You hypertexted counter-arguments to the supposed claim that the emergence of life from non-life is explained. I’ve already admitted that it’s not. But neither is the God hypothesis a scientific explanation. This is an imaginary debate that you’re having with Felix Da Imaginary
Kat.
As far as my claim that there is “massive evidence for Darwin’s theory of evolution”, it’s supported by a wealth of evidence, including the fossil record, biogeography, comparative anatomy, embryology, and molecular biology, all of which demonstrate the shared ancestry and gradual change of species over time.
The fossil record provides a chronological sequence of life forms, showing that organisms have changed over time and that extinct species are related to modern ones.The distribution of species across the globe reflects evolutionary history and geological changes, with similar species found in areas with similar environments and geographic connections. Similarities in the skeletal structures, organs, and other physical features of different species, even those that appear very different, suggest common ancestry.
The early developmental stages of different species often show striking similarities, indicating a shared evolutionary history.
DNA and protein sequences reveal universal similarities among all life forms, indicating a common ancestor, and differences in these sequences reflect evolutionary divergence. Scientists can directly observe evolution occurring in populations with short lifecycles, such as the development of pesticide resistance in insects. Finally, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which states that organisms with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, is supported by numerous observations of adaptation and speciation.
The Bible is not just a fable, but the inspired word of God.
2Peter 1.16 for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
What they believed was based upon the word of God, not a fable, it was a fact in their mind, in other words faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
When Reformation rediscovered great truths in the Bible, eventually Martin Luther was led to the thought that the Church had been held in captivity and he wrote in 1520 on the Babylonian captivity of the Chruch so according to Luther, the Pope was holding the church in captivity through the use of the sacramental system and Rome’s theology, in other words. the Church had developed a creed but the Creed was far removed from what the Bible actually taught and sooner or later the Creed and the Scriptures would come into conflict.
The first great truth that the Reformation unearthed out of the Scriptures was the justification by faith, also another dimension was namely the sanctification and not just justification, so there is a great emphasis on the Law of God and sanctification.
Even if it existed the many parts needed for life could not sit idle waiting for the others parts to evolve, because the existing ones would usually deteriorate very quickly.
Are you talking about the emergence of life from inanimate matter? Again, that hasn’t been explained by science, as far as I know. But to say that God did it is not a scientific explanation either.
The word ‘just’ is telling here. The Bible is admittedly inspired, but not a work of dictation.
Considering that we now know that much of the OT was composed during the Babylonian captivity and successfully designed to give Judah a national narrative, this isn’t without irony. Luther’s intention was reformation, but he caused the diversification of the church.
It was the misuse of power, in my view, that has always been Rome’s problem, not its sacraments.
Hello. God by defintion is beyond the limits of the finite human mind. As you agreed with me, Islam teaches that before creation, there was only God, and now, there is still only God. Within this imagined cosmos of his, is an imagined lab which will not be able to put him in a test tube and measure him and prove to God that he doesn’t exist. But that’s obvious.
My point is:
Science will only take us so far. Then mysticism, Then even mysticism breaks down and you’re either taken the rest of the way to Gnosis or you’re not.
Science will take us as far as disproving the current theory of evolution as utterly devoid of science. That is what l have demonstrated above. You have yet to acknowledge that the evolution by gene mutation has been debunked. This is a specific fact that can be specifically acknowledged without sweeping hand gestures about will we ever know God etc etc.
As an asides, and please don’t use this as an escape vehicle: Both religion and atheism are unfalsifiable a la Karl Popper. They therefore both have no place in secular education.
Still, the theory of evolution by gene mutation is a fantasy and has no basis in science and is positively trashed by scientific enquiry. It can and has been and shall be dismissed outright. I have even proposed alternative theories for evolution myself, l won’t divulge them here - but l bet you never thought l’d say that. It’s important for me because l strongly feel faith can never be proven in this life otherwise it’d lose its merit.
You don’t address my actual counterarguments but l’ll address more of your claims as l’m only here for the hard data and arguments anyway:
Says you. But:
The fossil records are shot through with fakery, e.g. the chart of horse evolution, which mixes up a rabbit-like creature, the Hyrax species (Cony) with horses, and thus shows horses starting tiny (Hyrax) and getting bigger and bigger (Equus). In fact even today in slavic languages they call Horse with the prefix “Konyy-”. But they are different species and the horse evolution records has different fake members appearing in radically different parts of the world.
It’s fanciful joining of dots. I think this is called the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy (target drawn around bullet holes, thus showing off the shooter’s accuracy).
