Anonymous #4 5d

If you believe animals as a whole adapt to different environments, you’d be discounting the amount of different species that have died due to them not being able to adapt for one reason or another. Humans will very very likely die before the earth does, but we’re very fortunate for our ability to adapt to our environment by becoming bipedal, learning how to persistent hunt which was helped by losing fur, creating tools, having opposable thumbs, etc making us top of the food chain

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Anonymous #4 4d

A lot of little adaptations stacking up over long periods of time is how large evolutionary changes happen.

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Anonymous OP 4d

Well, not every animal adapts well due to a variety of circumstances, some natural and some man made. Humans are definitely very capable of adapting to many situations tho, which is cool to see when you look at how far we’ve come since Adam and Eve.

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Anonymous #1 4d

When you put it like that, then I suppose I’d say I believe in animals evolving, but not the traditional ideology of evolution. Basically, I think animals were made with the ability to adapt to different environments and situations, but I don’t think we evolved from apes or originated from single celled organisms.

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Anonymous #5 4d

Monkeys didn’t turn into humans

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Anonymous #5 4d

Dogs came from a group of wolves, but not all wolves became dogs. And we dont see wolves randomly turn into dogs. It’s like that

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Anonymous #5 4d

Monkeys are not de-evolved humans

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Anonymous #4 4d

There’s a lot of evidence that shows these large evolutionary changes you don’t believe in happened. Some great examples are fossils, we have some super good fossil records of horses and whales that show how they evolved from completely different-looking animals to what we recognize today. And there’s evidence in modern species of shared ancestral traits, that we shouldn’t see if they were created separately.

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Anonymous #4 4d

lol why am I getting downvoted?

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Anonymous #4 4d

Because you’re wrong. There was no Adam and Eve and everything evolved from single cell organisms

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Anonymous #2 4d

Well, I’m sorry, but I believe different. Since when is believing differently worthy of a downvote? I can’t stand this culture of “you think differently than me so I don’t like you”, it’s so classless and ignorant.

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Anonymous #4 4d

People can downvote for whatever reason they want. I’m downvoting you not because I don’t like you, I don’t even know you. You’re just making arguments with zero scientific backing and being a contrarian. You also deleted a ton of your comments which I find cowardly. And you’re not entitled to not being downvoted lol. We have the freedom to respond just as you have your freedom of speech

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Anonymous #4 4d

Because what you “believe” is not rooted in reality. You don’t just get to “believe” things with no proof and expect to not face criticism. I can’t stand the culture of “fuck you I don’t care about facts”

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Anonymous OP 4d

What comments? Everything I’ve said is still here as of right now. And it’s not that I have zero scientific backing, it’s that based off of the evidence, I find the idea of a higher power (creator if you will) to make more sense than anything else I’ve heard. Besides, that’s just it, they’re not arguments at all, I was just stating my beliefs in response to your question. Everyone just wants to argue and fight over differences, it’s so sad.

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Anonymous #2 4d

Well, to me it makes more logical sense than the idea that something came from nothing. If you can prove that something can come from nothing (like the big bang or multi celled from single celled), then feel free to. To me, life and our existence are too perfectly made to not be the work of a creator. I can’t believe that simply by chance, we exist. That’s like believing in miracles without a miracle worker.

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Anonymous #4 4d

How would God have been created? Isn’t that something that would’ve come from nothing? I think it makes more sense that the inherit elements of the universe slowly created tangible things over time

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Anonymous OP 4d

That’s the thing, it’s God, a being beyond our understanding. He has no beginning and no end. I simply believe that it’s more logical for an omnipotent, omnipresent being to exist outside of space and time than for these certain “vibrations” to. If the best you have is that these very particular vibrations have always been around and somehow produced everything we know to be, I think I’ll stick with my God. It may not sound as scientific, but life is too exact to have happened by chance.

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Anonymous #4 4d

Except life is far from perfect. Humans are literally born with organs we don’t need. People who can drink lactose can trace their lineage to areas that went through massive famines where people had to adapt the ability to drink milk from other animals. People are born with disabilities etc. Far from perfect

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Anonymous #4 4d

We only exist to notice life in the tiny portions of the universe where there was enough luck for life to form. It’s an entire universe, even if the change is infinitesimally small, that means life will exist somewhere. In all the places where life never formed, we aren’t there to see.

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Anonymous #2 4d

Not perfect in that’s sense. Life hasn’t been perfect like that since the fall of man. I mean in the sense of our situation. There’s countless systems that if changed even to the slightest would mean no (or at least a very different) life. The force of gravity due to our mass, our Goldilocks zone, our perfect magnetic field, Jupiters placement, etc. etc. The odds of all of these systems being just the way they are for us to live the way we do are simply too astronomical to make us just “lucky”.

