I think probably about half of all Muslims in the whole world know the quran by memory

sure, too bad only 15-20% of muslims actually speaks arabic

if by "the truth" you mean the bible, i invite you to check the periode when the Bible was written, and compare it to the age of the sumerians tablets. It might give you a clue to who plagerized who...just a thought

Although there are minor differences in the calculations of various biblical scholars (How to count first year of the kings, Starting point of 430 years sojourn,...) the flood usually gets dated about 2350 BC and Moses about 1500 BC who wrote Genesis. Unlike some "online gaming forum bible critics" who believe they have a deep bible understanding after reading some bible critical online blogs I certainly won't make a similar fool out of myself by faking a deeper knowledge about Summerian artifacts. However if there truly was a flood that wiped away all of mankind, except one family, then it's natural that there was some knowledge about this event in the generations after. This is in total compliant with the first books of the bible (Job, Moses 1-5) where there certainly was some true knowledge about god beyond the descendants of Abraham.

Sure Norman, great sarcasm. You say "generations after", but if the dating is correct, the bible flood probably happened after the sumerians, and Moses surely lived after the sumerians.
I don't have a deap understanding of the bible because there is no "deep understanding" of the bible. It is just child stories. Scientists have dissmisted the possibility that this great flood you are talking about ever happened. So i guess everything is compliant with the bible...exept science.
Believing in this great flood means that you believe in creationism, meaning that you denie the work scientists have done over centuries because of faith, meaning that you are an fool and a disgrace to humanity.

PANDA'S RULE

Ha norman, I used to be a devoted christian, so jokes on you.

Believing in this great flood means that you believe in creationism, meaning that you denie the work scientists have done over centuries because of faith, meaning that you are an fool and a disgrace to humanity.

As I said I won't make any dumb statements about fields of science on which I have no / very limited knowledge. All I know is that stuff never is that easy and clear as it gets presented to the broad public. When you take a closer look you often find out that there is very little true evidence and much speculation (Paleontologists reconstructing a whole dinosaur out of a couple of bones,...).

Since I have a degree as a computer scientist I can assure you that coming from this direction believing in evolution out of nothing is outrageous foolishness. I have spent probably a couple hundred hours trying to create a reasonable WarLight bot for the second AI challenge. With sheer brute force my bot Minimaxes through the picking stage making an unbelievable amount of calculations per second. Still my bot would never beat me in a game and my brain wasn't even explicitly designed to play WarLight. Nobody understands how the "greatest computer ever" works, I believe it's a complex self organized system far more powerful than the sum of it's parts. My own little attempts to create something "intelligent" let me stand in awe before the creator.

Because it fits so well between this evolution discussion and the other thread about sexual immorality I can't resist to quote the bible:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Edited 4/5/2015 14:38:03

When you take a closer look you often find out that there is very little true evidence and much speculation (Paleontologists reconstructing a whole dinosaur out of a couple of bones,...).

On the contrary, when you take a closer look, you find overwhelming evidence for the theory of evolution. Really, i can't do the work for you, but it is often more convenient for religious people to not take a closer look at things, because it might contradict their beliefs. The only reason people denies evolution is because of faith, blind beliefs in some supernatural stuff. There is no rational argument against evolution, there is no debate, you are either ignorant/delusional on the matter, or you are not. Read a book, go to a museum, anything.

By the way, since you talk about dinosaurs, how do you explain their bones? Do you go with the global scientists conspiracy about how the dinosaurs never existed and it is all a scam? or do you go by with Ken Ham view on the matter, wich is that dinosaurs and human coexisted, and of course men domesticated them?
Funny that the bible doesn't mentions dinosaur tho, one might think that a big fking animal like that might deserve a line or 2 in the holy book, but what do i know.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that science hadn't discovered the fossils of dinosaurs at the time....just a theory.

believing in evolution out of nothing is outrageous foolishness

What does that even mean? Evolution is a scientific fact, it is observable in a lab. You don't "believe" in evolution, you denie it or understand/accept it. Either way it is happening.



As for you bible quote, it is the usual bullshit about how non believers are going to hell, about how human are pathetic sinners unworthy of anything, how humans should be ashamed of themselves just for being humans, etc.
The only thing it got right is the "invisible qualities" of god, because god surely seems to be

jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak;
a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser;
a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Richard Dawkins, the god delusion

Edited 4/5/2015 14:47:59

Funny that the bible doesn't mentions dinosaur tho, one might think that a big fking animal like that might deserve a line or 2 in the holy book, but what do i know.