Quote from National Geographic: "The popular notion that horses started off the size of small dogs and grew progressively bigger is now shown to be false. From the tooth-fossil evidence, MacFadden found that during an explosion in horse diversity some 20 million years ago, many species got smaller as well as larger."
I could easily create a flipbook which shows a rabbit morphing into a human.
I have seen Chinese propaganda videos showing black africans transforming into Laotians via animated graphics
Btw @felix_dakat if you at this point decide to deploy AI (not saying you are) flood evolutionary dogma l will deploy a robot that will feed off anti-evo gleanings and my robot will fight your robot and ignore your robot like your robot ignored me on the “Makkah is Petra, Facts be Damned, so Islam Needn’t Even Be Rebutted” thread. I’ve been too noble to do this so far.
No, that could be explained by God making them suited for their environments, plus any number of other factors. There’s no hard science in saying they look similar, therefore this fantastic mechanism called evolution that is the wonder of the universe is true despite no science verifying it and despite science in fact debunking evolution.
Also my cat looked like a rabbit. Did they have a common ancestor? Did one branch of the family tell the other they’d be the cat, the other will be its prey the rabbit? And did they decide to wait 1,000,000,000 for the first meal, knowing in their hearts that it’s worth it, to break free of religion?
In fact, l’ve often noticed that human races will reflect the fauna of their natural habitats, e.g. the aryans of the middle part of the world resembling lions with their high cheekbones, the Mongols self declaring as the descendants of the silver wolf and fallow deer - and looking every bit so, etc. etc. etc. Hey, at least l’m not trying get my musings into a science textbook. You would yours though.
This is again pareidolia, fancy cognition. It has absolutely nothing to do with Evolution, you just think we resemble different things as we develop in the womb.
It cannot be linked to evolution even if evolution were true. It has no route of entry into evolutionary theory.
I’ve studied these charts, very long ago. They attach numbers to allele frequencies and probability of relationships. This does nothing for science. This is fancy. This absolutely can prove that Sauron and Hobbits are related. This is the epitome of lies, damned lies and statistics. It is just statistics to support some variant of Texas Sharpshooter.
In fact it could be argued that there need to be some basic genetic similarities in order for one species to be edible to another. This is God’s mercy. There may have been far more deadly interspecies viruses than at present, if there were more genetic dissimilarity. There could be all manner of explanations.
At the most fundamental level, there’s still no mechanism for stock DNA to diverge via evolution. There’s the problem of hard science, L@@K:
Inhertiability. The changes don’t get inherited except if gametes (sex cells) bear the mutation
Inter-species mating: it doesn’t produce babies. You’d need this to happen.
Mutations don’t produce anything good anyway, just cancers and other defects, or neutral effect. I need wings, badly need to grow wings. Everyday though, my fear is cancer, no wings my friend.
DNA assembly, maintenance, action, replication, etc. are vast operations. And then you want to throw in mutations to that balance? And then points (1) & (2) as well?
Zero scientific observation of mutations occurring which confer new physical features that give improved adaptation to the environment
This tells me you’ve not really read my replies.
Natural Selection is good science, it can be and is, demonstrated in the laboratory.
Natural Selection is all too often BAIT AND SWITCH for evolution as we know it. It is used by adults to trick youngsters and the scientifically non-literate. Natural Selection PRODUCES NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. It merely changes the relative frequencies of alleles (forms of a gene) in a population. So, during the industrial revolution in England, when factory smoke blackened tree bark. the melanic form of a moth fared better than its white counterpart, as the former was effectively camouflaged from predators by its blackness. The white moth did not transform into the black moth. The gene pool merely narrowed. THAT IS NATURAL SELECTION.
Holler back, but please, integrate my counterarguments.
@felix_dakat How about this: Please my friend, show me some specific proof of evolution, reference an article. I will then go through the article with you and show how it at best fails to prove evolution. At worst, it may even disprove it, but let’s just wait and see the article(s).
EDIT: Actually, show me 5 articles. I will do my best to disprove each. If my arguments are flimsy then it will surely be to evolution’s credit. You therefore have much to gain by obliging me with 5 articles proving evolution. Besides, it’ll be me doing all the hard work (as per).
So, Islamic mysticism (especially Sufi thought) follows the Vedanta (especially Advaita Vedanta) position that:
God/Brahman is the only true reality.
The world is not separate from God/Brahman but somehow emerges from or is sustained by that ultimate reality.
The multiplicity we perceive (the created world, individual selves) is not ultimately real in the same way God/Brahman is.
So, your statement reflects a non-dual (or monistic) intuition: that all that exists is, in essence, divine. In Advaita Vedanta, this is expressed through:
“Brahman is real, the world is Maya (illusion), the self is not different from Brahman.”
