Beliefs of Forum Members...

[Storm™]

I believe in evolution but the small wrinkles to be ironed out are a bit more than wrinkles.

If we decend from apes etc - why are there still apes. Argued of course that we were an isolated group that developed ......

And of course we can't find evidence that we decent from apes because we cannot find skeletal evidence of the progression.

Oh I'm not denying that we did just being purist about it, it would remove any doubt. The alternative is of course less easy to prove ...

DNA haplogrouping puts me from the west coast of Africa. Some many thousands of years ago. But there were apes there too at the same time. Oh and if your going to have your Y chromosome tested I would recommend it. It's great fun. I have very close genetic matches and we all come from Liverpool/Sheffield. And the best one that does the most markers (Y111 for £230.00 ish. Sign up for a family surname project and you get a discount )is familytreedna - others can't or don't do as many markers for your dosh.

 

[Erichalfbee]

DNA haplogrouping puts me from the west coast of Africa.

OH had that done as part of some university research looking into the origins of fair Yorkshire men. He is a viking!

 

[Storm™]

Wtf I didn't post that twice ? - REMOVED

 

[Vergilius]

The goal posts have been shifted somewhat and Limbo and Purgatory have disappeared

No they haven't. The day after tomorrow (All Souls' Day) is when we pray for those who are in "Purgatory", in the hope that they are "let in". This is why Catholic funerals are all about praying for the dead, so that they can be forgiven of their imperfections.

So we all get there eventually, just at different speeds...



Ben P

PS Catholics do not believe in predestination; they do believe in original sin, but this is purely the difference between us and God...

 

[Storm™]

OH had that done as part of some university research looking into the origins of fair Yorkshire men. He is a viking!

That's a rare one innit. Or is that Finland. can't remember. I know it's only a very clever guess based on genetic samples removed from corpses thousands of years old. But the Y matching is what I am interested in. It's the only way to find out who my family is. Great Grandma was a bit of a gal. And we don't match the family DNA ( just by chance our family had been done to death by a family off shoot). So having that many markers done I can get with 6 generations to 95% accuracy. So we will see where that goes.

 

[Skyhook]

I believe in evolution but the small wrinkles to be ironed out are a bit more than wrinkles.

If we decend from apes etc - why are there still apes. Argued of course that we were an isolated group that developed ......

And of course we can't find evidence that we decent from apes because we cannot find skeletal evidence of the progression.

Oh I'm not denying that we did just being purist about it, it would remove any doubt. The alternative is of course less easy to prove ...

AAAAGH! I don't know why I bother

Anyway, to pretty much repeat myself, we DIDN'T descend from apes, we, monkeys and apes descended from a common ancestor- probably something shrew-like, after the single celled/multi celled/fish/amphibian stages. The fossil record is patchy- fossils will only form in quite particular conditions- but we do have a range of skull/skeletons progressing from something chimp-like to modern man in a number of progressive steps. I'm not sure where you 'cannot find skeletal evidence', try a museum or palaeontology book/course/documentary.

 

[Storm™]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - shrews - right - gotchya. And yep much skeletal evidence. Just not enough to guarantee at certain stages, that we are related to various ones that came before. Well last I heard anyway. Still I've been wrong before and no doubt I'll maintain that level of professionalism.

 

[hedgerow pete]

what no jedi knights??

 

[mexbigshow]

what no jedi knights??

haha just the 1 on 1 of the early posts i think pete

 

[oliver90owner]

we DIDN'T descend from apes,

Nah! Just think of them as our cousins. Unless present day apes are descendants of earlier apes of about four million years ago.

Unless you are a creationist we are all descendants of a bacteria, or fungus, or similar, from about 3 1/2 billion years ago.

RAB

 

[JamezF]

so, all you believers and atheists, it seems none of you have took the time to watch the video?
if you had, you might have changed your blinkered views.

I've watched it. As the owner of an embarrassing number of astronomical telescopes who will be outside when there's a clear night whatever the temperature until the small hours and hang the consequences for work the next day, I can absolutely relate to how awe-inspiring he finds the universe. To look up at, say, the Andromeda Galaxy (which is visible from here with the naked eye on a good night) and know that the light entering my eyes left the stars there before Homo Sapiens even existed is astounding. Messier 13, the Orion Nebula, and the Wild Duck Cluster are jaw-droppingly beautiful to see.

His polemic against religion is poorly rationalised though, and far from a compelling argument.

It doesn't change my views one jot.

James

 

[Hivemaker.]

There seems to be a bit of a blank area,well i think there is,the one where we go from living in trees and caves,to building wonderful high tech things like pyramids ect, and we would find it difficult to do some of these things in this day and age, and with all our modern equipment.

 

[victor meldrew]

Yes, Tonybloke, I did watch it. And I saw two themes: the splendour of the universe was one, a bitter, closed mind was the other.

Yes, I do mean 'closed mind'. A presenter who does what he claims his opponents do: high jack facts and turns them into polemic. And, like Dawkins et al, he puts up a particular limited, simplistic view of faith and proceeds to say it's limited and simplistic.

