Evolution vs Religion

Well, before they said "Je ne sais pas" they said "Jo ne sai pas"(Old French) and before that, they said "Eo ne sedyo"(Vulgar Latin) and before that, "Ego ne savio"(Latin) and before that, "Eg nye gneh-ehimi"(Proto-Indo-European).

Like everything else, language was gradual.

 

Wow....WOW. I just...my throat...it close up due to the fail in that. As Mirai said, it was a gradual process as most languages take their roots from Latin. You may be acquainted with visual depictions of events and such as well. Actually, no you probably aren't. :\ Anyway, French, English, Cantonese, etc. etc. didn't just APPEAR. I have no idea where the hell you came up with that. *pinches bridge of nose*

If a supposed god did establish language(s) it's safe to assume if they held any logic it would be identical throughout the world. There are different tounges due to the fact that organized forms of communication are a man made thing >_>

 

I'm waiting for them to bring up Babel now, and how God punished us then in the Old Testament for thinking we could build a building that was high enough to touch Heaven. According to the Bible, one day the residents of Babel woke up and none of them could understand each other when they spoke. So there's why there's different languages around the world.

However, since the first written languages seem to be recorded in the cuneiform writings of Mesopotamia, the hieroglyphs of Egypt, and the carefully drawn symbols on ox shoulder blades in China, the Bible's timing seems just a tad unrealistic.

Repliku is the anthropologist/archaeologist though so I'm waiting to be corrected on the details. :) Still, I don't think many people are going to argue that the story of the tongues of Babel is literally true. I know I'm not.

 

I have found that most of the Old Testament writings are mostly explanations for how we do things. Just like the Mythology of any other culture. Babel was to explain why human beings speak different tongues same as the Norse thought of thunder as the gods doing battle in the skies and that Thor's Hammer was the reason for the lightening.

But I digress...

As was said, language as with evolution of humans was a gradual change. Language is still evolving, granted in a way not everyone enjoys, but it is still evolving. With todays tech-savvy crowd,'Google' is now a verb as well as gibberish baby talk and a century ago we wouldn't even dream of hearing such words as Ipod, MP3 player, laptop, computer etc.

As with language, the gradual change of humans from apes took rather a long time. Introduction of protein into our ancestors diet, the movement of our internal organs and skeletal structure to support walking upright from walking hunched over.

 

OMG.

I seriously want to punch you in the face for that.

Things didn't just appear, they took MANY years to accomplish. Where the hell do you keep thinking that we said that things just appear. YOU say that things appear which is totaly bull****. Evolution, languages, writing, technology, all that gradually became what it is now.

For the last time, post something to support your ridiculous claims!

 

God made languages? If you believe in God, then perhaps you can say he 'helped' with language development, but humans are definitely the creators. The concept of God or even other basic religions was not before language and the need to communicate. The Babel story is amusing, but about as hokey as the rib of Adam making a woman who then makes us all sinners because she's narty and eats a stupid apple on a tree that shouldn't be there if God wanted us stupid.

Let's evaluate language and what exactly it is, if you care to hear (or read since this is what we are doing.)

First, we were set up with the ability, with developed frontal lobes in the brain that no other creature has. As has been pointed out previously, humans do not have the largest brains on the earth, but we do have the largest frontal lobe mass to other brain parts than any other being on the planet. The frontal lobes are thought centers and cognitive. Animals have had basic means of communication such as growling, tail fluffing, howls to draw others, yips and trembling, coloration to hide and parading about, mating calls, hoof stomps, snorting, nuzzling one another for affection etc. Let's face it; humans have some of these sorts of instinctive reactions and displays too. If anything can show we derive from animals and are connected, it should be at least this.