I have read that in Sufi Islam, a similar sentiment comes through wahdat al-wujud — “the unity of being” — particularly in the teachings of Ibn Arabi and others, where “All existence is a manifestation of God, and nothing exists truly except God.”
There are, of course, differences too.
If I am rightly informed, Islamic theology (especially mainstream Sunni Islam) maintains a strict Creator/creation distinction, and even mystics are careful (sometimes perilously so) to avoid pantheism. In orthodox Islam:
God is utterly transcendent and not identical to the creation. So, this makes this perspective suddenly dualistic again, don’t you think?
Statements like “There is only God” are mystical utterances that may imply God’s immanence or presence in all things, but not that the world is God.
In Advaita Vedanta, especially in Shankara’s interpretation:
Brahman is both transcendent and immanent, and ultimately, there is no separation between self (Atman) and Brahman.
The world is seen as a manifestation of Brahman, not as a separate creation.
Islam does not follow any other religion, it is directly revealed by Allah through the Holy Spirit, Jibril (Gabriel, peace be upon him), whom you originally thought did not even exist in Islam.
If Islam is in agreement with another tradition, then good. I am already aware of Brahminism. It is non-sequitur that Islam copied Brahminism just because they agree on some matters.
For one thing:
Truth is objective
Islam teaches there were over 120,000 prophets (peace be upon them) sent to all peoples
If two witnesses agree with each other, it does not mean one has copied the testimony of the other - in fact, a court would consider the witnesses to bolster the matter rather than their joint testimony having the opposite effect of fictionalising the matter.
I don’t understand why you are telling me you choose some other position than Islam. However, for the divine to be inside the physical, is logically absurd and moreover, as with Xtianity, you are confronted with the problem of:
[ _________ ] [ ________ ]
I don’t like to join these two words together by spelling them out so l’ll leave blank spaces. I also won’t explain the logical fallacy in the divine being in the physical, it doesn’t interest me to tell you, in fact l don’t mind if you labour under the illusion that you have it right Peace.
Before the veil of time was drawn,
There was no sky, no sea, no dawn.
Only the One — no name, no form,
A silence deeper than the storm.
And now — though stars and shadows play,
Though suns arise and slip away —
Still, it is God who breathes and sings
In secret folds of lesser things.
The lover knows, through tear and sigh:
There is no “I” — there is no “why.”
The garden’s scent, the fire, the flame —
All whisper back the Hidden Name.
Vedantic Sage:
In stillness vast, no world had stirred,
No thought, no prayer, no spoken word.
Only Brahman — boundless, bright,
Not two, not many — One, pure Light.
From Self, the self did seem to spring,
A mirrored dance, a dreamer’s thing.
The world, a ripple on the sea
Of silent, shining Unity.
The sage who wakes from Maya’s sleep
Finds not a void, but fullness deep.
“I am That,” the truth at last —
The seer, the seen, the seeing passed.
Together:
Two rivers born of distant lands
Meet not in creeds, but in the hands
Of those who seek with inner sight
The root of love, the source of light.
Call it Allah, call it Brahman —
It is the same unspoken One.
Not grasped by mind, nor held by name,
But known when self and world are flame.
Right, these types of discourse along with musical auditions were how my religion spread throughout India. According to a well-known but untraceable hadith, the Prophet Muhammad perhaps anticipated the Sufism of the subcontinent when he declared that he felt a sweet breeze coming from India (meaning the entire region, not limited to today’s India).
There is nothing divine on earth though. This is all illusion within the divine. The divine is infinite and you cannot carve out a finite portion of it and still call it divine. The human soul budded off from the divine - true. I believe it is a holy mystery, and that is why we don’t idly curse people that annoy us - we are to make the effort to recover as many pieces of God’s light (= souls) as we can, instead of vindictively push them toward hell. Even though most humans will end up there.
The first intelligence would be the Holy Ghost. I believe Logos comes after that.
Within that scheme is a means for the soul to bud off from the Nur (Light) of Allah. The mechanism is given a very mystical (i.e. straightforward from God’s point of view, but ineffable to us) treatment in the Qur’an:
024.035 Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a shining star. (This lamp is) kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light. Allah guideth unto His light whom He will. And Allah speaketh to mankind in allegories, for Allah is Knower of all things.
024.036 (This lamp is found) in houses which Allah hath allowed to be exalted and that His name shall be remembered therein. Therein do offer praise to Him at morn and evening.