There are plenty people of faith who delight in the splendour of the universe and see in it evidence of structure, order, purpose, direction. And who realise that our understanding must grow and does as humanity understands more. But knowledge of facts does nothing to answer the question of purpose.

I'd like to think that people will try to work to understand more, rather than ridicule and diminish others. (And that includes myopic believers as well as myopic unbelievers.)

vm

 

[oliver90owner]

As usual different religion or beliefs only cause grief. They all started as a muchness and have fallen out through the ages and some have started a 'breakaway' movement. Don't care who, just look back, Abraham was a leading light of both Muslims and Christians. Sikhs are a new bunch - fell out with the Hindus over the caste system. Look at Anglicans - all catholics until tax returns got too heavy so they excommunicated themselves from Rome and formed a breakaway group and kept their taxes for themselves! So it goes on.

My view is that religion is simply a way of facing death - hoping, yes believing, there is something afterwards, beyond the grave, not just THE END.

It's like the one single aim of all forms of life is to reproduce - doesn't matter if it is a single cell Amoeba or a Human. It works or we wouldn't be here now. All those that failed, for whatever reason, are now extinct!

RAB

 

[mexbigshow]

As usual different religion or beliefs only cause grief. They all started as a muchness and have fallen out through the ages and some have started a 'breakaway' movement. Don't care who, just look back, Abraham was a leading light of both Muslims and Christians. Sikhs are a new bunch - fell out with the Hindus over the caste system. Look at Anglicans - all catholics until tax returns got too heavy so they excommunicated themselves from Rome and formed a breakaway group and kept their taxes for themselves! So it goes on.

My view is that religion is simply a way of facing death - hoping, yes believing, there is something afterwards, beyond the grave, not just THE END.

It's like the one single aim of all forms of life is to reproduce - doesn't matter if it is a single cell Amoeba or a Human. It works or we wouldn't be here now. All those that failed, for whatever reason, are now extinct!

RAB

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

Is this proof that Darwinism is rubbish?

A bloke starts his new job at the zoo and is given three tasks. First
Is to clear the exotic fish pool of weeds.
*
As he does this a huge fish jumps out and bites
Him. To show who is boss, he beats it to death with a
Spade.
*
Realizing his employer won't be best pleased he
Disposes of the fish by feeding it to the lions, as lions will eat
Anything.
*
Moving on to the second job of clearing out the Chimp
House, he is attacked by the chimps who pelt him with
Coconuts.
*
He swipes at two chimps with a spade killing them
Both. What can he do? Feed them to the lions, he says to
Himself, because lions eat anything..
*
He hurls the corpses into the lion enclosure.
*
He moves on to the last job which is
To collect honey from the South
American Bees.. As soon as he starts he is
Attacked by the bees. He grabs
The spade and smashes the bees
To a pulp. By now he knows what to do
And shovels them into the lions cage
Because lions eat anything.
*
Later that day a new lion arrives at
The zoo. He wanders up to another
Lion and says "What's the food like here?"
*
The lions say: "Absolutely brilliant,
*
Today we had Fish and Chimps with Mushy Bees
*
*
*

 

[Vergilius]

My view is that religion is simply a way of facing death - hoping, yes believing, there is something afterwards, beyond the grave, not just THE END.

So what do you believe happens when someone dies???

Ben P

 

[JamezF]

we DIDN'T descend from apes,

Nah! Just think of them as our cousins. Unless present day apes are descendants of earlier apes of about four million years ago.

Unless you are a creationist we are all descendants of a bacteria, or fungus, or similar, from about 3 1/2 billion years ago.

Right, you've made me go and find my copy of The Ancestor's Tale now

This is how Dawkins tells it:

The evolutionary line that led to humans diverged about six million years ago from the line that led to chimpanzees and the bonobo. The common ancestor is believed to be something not entirely chimpanzee, but very close to it. Seven million years ago that line had a common ancestor from which the gorilla is also evolved, and at fourteen million the orang utan's line diverged from ours. Gibbons diverged at 18 million; macaques, baboons and other monkeys around 25 million; various other splits in the evolutionary line lead to lemurs, howler monkeys and others until we get back to around 75 million years when we shared a common ancestor with rabbits and rodents.

It's all got exceptionally vague by the time you get back as our common ancestor with amoebas, but probably 1.2 billion years wouldn't be too far from the mark. After that we're into common ancestors we share with eukaryotes, bacteria and other microscopic stuff I've never even heard of.

As RAB says, strictly speaking it is wrong to think that we are evolved from any of the apes we see today. Since our evolutionary paths diverged, they've been doing their own evolving too, as the fact that we are closely related to both the chimpanzee and the bonobo, but that they are more closely related to each other, demonstrates. I don't think it would be too unreasonable to imagine however that we are evolved from an extinct creature that might be thought of as very ape-like were it to appear on a David Attenborough programme one evening. (Probably one of his early documentaries, I'd guess.)

James

 

[JamezF]

So what do you believe happens when someone dies???

The voice in my head goes quiet for a while.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

So what do you believe happens when someone dies???

Ben P

I can't comment on anybody else but I would hope my daughter sheds a tear or two and has a place in her heart for me in the years to come.
I hope my friends get hammered at my wake and remember the times we had together.
I hope somebody remembers to tell my bees.