However, humans developed differently because the world as we perceive it through these enhanced frontal lobes is different and unique. Not only can we view and react to scenes instinctively, we can cognate things through and ponder ways to do things. Ironically, we are also the only animals that will really willingly ignore instinct utterly because we have the brains as we do, and defying these instincts has led humans up a path that either ended tragically or it suited our needs to advance. One of the things we do that is utterly unique is that we 'brood' or are stricken with grief over occurrences that did NOT happen. Animals aren't going to worry about such things. They focus on the here and now. Yet humans can become totally absorbed and even suicidal over things that did not go their way, or that they feel they may never achieve because something is preventing it. We also do more than just the common 'play' that animals do to develop. We 'imagine'. Some people imagine so much that you wonder if they can differentiate between reality and their fictional world anymore. There are pathological liars out there who really don't mean to make up things but they just do. There are people who bury themselves in lies to cover up painful truths. There are those that create wondrous stories and invent explanations as to why something is as it is, or make worlds up that are fantastical. Animals don't do this. Our imaginations take us places and the imagination has made things become a reality. Just about any invention was made because someone said 'well, what if we could do that?' and then they looked about, surveyed the area and decided '..hey, we can with these components'. So there it was made possible. Imagination and cognitive rational thinking, and even duress and emotional intuitiveness has led humanity down paths animals do not go.

So where does language fall into this? Language is all of these things that I explained above, put into expression and detail so that others can comprehend it. Even Neanderthals wrote on walls and it is strongly believed they even had their own spiritualities. Cro-Magnon, which would be our last ancestor in evolution, also was spiritual and drawing, and both of these two species were doing ritualistic burials. Keep in mind that these groups were around past 40k years ago. As groups wandered, invented tools and had to protect from harsh environments because our brains were advancing and yet our bodies were in a way taking steps backwards (I.e. we had no fur to protect from cold, our bodies are more gracile and more prone to be harmed, infants are pretty well more defenseless than most others in the animal kingdom), the brain had to think more to meet the demands of survival. We had the ability and the need or else simply we would not have endured.

Language is more than just communication. It is a way of conveying thoughts and advancing. Without language, spoken, written, signed etc, we would not have been able to develop further and join together in causes to create civilizations. We would not have had the motivation to do art, which is also a grand form of expression and could outright be considered its own language of the inner psyche. Our brains and evolution of our bodies, necessity to survive, and seeing a world of development potential are the causes for language. Because humans spread out globally as nomadic beings, when the ideas of civilization and advancement hit, trading with one another and grouping together, language became critical as a means of logging events, keeping people in duties they needed to fulfill to keep things flowing, warning people of dangers, sharing inventions and concepts, dealing with the dead in order to maintain an area and it not go putrid and other such things as asking the question 'why are we here?' Because humans were not all grouped together and environments were different or sometimes even sealed from one another, as well as what people would have to do to endure would be unique, of course there were several languages. Ethnicities native to their locations do not all think the same, and therefore language was not going to develop the same. If you doubt this, think on the fact that such acts as cannibalism in one part of the world is fine while in others it is disgusting.

So the simple answer as to why languages of all sorts exist is because we have evolved brains that let us do so and we chose to focus on it as our bodies over several thousands of years altered to a state in which we would really need to think to beat the elements, overcome animosities, protect ourselves and function. I don't see how 'God' had much to do with it unless a person believes in "Grand Design" but it is clear it did not happen out of the blue, either way, and the Babel theory is well, a great imagination of its own.

On another note to show this, I am a writer and have pretty much invented my own language to go with the books. I speak quite a few languages fluently. Other writers have invented languages merely for story telling, intuitiveness and to give people a view of another world of thought. A good example of this is Tolkien. When making the language that I did, and I also see it in Tolkien's work as well as some other novelists, it became imperative to also work on how people thought 'differently' from the way people on earth regularly do. It's a whole train of thought and development to design a language but it is possible to this day as in conveying messages and thoughts. Of course, these writers and I had some base ground to work with as we can already communicate in other languages, but so did people way back when. Language that we use now constantly evolves and changes and that isn't going to stop. Groups diversify even when speaking the same base languages. In English alone there are several subgroups and slang terms that are localized to each region.

 

Wow. It's kind of funny what a response the original statement "God created language" generated, because the arguments I've heard are far more thoughtful and factual than anything that person said. I am happy to read elaborations and explanations like yours, Repliku, but I think Happyman is right:

Some people on this forum are simply not capable of appreciating yours and other peoples' sincere efforts to analyze this issue. Seriously, I don't mind breaking down an argument and explaining myself to someone who disagrees but is interested in why I think the way I do. But after a while, statements like:

get really frustrating after a person has gone to great lengths to put the information in front of the person like a little kid's storybook for goodness' sake. Especially when a person takes the time to actually use the spell check feature in the reply box so that those reading the post don't have to wonder if our school systems are really letting the kids get away with 'somtimes', 'miricl', 'somthings' and 'myshelf'. I hate to pick on people's simple spelling errors but wow! I find it insulting someone cannot take two seconds to read over their post and check out what all those red lines underneath their words really mean!