I believe “Light upon light” is a summary of how souls bud off from the Infinite circle of Light that is the Godhead / Face of Allah (Qur’an 28:88 - everything shall pass away but the Face of Allah) / the Nur (Light) of Allah / Ain Soph Aur (Jewish Kabbalah)
I do not believe that which has budded off from Allah is Allah. The budding off is via emanations / intelligences and so has passed into a virtual world (= this world).
Incidentally: this is why the Atheist does not commit suicide - because his soul. Nothing physical / materialist / atheist can explain the soul - it can only be explained by religious mysticism. It is pure existence, life.
Evolution is a theory, it has not been “proven”. I agree it makes a decent amount of sense, and it’s aesthetically nice to have everything wrapped up in a purely naturalistic explanation. But there are still problems. And believing 100% in evolution or claiming WE KNOW BRO WE KNOWWW is a sign of ideological attachment, ego-attachment to the concept which really means an emotional reaction to the counter-possibilities. I.e. in this case, to religious explanations.
A lot of people have deep emotional hatred or angst or whatever you want to call it, for religion. Their own personal experiences growing up, something they read one time, friends who made them think that way too, whatever the reason. The emotional reaction against anything seemingly religious is a cause for a lot of the irrational attachment to evolutionary theory. Sure, evolutionary theory is a pretty cool idea and it might even be correct. It might even be the case that we are entirely justified in claiming that it is most likely correct.
But being unable to admit that it might not be correct… that is where the inner pathology exposes itself.
Because honestly, and you already know this, you actually don’t know whether or not the Bible is the inspired word of God. You choose to believe that, and that is just fine. You even have your reasons backing up the belief, ok cool. But to claim you KNOW for 100% CERTAINTY, is the same kind of inner pathology that atheists express when they KNNOW for 100% CERTAINTY that evolution is the case.
Being unable to admit degrees of veracity in out thoughts and beliefs, is merely a sign of where we have yet to develop further in the right direction-- toward proper philosophical thinking, honesty and truth and away from ego-attachment, dishonesty and petty emotionalism.
When someone asks “prove it” regarding the Word of God, the Bible is God’s Word and its truth is established through Divine revelation, not human proof. Recognize that faith (the phrase “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” Hebrews 11.1) is a necessary component of understanding and accepting God’s Word and that faith is not based on proof but on trust and belief.
Humans are free to choose, including the freedom to believe or not believe in God and His teachings.
John 8.32. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free”.
He felt that breeze perhaps because he knew everything came from India.
That is convenient!
You previously said, “There is only God.” I think you have just contradicted yourself.
How do you ‘carve out a finite portion of the divine’? Panentheism doesn’t ‘carve out’ anything, the world is a manifestation of Brahman, not a separate creation.
It doesn’t matter, does it? You don’t have to ‘push’, they’ll end up there. I know there are Christians who think similarly, and yet they talk of ‘loving your neighbour’.
I don’t know what ‘budding off’ means in this context. The term “budding off” refers to a biological process where a new individual or structure forms as a bud on the parent organism and eventually separates to exist independently. That is not what we are talking about.
Sigh. You are bedazzled with your quest for false prophethood. You have to debunk me no matter what, because the revisionist Church of Bobshrugs. A debunker is gonna debunk. Listen, find a publisher, don’t waste time with me.
Let’s get this over and done with: Re: everything came from India: This is bigotry. I don’t do bigotry. And yes, l came from what was ancient India.
Re: Me contradicting myself: Before debunking the opposite view, think how they could be right. Of course that’s not how Revisionism works but it’s how intellectual honesty works.
Do you really think l’d make an error of argument that you would be able to unpick? To understand what l said, you’d need to read. Re-read. From the start. What l said.
Re: budding off - you think it’s a biological process and refuse to consider it any other way? Fine by me I am a bit busy now, l’m waiting to see if someone else will post but for future reference, please note that l will say a lot of strange things and silly things. Whether strange or silly, you can safely discount it alllllll. Off you go Bob, off you go, as an enlightened carrier bag, soaring above all mankind in the jet stream of mental flatulence, off you go my good man. You have won, you have won! Peace Take care and God be with you!
It’s not me who needs a long name to give himself a sense of grandeur, and who exudes elitist vibes of supposed superiority, baulking at the idea that his culture could have grown from something else.
No, no, your culture comes from divine revelation, so much more refined than anything humanity could produce. God forbid that it could consist of ideas ‘borrowed’ from other cultures.
Nice to read that people in India might have hit on the same ideas about a thousand years before Muhammed, but you’d still prefer to think Islam was first.
But you say I am the one who pretends to be enlightened. At least I know that I can learn from the past, and acknowledge that there is nothing new under the sun, just new words by people trying to sound special.
Peace.