You have made some ridiculous claims. I think if you intended to be honest with yourself and us, you would make some effort to back them up. Again you purposely misdefine evolution, which shows that you intend to lie. Think about that, Divan.

Why would you ever feel the need to lie to us in order to back up your beliefs?

If what you believe is the truth, explain why you would resort to lies and evasions.

I notice that you avoid responding to the points I raised. We can all see that. Even you can. Ask yourself how you would react to that if it happened to you. Imagine, an atheist made a series of claims, imagine that you managed to quickly cast doubt on them, and then that atheist tried to redefine terms and avoided admitting anything at all. Can you see it yet? Can you see your own hypocrisy?

You have shown that you lack understanding of evolution. If you learn nothing else from this experience I hope you have learned that whoever taught you about evolution was wrong. Go out and learn about it. If evolution is simple to disprove then your efforts will be rewarded. You will have acquired the ability to disprove evolution and you can come back and use that here and on any other atheist website.

I challenge you to do that. Really. I want you to try. You have no chance of success, but just trying will make you a better person.

Here’s my short answer to help you out…

“Coincidence, coincidence, coincidence, BANG, swim, swim, crawl, crawl, walk, walk………Human.”

Add BILLIONS more occurrences and nuances in between all of those, with extremely subtle differences (imagine a billion shades between light grey and dark grey), and stretch it out over hundreds of millions of years (a time span that is hardly even imaginable to the human mind).

If you know all the angles and tricks I’m going to use to deceive you, why are you still debating with me, you just might fall into my snare……

This is how I decomplecate a complecated evolution theory-

Coincidence, coincidence, coincidence, BANG, swim, swim, crawl, crawl, walk, walk………Human.

“I think therefore I am”

Evolution in a nutshell

I notice that you have no response to complaints that you are using circular reasoning. This is not something that you can just ignore. You are using circular reasoning. Now, admit it and learn from your mistakes. Its not like you can use it and then pretend it does not matter. Your reasoning is based on a clear and simple fallacy. If you refuse to admit something that is perfectly clear to all of us, what does that make you? Someone who steadfastly denies a thing that can be shown simply and clearly. What do you call those people? I call them willfully ignorant.

If you are still claiming that nothing is ever an ex-anything else, then I’m afraid I must question your sanity. That would be like claiming that nothing changes, ever. Ever. Think about that, please. Do you live in a static universe? But you don’t actually believe that, you just have to pretend to because you are unwilling to admit to an error. I think that you are really just unwilling to accept that people can believe, truly believe as deeply as you seem to, and then change. You deny this possibility, something that seems perfectly obvious and reasonable to others. Why would you deny this? Well, my guess is fear and shame. Your deepest beliefs have been challenged and in order to protect your self esteem you must claim that nobody who ever falls away from christianity could ever have been a true christian. You can look up this fallacy on the internet, don’t just take it from me. Put your words into google and hit enter. If you read the results that come up you will surely find yourself

PS. Don’t bother asking people to define evolution. That is a common tactic from people who come here pretending to be open minded. If you want a definition, use a dictionary. Asking people for their own is just a ploy to get people to create a rushed an inaccurate definition in order to let you have a few easy targets. Don’t be that way. If you truly want to discuss things you will not ever feel the urge to trick and manipulate people like that. You can search for the definition of evolution as easy as any of us can, so just go do it.

But I don’t want volumes, if I were a person on the street how would you explain evolution to me in a short, simple yet easy to grasp way?

“plaese explain to me what I’m missing”

Did you just try to understand evolution by a dictionary definition? There are volumes written to explain it in detail. You read a couple of sentences, and you ask what you are missing?

I sense you feeling deflated… Buck up, camper. The fact that you have stuck around has impressed me, at least.

Your communicating here has gotten much better, but the fact that we had such a hard time getting through your comments when you first showed up has probably been making people glaze over them now, and miss your questions.

Your question about the “mystical plane” sounds similar to points you’ve attempted to make before… that if there is this plane, that perhaps reason doesn’t work the same there as it does in the “natural realm”. I understand what you are saying, and I accept this as a possibility. But the problem with that remains that we have no reason to believe that this plane even exists, or that there is anything beyong our material world.

I believe you have said that this plane exists within ourselves? If this is true, then basically what you are saying (and I think it’s been said before) is that in order to acheive a “higher” level of understanding of reality, we need to push reason aside, in which case you presume God will be there.

I’m afraid that while the language you use to describe what you are proposing may be new, the actual argument is not. You will never be able to convince us that this “higher plane” exists unless you show us evidence.

Pushing reason aside opens the door for much more than just God and love.

Perhaps, you say, that I should only look for those two things. Then that, John, is wishful thinking, and no different than seeing what one wants to see.

“The bible is like this…Each man within himself has moses & the israelites, the sadducee’s and the pharisee’s, the patriarchs and the kingdom of heaven and hell. Thus, the events described in the bible, and looked upon by the pious as being things of a past history are actually descriptions of eternal processes taking place in the constitution of man.”

Are you proposing that every person and story in the Bible are merely metaphors for how our minds deal with our reality? I’m open to that. It still doesn’t prove God exists.

I like the way you post the things you post :)

@ Aor

I had to read your post 3 times and I’m still not sure I understand, anyway.

You get Ex’s, x-wives, x-patriots and X MEN….