And you thought I scared you with "Woodstock" lyrics? I haven't even begun terrorizing the forum. :guns: The lyrics make no sense to JedininjaAZ because this person does not even know his own Bible enough to realize 'we've got to get back to the garden' refers to all of us getting back into a more innocent frame of mind. Like in the Garden of Eden. Before we started assigning blame and killing one another off; before we needed to pray to God to 'forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us'.

Yeah, it is a song that tells us to hold hands and sing corny songs like kumbaya, I guess. :kiss: Hey, it's a heck of a lot better than dropping napalm on your neighbor and watching them scream and burn to death in agony. Make love, not war, and all that jazz.

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some bible-thumpers just can't envision a world where we're all human and made from the exact same stuff, no matter whether we believe that stuff came from the hearts of stars or the hand of God, and each of us deserves the respect and dignity that implies. It's not like Christians haven't ignored the Golden Rule before: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Or maybe I'm wrong and they're not ignoring it, they're all just masochists who like having disrespect shoved in their face like fecal matter, and assume everyone else is too.[/end rant]

Back on topic: I'm really curious what people think about the geophysicist who is employed by our government to construct models of the Earth's interior processes. Apparently he does have scientific proof supporting Creationism. He's a devout Christian whose program churns out definitive proof that the Earth and all its fossils are less than five thousand years old because there was a massive explosion from inside the Earth's core! Should I assume four years of education were completely wasted because the guy has fit Jesus into his model and is assuring me that the theory of Evolution cannot possibly be true? I don't know, guys. I'm reaaaalllly lacking the faith necessary for this.

 

Okay, from people saying things didn't just appear, you're contradicting yourselves...You're saying we just appeared out of nowhere, the humans or whatever you say we "were" back then, just happened....
What do you mean?
God made us in a single breath of dirt.

That's what I WAS getting at.

 

No man, just no.
We didn't just appear and go "Oh look, a computer!"
It's evolution, from the simplest of creatures to what we are now.
And no one said we just appeared out of nowhere.
Frankly, it's you who's saying that.

Have you even heard evolution? On how humanity came to be and the such?
Or are you thinking that god created the universe too, from a single breath of dirt.

 

So we're contradicting ourselves now? There's a line between saying 'Humanity evolved' and saying 'God mad us in a single breath of dirt.'

I like how you religious nuts can accept the blinders placed on you by the very thing you place your faith in. How you become ignorant of any scientific advances into the uncovering of our origins because it either offends you or or it doesn't mesh with the Bible.

If we did everything by the Bible we'd still be in the Dark Ages. We'd still think that Mental Illness was caused by demon possession {I'm not saying such things don't happen but that's another discussion. =D }

P.S.
And please, don't just read select posts in the future? Read the entire thread?

 

I believe you are the only one here saying that 'poof, there we have language' by saying God made it. Did you even read what people posted? I'm starting to think either you are playing around or you just have blinders on that make it so you read evidence.

But, you aren't the first. Just about every religion has some way that some deity created languages. Christians just took up on the former ideas and said God did it because that's the way it goes, and back then they were deciding to destroy philosophers and libraries in their past times to ensure no one had other versions.

Christians say at Babel languages were created because God threw a fit and was mad at humans for building the Tower of Babel which was meant to be a doorway to God.

The passage for those who are interested...

... so he made them not able to comprehend each other and sent them out on their ways to locations around the globe and thus all of the languages were spawned from this. Before that apparently everyone understood each other just fine.

Egyptian language written has been discovered to existed to 3300 to 3200 BC onwards. Some evidence exists that the hieroglyphs may have even been dated to 3400 BC. The creator god in Egyptian religion was Ra, the Sun God, who was also called Atum. The people of Egypt may or may not have 'existed' during his time as they view but he is the one who gave them language and his symbol is found in the earliest writings.

