Are you referring to the "kinds vs. Species" debate? Or the clean animals by sevens and unclean by two, male and female, thing?

"a belief system based on getting into Heaven is selfish on our part and cruel on the part of God"

not when EVERYONE is invited. one only has to believe. utterly just on the part of the Father ...

See I can jive with that but the way Out Back worded it was that people believe because they're afraid not to. Like I'm a believer so I can get into Heaven...That's the selfish part. See if it were me writing the rules as God, I would've made no mention of Heaven or Hell and observed a man's character when he doesn't know there's a reward at the end. I think that would be a more altruistic way of testing a person's Faith. Hopefully I explained that clearly.

from your posts that I have read, I don't believe that you are a critical thinker that is doing so with integrity . Why do you not hold the theory of evolution to the same critical standard that you do the belief of a Creator? In fact, I have come to the conclusion, because of the way that you pounce on every post about God, that deep down you believe in a Creator but you choose to rebel against Him. People that believe someone else's world view is wrong don't tend to attack that world view at every opportunity the way that you do, they just laugh and move on.

I tell you what is crazier than that, I believe in a Man that was killed, laid in a tomb for 3 days and then came back to life.

I don't jump down everyone's post about God. I didn't say a word about Easter and all the paganism muddled in with it, etc when all those threads were up. And I don't completely believe God doesn't exist. I don't know. Evolution has its holes. Its a work in progress, and it is very difficult to piece together the entirety of existence from physics, chemistry, biology, fossil record, etc. Scientists make mistakes constantly, and fame/money can taint it like anything else. I'm not better than anyone, and I don't think debating is a bad thing. If you legit think I'm wrong, jump in and defend your stance. I'll listen and prolly learn something. Otherwise I'm not gonna just be quiet because it makes someone uncomfortable.

There's no evidence for macro evolution. They can't explain how cells went from anaerobic to aerobic, the "missing link" is made up and there's no archaeological proof to even create a theory about it, there's nothing to support that fish grew legs and started breathing air instead of water, and the theory that at some point plants started growing from the same cell that animals grew from is just crazy.

You are right. Evolutionary theory has its missing pieces, although I think you're making some broad assertions that there is zero evidence outside of micro-evolution within a single species. Here's a link that I think is a good place to start. It's a lot of reading. I haven't it made all the way through it. Any researcher worth his/her salt will admit there is no absolute truth in the scientific community. We can only continue to build off of what we know.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

I think it's difficult for us to conceptualize the time-scale of the Earth being over 4 billion years old. I mean that is an extremely long time for gradualism to take place, not to mention punctuated equilibrium interjecting into the process via natural disasters like earthquakes etc. That's one thing to consider. 4,000,000,000 years vs. 80 year human life time.

It is not thought that humans came from apes but rather we share a common ancestor way back down the phyletic tree. Do we have every single fossil of every single organism and an explanation for every single piece of the puzzle? No. Like I said, trying to piece the entirety of all existence given a changing planet influencing variation over billions of years is extremely daunting. I think that's where people get lost in the scale of it because they're expecting to see a half elephant-whale or something. It's really not something you can boil down to a single sentence given the sheer mass of varying influential factors involved over time.

But, people want things to be simple to understand. They want to have it all figured out because when they realize they don't it's terrifying, humbling, and awe-inspiring all at the same time.

Austan,

Repost what you highlighted that no one has answered yet. I don't see it.

I was just thinking this as I was reading this thread and you beat me to it

AUstan23
Just as you've thought you will not be going to heaven when you die.

It is important for people on this board to realize that people have different opinions. In fact, I find myself in a similar boat as Stan. If Stan ruffles your feathers, you would have your panties in a wod with most other non-believers/agnostics etc etc. I have never seen him step out of line or take a personal jab at anyone for their beliefs. I would expect a decent person to return the favor.

Not that this matters, but I enjoy reading AUstan23's posts.

Thinking freely is a beautiful thing.

^^^^This^^^^

If the earth is flat then who controls the light switch for the sun? Why does the sun rise in the east and set in the west. Why is it daylight in China and dark here? How did anyone fly or sail around the earth?

i WAS austan earlier in my life, so i doubly appreciate his posts ...

The earth is flat.....cause Guam can tip over.

let me say this as nicely and tenderly as I can. .....this is a lie.....THIS IS A DAMNED LIE.......THIS IS A DAMNED LIE FROM THE PIT OF HELL. Every hypothesis and theory is based upon some absolute truths. We know what time the sun will rise tomorrow, not because of our great knowledge or our great skills in forecasting, but because of absolute truths. We can determine when the sun will set next week, next year and so forth, we know when the moon will be full because there are absolute truths. If you jump from your tree stand you know what will happen because of an absolute truth. And it is because of these things amongst many examples that led Paul to pen his words to the Romans which said you are without excuse for the invisible hand of God is clearly seen in the visible things .

A critical thinker, which you claim to be, could never ever embrace evolution. There is not a single example, that I am aware of, where you see organization come from disorganization, a critical thinker can never get past this single point alone. But by faith, you are able to. By faith you are able to embrace the evolutionary theory. By faith you are able to accept the latest scientific thought. How are you able to do so? By making a wrong turn. The wrong turn you took is believing that truth is relative and not absolute.