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Anonymous #4 4d

Life evolved BECAUSE of those and in line with those “perfections” and it took billions of years to happen. It took many iterations of life to end up where we are now. There’s other planets millions of light years away that could potentially support life as well. We just have no way of getting there.

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Anonymous #4 4d

There’s nothing perfect about it. Life just simply evolved to fit into the system

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Anonymous #2 4d

I’m sorry, but the odds are not in your favor here. The probability alone, much less the fine tuning aspect of our universe, imply intent, not randomness. Again, you’re believing in a miracle without a miracle worker. “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”

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Anonymous #4 4d

Right. And where all those systems were changed in the slightest, we aren’t there to witness it. The chances are astronomical, but it’s an entire universe, and we only exist on a planet where the chances world out. We don’t exist on the trillions of planets where it didn’t.

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Anonymous #4 4d

What you’re suggesting is the universe was tuned to fit life. In reality, life fine tuned to fit in the univers

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Anonymous #1 4d

If the universe was actually fine tuned, I would expect there to be way more life than how rare it really is. About 15 million years after the big bang, the average temperature of the universe was within the range of liquid water. Even planets with no stars could have supported life. A fine tuned universe could have been like that forever. Instead we are in the one where we are the only planet we know of with life. That sounds a lot more like natural chance.

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Anonymous #1 4d

Like the fine tuning argument really just falls apart when you acknowledge that we can only exist on a planet where the chances worked out. We don’t see all the trillions upon trillions where it didn’t, because they have no intelligent life.

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Anonymous #2 4d

Well, I disagree. There is insufficient evidence for me to conclude that everything came from nothing, or as some would argue, vibrations that exist outside of space and time. “The world is too complicated in all its parts… to be due to chance alone.”

0

Anonymous #1 4d

It’s almost like the Earth was specifically and intentionally for life to thrive 🤔

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Anonymous #4 4d

The Fermi paradox literally only exists because statistically life is bound to exist throughout the universe due to sextillions of planets. It is literally just chance. The earth only appears “perfect” because intelligent life will only be able to evolve on a planet with great conditions. And the earth isn’t perfect. The poles are uninhabitable. The ocean is undrinkable. Most plants are inedible to us. The sun gives us cancer.

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Anonymous #1 4d

The poles’ angles give us seasons (falls the best 🍂), the ocean is home to billions of life (many of which rely on the oceans salinity), inedible to us but not to everyone 🦫, and the sun would destroy us if we didn’t have our magnetic fields perfectly placed to keep us safe. You can believe that you only exist due to random chance, but I believe that my life (and yours 🫶) has a purpose and is beautifully and wonderfully made.

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Anonymous #4 4d

You can have seasons without permanent icecaps making the poles uninhabitable. Antarctica had forests 30 million years ago. You can have life in the ocean without it being so salty that we cannot drink it (making seaside life and maritime travel much more difficult). God could have made all plants edible to us and people wouldn’t starve in the wilderness. God could have made the sun not produce ionizing radiation (or he could make us immune to it) and we would not get skin cancers.

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Anonymous #1 4d

Like all the stuff about “yeah but other animals can take advantage of these conditions” kind of falls flat if the conceit of the religion is that we are the special ones made in God’s image and everything on earth was made to suit us specifically.

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Anonymous #8 4d

oh girl……ohhhhh girlllll……you must not be a bio student cuz we have absolutely observed both things in science 😭

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Anonymous #1 4d

We haven’t gotten full abiogenesis in lab, but we’ve gotten the building blocks for RNA. Self-replicating RNA (which can be as short as 20 nucleotides) is a logical first life form that could then gain complexity over time.

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Anonymous #8 4d

I’m just asserting the science. Evolution is a proven fact. It’s not something you can deny as an opinion any more than denying the existence of gravity or pigeons is a valid opinion. If there was good evidence against evolution and in favor of another theory, I would consider it on its merits. But we don’t have anything like that so far.

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Anonymous #1 4d

Well, actually everything else was made first, we were the last to be made. And you also have to realize, when looking at the creation ideology, that life was perfect before the fall of man. I’m not sure how those issues were solved prior in the garden, but they weren’t issues until after man sinned.

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Anonymous #4 4d

But that’s the thing, you’ll never fully understand God because well, he’s God. That’s where belief comes in. You’ll never be able to answer every question. But the more you study science, the more you’ll find intelligent design behind it all. “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting.”