In Greek Mythology, Orpheus was the giver of writing, and also was an avid poet and speaker, and gave medicine to the humans. Also, there were supposedly schools pertaining to this person that were considered to delve into studies of metaphysical and esoteric knowledges of the self and that around people.

Odin or Wotan in Norse Mythologies was the giver of language and also poetry to the people. He was also a god of war and wisdom.

Dates of earliest written languages:

Egyptian - 3300 to 3200 BC possibly for written language, and spoken far earlier.
Mesopotamia - 3100 BC possibly - Semetic languages.
Harappan - newly discovered writing as of possibly 3500 years ago.
* Hebrew as a distinct language - 1000 BC around. (derived from Semetic)
* Aramaic - dated also to around 1000 BC around (derived from Semetic)

* These languages are what originally the Old Testament was written in. Seems to me that language existed a lot longer than Christians want to say. The word Babel means to confound or confuse. It was also used as the word for Babylon, where it is known that the Jews collected and finished the Old Testament.

There is also a Sumerian Myth (note Sumerian belief was something going on in Babylon at the time) similar to the Tower of Babel tale. The Sumerians believed in a polytheistic religion (meaning they believed in many deities) that had anthropomorphic gods and goddesses (implying part animal/human in appearance) which are likened to both Greek and Egyptian sorts of gods. The Sumerians were well known to make temples that were well elevated higher than surrounding buildings, which one would be called a Ziggurat. Temples sometimes were called such things as E'kur (High House) or E'anna (House of Heaven). Ziggurats were elevated stair-towers that were somewhat shaped like pyramids and each level denoted a star that was known at the time, or to the sun, moon or a deity. The ziggurats were considered to be a place which was closer to the gods, a gateway and shrine to them. Sometimes they would say a deity such as An (Sumer) or Marduk (Babylon) would stand atop of them.

Evidence has shown that perhaps the Tower of Babel is actually a ziggurat built for Marduk which was abandoned due to constructing it in a bad place where earthquakes happen. The people had to abandon this ziggurat for the fact it was unstable. Seems to me that the early people who wrote the Old Testament used this for their own purposes.

 

Sir Fred Hoyle a mathematician and astronomer calculated that the probability of one simple enzyme forming by chance is 10 to the power of 20 (one with twenty zeros behind it), to 1. Hence for one cell to form, about 2000 enzymes are needed, which makes the probability of the first self replicating cell forming by random movement of atoms as 10 to the power of 40000 to 1. One bitter critic of Hoyle begrudgingly says that that this figure is 'probably not overly exaggerated'.

It has been said that this is as likely as a cyclone going through a junkyard and producing a fully functional jumbo jet.

People do say that if you allow enough time, anything can happen. However, at best we have about 4.6 billion years to work with. If Sir Fred Hoyle's calculated probability was for a cell to form in say the next second then the probability of a cell forming in 4.6 billion years is still about 10 to the power of 39982 to 1. If it was for a microsecond, the probability would be 10 to the power of 39976 to 1. If it was for a picosecond, the probability would be 10 to the power of 39970 to 1.

There are approximately 10 to the power of 80 atoms in this universe.

It is also claimed that life came from another planet. Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick recognised the problem of the extremely low probability that life could come from non-life on earth. He concluded that the earth was not old enough, and postulated that life may have come from another planet. Hence in order for us then to have a 1000 to 1 chance of life forming by itself, (and lets assume that an asteroid will definitely take the life to earth) there would need to be roughly 10 to the power of 38970 planets out there (fairly close to us) capable of supporting life.

But are Fred Hoyles calculation's correct? It would be dangerous just to assume that his calculations were. A more recent claim details that biogenesis (the formation of life from non-life) is not reliant on the random movement of atoms, but is a natural process, just as hydrogen and oxygen atoms naturally attract to form water. But, if this is the case, what are the chances of the 'Big Bang' producing the atoms that would behave in such a fashion that they would naturally form amino acids and proteins, which in turn would naturally come together to form life?