You are shooting bold statements out of your hip against a book that you don't know at all.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+40:15-24
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+41:1-34

hahaha really? the "Behemoth" and the "Leviathan" are in fact dinosaurs? that's hilarious, and it actually answers the question of whether you think human and dinosaurs coexisted, giving science the big middle finger about how dinosaurs were extinct millions years ago, but whatever...
Lets compare the bible description of Leviathan to description of dinosaurs:
Leviathan:
- Has glowing eyes “like rays of the dawn” (Job 41.18)
- "Breathes fire" (Job 41.19-21)
- Has multiple heads (Ps. 74.14 “[God] You crushed the heads [plural] of Leviathan [singular]”)
- Will be destroyed by God at the eschaton (Isaiah 27.1 “In that day the LORD…will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”)

So......according to the Bible, the Leviathan is still around! watch your back!

Leviathan and Behemoth, in the Bible, were clearly single mythical monsters created by god when he created the earth, stop making a fool of yourself

The theory of evolution is what it says on the tin: a theory.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theory


theory
noun the·o·ry \ˈthē-ə-rē, ˈthir-ē\

: an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events

: an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true

The fact of the matter is, the theory of evolution or global warming are unproven scientific myths dreamt up by men. We are God's creation, like the trees, the wildlife, the things that the creation created out of other creation is also God's creation such as laptops, houses, cars, and theories. The word of God is not creation.

The theory of evolution is what it says on the tin: a theory.

Thats the dumbest argument against evolution. Here is the definition of a scientifique theory, wich is different from other usage of the word "theory"

"A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation.As with most (if not all) forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories are inductive in nature and aim for predictive power and explanatory capability." wikipedia

A scientific theory is the highest form of scientific knowledge there is. It explains facts. Evolution is a fact, the theory of evolution explains how evolution, along with natural selection, is responsable for the incredible biodiversity we have on earth.
The theory of evolution as it is might not be complete, it probably will be adjusted as science advances, but the core of the theory of evolution is backed up by an incredible amount of evidence, and is now as reliable as the "Theory of gravity" is.
Or do you think that the theory of gravity is "just a theory"?

edit: by the way, you make incredible claims about the truth, and yet you provide absolutely zero evidences for those claims. Am i supposed to believe you like a sheep?

Edited 4/5/2015 16:47:52

So......according to the Bible, the Leviathan is still around! watch your back!

Leviathan and Behemoth, in the Bible, were clearly single mythical monsters created by god when he created the earth, stop making a fool of yourself

I don't know why you feel the need to insult me over "science". As I said I'm trained as a computer scientist not as a geologist or stuff. If I remember correctly then you have a degree in materials science in "Arts et Métiers ParisTech". I guess (but may be wrong) that nobody in this thread has any direct qualification regarding the theory of evolution. All I can say as a computer scientist is that artificial intelligence is a joke compared to real intelligence so believing in evolution means you believe that out of nothing something came into being far more complex than any computer scientist could ever build. You told me earlier to visit a museum to get enlightened about how evolution is totally proven. In fact a couple weeks ago I visited a prehistoric museum and yes, the boards there said stuff about hundred of millions of years... so what? I have never really looked the definition of "science" up in a dictionary but I guess a board claiming stuff in a museum or a guy in a youtube video making fun about creationism dosen't qualifiy as science, at least it has nothing to do with my experience of getting in touch with real science.

As I said I really know very little about evolution but if I remember correctly then my early school books said stuff that mankind originated from monkeys. Later they said different stuff and nowadays probably again completely different stuff. However I really don't care at all about the foolish thoughts of the blinded mainstream society. Not seeing the finger of god in the creation is just completely outrageous, especially since nowadays we know far more about the complexity of life than before.

Since you quoted some bible verses, for example:
Will be destroyed by God at the eschaton (Isaiah 27.1 “In that day the LORD…will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”)
The bible likes using references to creatures metaphorically. It's not hard to see that especially the dragon is a metaphor of Satan. However you claimed that there was no reference of dinosaurs in the bible but especially the first link I gave you fits very well into the description of a dinosaur. And with your polemic that those creatures are still around nowadays I also said earlier in this thread that the book of Job is very old and maybe he also has never met dinosaurs himself but knew about them from the beforetime.