Lets not get technical, I believe it comes down to 1’s own interpretation, and I will give you that round, if you want to be an “EX” be an “EX”.

Evolution:

The process of developing.
Gradual development.
Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.
The historical development of a related group of organisms; phylogeny.

So my great, great, great…….. Grandfather could have been a FISH?

I’m just joking Aor, plaese explain to me what I’m missing.

But then again…maybe its more like…

Upon the plane of the mystical, reason no longer possesses that strength and power, which it has within philosophy, for then it is upon a trans-rational plane. A man, caught up into the mystical plane, into a mystic contemplation, then “becomes bereft of the reliance upon reason”, he surmounts reason.

Does reason become altered or otherwise enlightened by revelation in what has been received upon the mystical plane?

I asked this yesterday and not one of the “highly learned” had any insightful relply’s…sans Dan L who at least attempted to.

And then…regarding your comment that the bible is nothing more than “poorly translated Aramaic sheppards tales” consider the possibility (at least consider) that in truth, the bible may be more accurately described below:

The bible is like this…Each man within himself has moses & the israelites, the sadducee’s and the pharisee’s, the patriarchs and the kingdom of heaven and hell. Thus, the events described in the bible, and looked upon by the pious as being things of a past history are actually descriptions of eternal processes taking place in the constitution of man.

Anyone?…..

JC

“But let me tell you, Jesus is as real as you and me, believe me, don’t believe me, mock me or abuse me, tell me whatever, but I know He is real and I pray that you will too.”

Presumably you have evidence and will be showing it to us? Because then you won’t need to pray. We’ll mostly convert immediately, assuming you produce proof of the existence of your particular deity.

I tend to believe Jesus was real. I even believe he had some radical good ideas (and a few maybe not-so-good). But so what? I feel the same about Ghandi, and we have him on film.

To revisit Lewis’ “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” query. I say that everyone who has ever claimed to be the Son of God has been a liar or lunatic, often both–and in the modern era we have several of them on film, too. But since we don’t actually know if Jesus made this claim, he’s spared that particular label.

But let’s look at this claim:

To answer your question, everyone sometimes feels down and doesn’t know what to think or whereto from here, but I believe if you really know Jesus the only reason you would turn your back on Him is because you yourself want to be incharge, and haven’t accepted His saving grace.

In other words, “If you knew Jesus, like I know Jesus, Oh! Oh! Oh whatta guy!”

Actually, I’d love to return to that warm fuzzy feeling that God was in his heaven and all’s right with the world, the universe is unfolding as it should. I’d love to resign myself to the idea that all I have to do to be happy is live according to my personal interpretation of a 2,000-year-old book of poorly-translated Aramaic shepherds’ tales.

But anyone with an awareness higher than that of a concussed duckling would have to be delusional to believe that without evidence. And no evidence exists.

Anyone who was a Mormon and now is not, is called an ex-mormon. Someone who was a racecar driver and now is not is an ex-racecar driver. You know it, I know it, we all know it, and by pretending to not know it you make yourself appear both foolish and deceptive. You do not have the right to declare that there are no ex-anythings. If you want to claim that right then you had best justify it. Use reasoning, no appeals to magical powers. Remember, when you prove it you will also be proving that there are no ex-atheists. Are you starting to see the flaws in your position?

Read about logic, and about fallacies. You have fallen into several fallacies already. If your beliefs stand to reason, then you will be able to determine that quietly in your own home simply be reading about what reason is.

As for your question about the fish, it makes no sense. It also indicates a poor understanding of evolution. Ask yourself questions: why is your understanding of evolution poor? If it was truly a flawed theory, wouldn’t you be able to have a strong and thorough understanding of evolution and still be able to show flaws in it? Why is it that those who disbelieve evolution tend to know so little about it? Shouldn’t you be willing to learn about it, if it is easy to disprove?

But Him in you…as you…Him living His (zoe) life through you…now that’s the “high life”.

Well said my man ;)

Yes there isn’t ex anythings, but if you don’t believe, practice or live the way Jesus CHRIST told you to, can you still call yourself a CHRISTian? or even an ex-Christian rather than a non-believer?

My belief in Jesus is of such a nature, I believe in Him, I believe that I would have been dead if it wasn’t for His saving love, I believe I only really started living when I started living for Him. Yet, sometimes I stumble, and sometimes I think “God are you really there for me?” And every single time He lifts up my head and says “My child I will never leave you or forsake you.”

To answer your question, everyone sometimes feels down and doesn’t know what to think or whereto from here, but I believe if you really know Jesus the only reason you would turn your back on Him is because you yourself want to be incharge, and haven’t accepted His saving grace.

I hope I answered your question.

“I’m sorry to have to play hardball so early in a conversation, but I’ve seen the methods you are using before. ”

I didn’t even know I was using a method, or that what I wrote had been written before.
I wrote what I wrote from the heart.

Aor answer this for me:

If a fish decides he wants to evolve, he leaves the water, he grows legs and starts breathing air, is he an ex-fish?

I want you to give me an answer on this: have I proved to you that you are wrong on this issue? Remember, if your reasoning is sound, there are no ex-anythings. Think it through, take your time, and when you come to an answer give us it as a yes or no.

I’m sorry to have to play hardball so early in a conversation, but I’ve seen the methods you are using before. Perhaps someone taught you something that is false. If you come to this conversation openly and honestly we can quickly teach you just how falsely you were taught, and that may be useful to you in the future.