First of all the name is JedininjaZC not AZ.
And I read my Bible daily thank you.
Also proof of God is all around you, that is all i need.
My life wouldn't change if they pulled noahs ark in front of me, you know why?
Because I knew it already exsists.
Jesus once said "blessed are those who believe and do not see, than those who see and do believe".

 

Can I just say everyone here needs to respect other peoples opinons or beliefs, it is not you place to say other wise, do not make this thread into a quabble between members.

 

Ironically, you use Hoyle as a basis for argument and it has been shown that there was life that existed in Mars. It is speculated that this early life may have found its way to earth, and thus started the process. Hoyle was also was not a fan of the Big Bang Theory, but in slow steady progression of the universe because he calculated that the universe was expanding, which is a common held theory today.

Hoyle believed that that evolution on earth was driven by a steady influx of viruses arriving via comets from space. Not sure really how you imagine this ties in to your argument about Creationism considering his own beliefs tied in with Evolution, even though he had unique views. Many scientists have views and research. He was also an atheist.

 

Just throwing this out there...But I believe in the big bang theory...in a matter of speaking.
The big bang theory could mean creationism as well, ya know.

 

And I find it SO supportive that you bring the words of someone who in this very thread we are actually debating on the existence of.

 

I hate to admit it but you are right there!

 

-MY APOLOGIES FOR A LATE REPLY-
You are not his advocate, this is an arena with (thus far) two sides and I am QUESTIONING his "support" as in any debate, DEAD HORSE OR NOT I will RESPOND.

Now as for your question. Have you studied basic biology? I will give you a very brief and barely cursory explaination.

During the primary stages of production of offspring, you understand the whole "two parts, to make one whole" (XX or XY or rare X*, Y*, etc.) the cells must exchange genetic information and in doing so, some errors, or more accurately, inconsistancies in the code due to whatever (envirornmental conditions and otherwise) may occur. This ultimately affects how the zygote and cells will end up after devolpment.

This is the same for when the cells divide, it splits its DNA in two and tries to "perfectly copy" the missing code, but errors may occur when the particles are re-aligining. (Refer to the terms Meiosis, Mitosis, RNA and DNA should you choose to research it more in depth).

You may also wish to refer to DARWINISM which is the concept of "beneficial traits are passed on and faulty ones are evicted from the gene pool". And of course, why it doesn't happen now as much is because we are a sentimental species that believes in preserving every shred of human life. (Such as people with weak eyesight get glasses, people with weak immune systems get medicines, etc.)

WAY-OFF TOPIC TIME RESPONSE:
Does this mean if we pulled out counter-evidence about Noah's Ark, you wouldn't believe it? What if a "God" very different from your concepts APPEARED before us? Would you still hold onto your conviction?

Also, already an off-topic, but how exactly does this prove that evolution (wholly) does NOT exist? You have merely quoted a text with un-replicatable proof. Faith does not mean fact or reality. And look at all the other religions before Christianity! Dead and gone! Religion seems to be a very "phased" thing, just because Christianity (since you quoted Christ/the Bible) has lasted a little longer does not make it the DEFINITIVE ONE. (Don't take that as the glove to begin in a tangent debate about how it IS the ONLY PROOF and that it is ALL AROUND US, because I've already heard that from you. Either give me a different reason or something if you can reply to that statement at all.)

Side-Note: You also never acknowledged why you continue to use means not created by God to "spread the word" aka, using a computer (WROUGHT NO LESS FROM ALLEGED EXISTENCE OF THE EVIL TREE OF KNOWLEDGE) to continue saying "faith is the stone answer".

Also, you said "proof of God is all around us, that is all I [you] need". Isn't that rather contradictary in this debate thread?

Lastly, Alice has already pointed out how porous your last statement is.

That's all good and well, but then....who/what created God? Something, SOMEHOW was created SPONTANEOUSLY which lead to MORE things being created/produced. :\ -However this might lead into another tangent of debate-

 

Nothing created God. God was just there for all eternity just making the perfect plan (Creation) and then seeing how that goes (The fall) and then His plan to make it all better (Redemption)

 

Y'know, that sounds ludicrous..>_> And yes, I do believe in God, but to think that this almighty being just came out of nothingness, there must be more to this story. But wow, I can't believe this topic is still going though.XD