Edited 4/5/2015 17:54:04

If I remember correctly then you have a degree in materials science in "Arts et Métiers ParisTech"

It is actually a mechanical engineering school, but that's beside the point. No i am not an expert in evolutionary biology, but it is a very interesting subject, and i have read about it, i have watch a lot of documentaries and videos of evolutionary biologist. The reason why i argue fiercely against creationnism is because i am actually educated on the matter. I try to educate myself before i speak about something, that is why i also own a quran and a bible. I haven't read all of it, but i have it so i can check from the source when i have some doubt about an argument.
The thing is, i really care about the truth and how things works. I think that the truth can only be obtained through science. It is almost the definition of science. The pursuit of the truth about our universe is science's whole purpose.
So when religious people uses the bible/quran as a science book (wich is a minority among religious people, the majority of christians for example donc believe that the bible is supposed to be taken as a history or science book), to me it is like shiting on the work scientists have done over centuries.

believing in evolution means you believe that out of nothing something came into being far more complex than any computer scientist could ever build

If this is a subject that interest you, you really should look into it, because you seem to have a misconception about what the theory of evolution really is.
Believing in the theory of evolution doesn't mean that out of nothing, something came into being (ironically, this is the definition of creationism :), and if god created life, then who created god? )
The theory of evolution scientifically explains in details how life, from its most elementary form, has evolved during the course of billions of years, into the incredibly complex and diversified froms of life that we have today.
The theory of evolution doesn't explain how life came to be.
There is some interesting theories that atempt to explain how life came to be, in fact we are now capable of creating amino acid (the basis of DNA), in a lab, out of a solution of basic molecules believed to be present at the early stage of the beginning of life on earth. So no the origin of life has nothing to do with the theory of evolution, and science hasn't cracked yet the answer to that question.

I guess a board claiming stuff in a museum or a guy in a youtube video making fun about creationism dosen't qualifiy as science

no it doesn't qualify as science, as claims without evidence are not relevent (like god and creation). But in a museum, they can show you some evidence supporting the theory of evolution.
The theory of evolution has been around for about 150 years. At the time, even among scientists, the theory was very controverial, because there wasn't enough evidence to support it. In fact, Darwin didn't have everything right, he was proven wrong on some aspects of his theory. But for 150 years of intense scrutiny and atempt to dispove the theory, it still stands. As science advances, new evidence supporting the theory of evolution are discovered everyday.

When you think about it, it is easy to disprove the theory of evolution, you just need ONE piece of scientific evidence that is in contradiction with the theory.

I remember correctly then my early school books said stuff that mankind originated from monkeys

Actually we don't descend from monkeys, we share a common ancestor with the great apes (we are a great ape)

However I really don't care at all about the foolish thoughts of the blinded mainstream society

That's the thing, for a long time, the theory of evolution wasn't supported by the majority of scientists, but now that we know more about the complexity of life, the overwhelming majority of scientist supports it. And i am talking about the scientific community, not mainstream society. Because in mainstream society in america for example, the theory of evolution is denied by the majority of people. Mainstream society is still very relious.

Not seeing the finger of god in the creation is just completely outrageous, especially since nowadays we know far more about the complexity of life than before.

I am very much amazed at the complexity of life, and understanding how this complexity developped makes me even more amazed by the beauty of life.
Frankly, the creationnist answer to the origin of life is just so simple (not to mention there is no evidence for it, and loads of evidences contradicting it) and i don't find it one bit as inspiring as the scientific truth.

edit: as for the "insults", you probably should reread the first message you adressed me, wich i believe set the tone of this conversation

Edited 4/5/2015 21:25:08

If it takes millions of years for a species to change how come it takes a frog months and animals of the like?

if you are refering to the tadpole turning into a frog, i am afraid you don't have a clue about what evolution is about. tadpole turning into frog has nothing to do with evolution, just like a fetus turning into a baby has nothing to do with evolution.
I won't explain here to you what the theory of evolution is, because there are far better qualified people that have already done it. I can refer you some book or videos if you are interested.

edit: However there are some organism that doesn't need millions of years to evolve. The best example is the flue virus. Every year, the flue virus evolve, but the evolution of the flue virus (and other viruses), is not due to natural selection, in fact it is an artificial selection that comes from our antibiotic and vaccine. This is why it is recommended to only take antibiotic when it is necessary, because the more antibiotic we take, more likely the virus is going to develop a resilience to antibiotic

Edited 4/5/2015 21:39:42

Note: Computer viruses also evolve, the good ones, anyway.

"No, the origin of Judaism and Christianity is Islam, but the purity of those religions were tarnished by men." hehehehehehehehehehehehhehehehehehehhehehehehhehehehehehehhehe

I did not know that imitation can be the source

i suppose he meant "islam" as in "submission to the will of god" is the origin of the monotheistic religions

Norman you gotta see this video, i think that since you are a computer science guy, it might interest you. You probably won't like the message but it doesn't make it less interesting (personnaly, it blew my mind).

This video is a universe - by DarkMatter2525
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDdiCYTK160