be, false Christ-like ideologies claimed by some Christians. The very definition of Christian is "of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings". Therefore, unless Jesus specifically spoke about and supported specific Old Testament ideas, Christians should not incorporate it into their faith. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware that Jesus practiced Judaism and much of his teachings are based on the OT, but I feel there is a distinct variance in the philosophies of the OT to the NT.

I personally enjoy exploring various religions. Not having a concrete belief structure or dogma, I find nearly each discussion an opportunity to learn and speculate the possibilities. Unfortunately, the majority of religion-debating WP members are either Christian or non-religious persons. That would lend to the appearance of an anti-Christian attitude, where in fact that "anti" attitude would probably not be limited to Christianity.

THIS is what I've apparently done a poor job of saying. Thank you!

Ah, so you have now become some kind of rail inspector, eh?!


Not really. There actually is a "core philosophy" here (as would be logical and in keeping with any one or more of Alex' personal views), and the overall evidence I happen to have ever seen suggests that includes the very kind of tolerance Alex has reflected in the WP rules for posting.


Alex has made no specific rule saying you cannot say that, yet you can be sure Alex possibly just rolled his eyes a bit and would have never said anything like that himself!


Ah, and I bet that makes you smarter or something?


I have no problem thinking past that kind of stuff ...

Might we look just a bit closer?

"If we're in such a deadly game [of having an adversary trying to possibly "win us over to his side" or to possibly just lead us to destruction altogether and] where everything out there behind the scenes is infinitely wiser and more cunning than we are ..."

... then I suggest we might consider being grateful for something like this:

"And we know that all matters work together for good to those who love Elohim ...
"Rhetorically: If Elohim is for us, who is against us?"
(Romans 8:28-31)

People who seem to think we need to do battle with God for some reason are apparently facing in the wrong direction!

I wish I was as good at time management as you... to have the time and energy to argue every single sentence of every post... wow. Kudos.

BTW, I see no one here doing battle with god. I see some people defending their belief in a god, and I see others disagreeing with that. On a thread that now has nothing to do with the OP's question.

I think I might sense a bit of sarcasm there , but I actually have virtually nothing else to do ... and besides, that is the kind of Aspie I am!


Not doing battle here, but I do know even I have often and quite unnecessarily fought a "battle of wills" between me and God ... and yet I now see none of that was ever anything initiated by Him.


The ability for all of us to sit right here and do exactly as we are presently doing actually does send a very clear signal directly related to answering the OP's question: No, WrongPlanet.net is not "anti-Christian" even thought at least some of its members are!

I don't see myself as being anti-Christian. I do object to certain denominations trying to force their views into public school science classrooms when those particular views are not science. That doesn't mean I have "faith" in science though. As I have pointed out in earlier posts in this very thread, I believe there is much more to life than what science can currently (or possibly ever) observe and measure.

I love truth, which is probably the main reason I object so strongly to that particular "controversy." Creationist web sites are riddled with so many distortions of the truth and outright falsehoods that it is rare to find much on them that isn't demonstrably false. What I mean by "demonstrably" is that those distortions and falsehoods can be easily checked against hard physical evidence such as the actual context of works that are quote mined, where anyone can see that the quotation used, when read in context, actually means the opposite of what the creationists say it means. By hard evidence I also mean the nested hierarchies of many types of data that all point to the same reality, a reality that creationists deny, and also by the fact that nuclear power plants do work, which means the principles on which radioactive dating are based are valid.

Oh yeah, the fossil record too. There ARE transitional forms, and some are so transitional that different creationists disagree over whether a particular hominid fossil is "fully ape" or "fully human." How transitional can you get? The fossil record of human evolution shows the older species more ape-like and over time there is a clear progression towards more human-like features. Tiktaalik isn't "just a fish." There are many skeletal features that are nearly perfectly intermediate between fish and amphibians, and it was found in rocks of exactly the right age and type where one would expect to find such a transitional form.