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Anonymous #4 4d

There are entire phyla of animals that only exist as parasites. Animals that can only survive by harming other animals. I know what creation ideology says, i was raised Catholic. It’s just not coherent if you look at ecology and biology. And as I studied science more, culminating in my biology degree and current employment as a fisheries scientist, I came to realize intelligent design makes no sense.

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Anonymous #1 4d

Like everything in the world is exactly what it should look like if there was no intelligent design. So either God is intentionally obscuring his work as much as possible to trick people into Satan, or intelligent design isn’t real.

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Anonymous #1 4d

There’s also many species of obligate parasites and commensals which only live on or in humans. Genetic studies indicate that facial mites, for example, have co-evolved with us for millions of years. If we were made last, there shouldn’t be human specialist animals.

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Anonymous #1 4d

Well then, in relation to the previous quote, which was made by Werner Heisenberg by the way (founder of quantum mechanics), it seems like you have more drinking to do.

-1

Anonymous #4 4d

Tesla said he could speak telepathically to pigeons. Someone excelling in one field doesn’t mean they are right about everything. I base my beliefs on evidence, not on the personal beliefs of a German guy born in 1901. Heisenberg being good at theoretical physics doesn’t mean he’s right on everything. You wouldn’t find Stephen Hawking being an atheist as proof against your beliefs.

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Anonymous #1 4d

At least Heisenberg wasn’t on the list lol. I mean, it’s just interesting that some of the greatest minds of our time (Collins, Sandage, Heisenberg, Kepler, Newton, Darwin, etc.) seem to believe in the existence of a creator. It’s not my only reasoning behind my belief, but it can’t be said that those who believe in God are all but fools. Heck, even young Sheldon said it’s logical for there to be a God.

-1

Anonymous #1 4d

Again, I implore you to “drink”. Keep learning, keep researching, and keep digging deeper and deeper into the laws and rules of the universe and eventually, despite lack of belief and faith, you’ll find your Creator. You were made with a greater purpose. You are not a random incident among a plethora of chance encounters. You ARE beautifully and wonderfully made.

-1

Anonymous #4 3d

I don’t think it’s revolutionary that some scientists from overwhelmingly religious cultures (including guys you listed from the 1600s) were also religious. That’s just the default for the time. Also young Sheldon, really? That’s an example? I don’t plan to stop learning. But getting into biblical history and scholarship in particular lately has certainly not made me see this as something true rather than a cultural tradition. It’s made me understand Christianity better, but not believe.

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Anonymous #1 3d

Like if we were supposed to be made perfect in the image of an omnipotent creator, he could have made a lot of improvements. No blind spot in the eyes, no cancer, an appendix that doesn’t explode, no wisdom teeth, no ingrown hairs. These are things that make perfect sense in an evolutionary framework, but not from a divine creation.

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Anonymous #1 3d

Like wisdom teeth even had a specific evolutionary adaptation. In earlier hominid species, they were useful in processing raw meet and fibrous plants. But as we relied more heavily on fire, we began cooking our foods, and we didn’t need as strong jaws. As our jaws shrank, the wisdom teeth no longer fit, and thus they can cause serious issues in some people. They will probably eventually disappear, but it hasn’t happened yet.

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Anonymous #1 3d

Ok, obviously young Sheldon was a joke lol. I guess my sarcasm didn’t translate there. And as far as the religion of great scientists goes, I’m sure that with as wise and intelligent as they were, if their was sufficient evidence to disprove a belief in God, they would have said something about it. Not everyone was Christian based, but it’s interesting that the smartest people were.

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Anonymous #4 3d

For the human evolution thing, I honestly don’t know. I can’t explain the reasoning of God. Why he did this and not that. His reasons are beyond our understanding. Sure he could have made us completely superior, he could have given us wings or the ability to breathe underwater or really cool stuff like that, but for his reasons, he didn’t. There’s not really any way I know to explain the thought process of an all mighty God.

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Anonymous #4 3d

Either way, as interesting and fun as this convo has been, it seems that we are just at an impasse. You believe what you do based off the evidence, I believe something else based off of the evidence. It doesn’t look like either of us will change the others mind and it’s getting past my bedtime, so I say we digitally shake hands and agree to disagree 🫱

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Anonymous #4 3d

I can agree to end this cordially. Have a good night, and enjoy your weekend.

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Anonymous #1 3d

Thanks, you too. It really was an enjoyable and respectful conversation, which is sadly rare nowadays. And I have to say, you have a really cool job, marine bio was one of my favorite classes I took my freshman year. Happy Easter! 🐰

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Anonymous #4 3d

Happy Easter to you too

3