Even if there were NO fossils at all, there is enough evidence of other types to clearly show evolution happens. The genetic evidence from DNA is amazing. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes; other great apes have 24. Apparently this could be a problem for evolutionary theory. But human chromosome 2, when closely examined, shows many clear signs of being two ape chromosomes fused together end to end. It is practically a smoking gun showing our very close family relationship to the other great apes. Endogenous retroviruses and pseudogenes at the same places in different species' DNA also show the relationship expected and predicted by the many other types of data that all produce the same tree of life. I have said before that in effect, there are "fossils" in our genes in addition to the "fossils" in the rocks. The fossils in the rocks are just the icing on the cake, but they are not even necessary to show that evolution happens.

Even with all this, I am not anti-fundamentalist Christian. I believe there are many paths, and anyone's relationship with God is about as personal a matter as it is possible to have. For some people, perhaps fundamentalism IS the only way. Where I disagree is when those people insist that their way is the ONLY way for everybody. And I would keep my mouth shut on this subject if they would stop trying to force their opinions into public school science classrooms where they don't belong. Creationism is not science. Evolution is not religious. Anyone who believes the opposite of those two statements doesn't understand the differences between science and religion.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 29 Apr 2011, 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Except that he's either interested or disinterested in us individually for his own reasons and those he's not interested in can pray as much as they want with no result, those he is interested in can go wrong as much as they want and they'll perhaps trip over their own shoelaces and fall on salvation at the end of their lives.

I can't speak for leejosepho, but when I do find a particular discussion really interesting or exciting, I do tend to dig in and tear sentences up because I think everything a person has to say in their response is important. If it's NOT really important or relevant to whatever point I'm getting at, I just ignore it, but the few conversations I've ever determined to follow through with really did make some good points that demanded an answer.

It's a skill, btw. It used to deeply offend me when my own words were chopped up like that because it made it very difficult for me to follow a conversation. I just learned a little trick that helped me keep it all straight.

I don't know how everyone else does it, but this is what I do: I start by quoting the entire post. Then I insert one or more spaces between responses or questions. I highlight and copy the <quote="username"> tag (brackets substituted for this post) and paste it to the beginning of each quote. I add </quote> to the end, and that gives me an visual reference when I'm typing a response.

It only take a few minutes. For example:


It really doesn't take that much time.

And it doesn't take that much effort, either. And the more effortless and practiced it gets, it allows you the brainpower to put more effort into the response itself.

No, probably not. But I can understand in a figurative sense how it might appear that way.

Why not?

As they are free to do.

I believe that issue has already been answered. Clearly this thread is evidence that WP is not as unfriendly in actual practice as it might appear on the surface. Given experience, I think Christians can get used to the rhythm and flow of religious/anti-religious debate, point and counterpoint. In doing so, they earn the respect of intellectuals, learn something about their faith and themselves, and become less prone to the all-out assault it seems we too often fall victim to.
...
Make sense? And that took MAYBE 5 minutes or less.

... and he or she can know that is happening when kudos begin coming from AG!

@AG: No offense or rub of any kind intended there ...

I have yet to ever find he is disinterested in anyone at all.


Starving children in Ethiopia who might be praying will get answers when the rest of us do something for them.


Yes ... but that does not mean some people can "get away with things" and other people cannot (and I am not suggesting you had said some could).

To be frank that still doesn't indicate macro-evolution took place. We need evidence like when the sudden and radical change took place.



Sorry, but while dog breeds significantly vary they still are totally different from a cat. The problem with macro-evolution is that you would have to have more than a single mutation to spark a new species. There would have to be muliple individuals mutating in the same way.



However, it could be argued they are still the same species. Dolphins used to walk on land but they migrated back to the ocean. That was an evolution while still being the same species. It is also possible there are similarities in our DNA to other lifeforms on this planet simply because we are all from the same planet.



The idea of macroevolution has serious problems due to the fact we can't find the bridge species. They are still looking for the bridges that connect us to our supposed ancestors.



Creationism is about how life began, how God decided to shape life into seperate species doesn't prove or disprove evolution.



You insult someone and then expect them to "peacefully agree to disagree," in other words you're telling them "you're right they're wrong and they should shut up."

I had to ask TallyMan to help me find some of his previous posts -- I thank you, TM! -- and then I got back here and discovered they fit perfectly ...

At least for today, TallyMan is my personal hero!