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By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
If you could time travel to 2 million years ago in South Africa, you might see a creature with humanlike hands and an ape-sized brain, walking upright with feet twisted inward.
Would you recognize this as your relative?
Anthropologists are keen on exploring the mysteries of human evolution presented by the fossilized remains of a species called Australopithecus sediba, or A. sediba for short. The latest collection of studies, published Thursday in the journal Science, presents more detail than ever about what this creature was like. Whether it's a direct ancestor of humans is controversial, however.
"We continue to just see this weird mosaic of features," said Duke University anthropologist Steven Churchill, lead author of a study on the upper limb of A. sediba.
It's possible that around this time, 2 million to 3 million years ago, many different forms of upright creatures emerged in parallel, representing variations that evolved in response to environmental changes.
The A. sediba remains were discovered in South Africa in 2008. Lee Berger, paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, led the discovery of the fossils. Researchers announced the discovery of the fossils in 2010. "Australopithecus" means "southern ape," and "sediba" means "natural spring" or "fountain" in the Sotho language.
A. sediba individuals were about the size of chimpanzees. They had small brains and long arms that were good for climbing and hanging from trees - which are all primitive traits. In other respects, they were humanlike, with their small teeth and chewing muscles, not to mention hands adapted for tool use.
And then there are ways in which this creature was like nothing else we know. The analysis of A. sediba's leg and foot, led by anthropologist Jeremy DeSilva of Boston University, suggests a unique example of the biomechanics of walking.
"To me, it opens up this wonderful world of possibilities of all these different ways that early humans were walking, all these different experiments in bipedalism," DeSilva said.
The completeness of the skeletons is "just extraordinary," he said. He noted that the female skeleton has a heel, ankle, hip, knee and lower back - the five components necessary for knowing how a creature walked.
Lucy, the famous 3.2 million-year-old remains of the species Australopithecus afarensis discovered in East Africa in 1974, is not as complete, DeSilva said. Her foot and lower limb structure is also different from that of A. sediba, suggesting a different way of walking, he said.
The A. sediba heel is relatively small, like a chimpanzee's, DeSilva said. Lucy, on the other hand, had a larger heel like those of modern humans. It's surprising that A. sediba, living 1 million years later, would have a more primitive heel. Researchers have examples of the small heel from two individuals, so it's less likely this was an abnormal phenomenon.
Unlike a chimpanzee, which walks crouched over, DeSilva said, A. sediba would have had a straight leg and a fully extended hip while walking. But unlike modern humans, there was no heel strike when A. sediba walked.
"When you hit the ground, there's a tremendous amount of force. That needs to be distributed over a large area, otherwise you have increased stress," DeSilva said, explaining why humans evolved with larger heels.
A. sediba's tiny heel suggests that, when it walked, it must have been landing in a flat-footed manner but on the outside of the foot.
"The whole foot itself looks to be twisted inwards," he said. "By landing on the outside of this twisted-in foot, the ground is going to push back with considerable force and roll that foot to the inside."
There are humans today with feet twisted inward, although no one has a tiny heel like that of A. sediba, he said. In modern humans, walking this way leads to problems with the hips, knees and lower back.
Boston University physical therapist and study co-author Kenneth Holt helped DeSilva's group figure out how A. sediba's anatomy related to this strange way of walking, predicting some features before he even saw them, DeSilva said.
A. sediba has several other features that make it humanlike: The chewing muscles are relatively small, for example, and its pelvis is somewhat basin-shaped. It also appears to have an Achilles tendon, Churchill said, and there are moderate indicators that its nose stuck protruded from it face the way human snouts do.
The brain of A. sediba is also curious. The asymmetry of its shape is similar to modern humans, but not to other Australopithecus species members. Researchers reported in 2011 that the skull has a cranial capacity of 420 cubic centimeters (26 cubic inches), whereas a chimpanzee's is about 380 cubic centimeters. Homo erectus, which is believed to be a direct ancestor of humans, had a cranial capacity of 900 cubic centimeters.
Here lies another curious element to the discovery: A. sediba is only about 200,000 years older than Homo erectus, so if it is the ancestor of the Homo genus, its brain size must have expanded rapidly in evolution.
So is A. sediba a direct ancestor of our genus, Homo (we are Homo sapiens), or did it evolve in parallel?
Churchill argues that Australopithecus sediba is an ancestor of, or at least a sister species to, the direct lineage of humans. But paleontologists who believe this are in the minority, he said.
DeSilva recognizes all of the humanlike qualities of A. sediba that support this notion, but he is not sure exactly how modern humans are related to A. sediba.
"It tells a very conflicting story," he said of the research.
For a stronger argument, archaeologists would have to find fossilized remains of creatures that come before and after A. sediba in the evolutionary lineage, Berger told CNN in 2011.
Ian Tattersall, paleoanthropologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, wasn't involved in the studies, but he told CNN in 2011 that it's unlikely we will discover a direct evolutionary path, over millions of years, from Australopith into Homo. Instead, it appears there were many forms of upright creatures - natural experiments in evolution - that coexisted at the same time.
The new analyses are based on remains from three A. sediba skeletons - a young male, an adult female, and an isolated shinbone from another adult.
These remains came from a cave at the Malapa site in South Africa that lost its roof. Lime miners, about 100 years ago, blasted out big chunks of sediment from the area that contained these fossils. They were preserved in blocks of mud and rock that had set like concrete, Churchill said.
Researchers have not dug in the cave itself yet, but they have already seen more bones sticking out of the cave wall, Churchill said. Experts have recovered, from the same place, exoskeletons of insects, plant material and porcupine quills that still contain black pigment - all from around the same time as A. sediba. Blocks of concrete-like material that have been recovered, but not studied, also contain more pieces of skeletons.
"We're going to keep recovering more and more of these hominins," Churchill said, referring to early human relatives. "I'm sure there will be more surprises yet to come."
Our universe birth is the result of evolution.We would not have had revolution ( motion ) where there is motion forms and shape are bound to change. By adding ( R ) Reproduce, Reconstruct, Round, Regenerate, Robust collision of Matter over eons to give rise and birth to Mass, which in Return Spawns Realities not Encountered yet by Humanity. So Evolution is The ENGINE Of Our Existence.
So if this so called evolution is true where is the actual proof? There should be at least something to back it, not could this be where you came from,not guessing or reaching for something that factually does not support this stupid theory. And why do we not see things and animals evolving today?All we see are animals ADAPTING to their environment. So if this or you cannot show 100% proof this is true do not lie to our children...
Evolution takes place over millions and millions of years. You have no concept whatsoever of that amount of time.
does anyone who believes in evolution study microbiology? do you know how complex the cells is? do you know how dna compies itself? do you know how many things need to happen in perfect timing for one cells to be copied? do you know how the body deals with mutations in the cells? do you realize that there are no new species that have evolved in the ~5000 years since recorded history? why no macroevolution on the known species in that time? not even a transitional form. evolution is a specualtion on bones. all the animals are individual and yes some are no longer around. even with all the dog breeding they are still dogs. they havent made a new animal yet. oh yes where is rhe half ape half man beacuse you say its oone mutation at a time right? then there should be a animal that is 99% and another animal that is 99.01 % and another animal that is 99.02% and 99.03% ...
99.89% ..99.99% and everything in between. show me these animals.
so if we have evolved from whatever. question. did evolution stop? where are all the transitional forms now? these animals should be walking around with us today? where are the half human half human-mix? macroevolution is a fairytale.
If you don't believe in evolution, you either a.) Don't understand it or b.) Aren't too bright. All you have to do is look at your dog. Especially if you have a prissy little thing like a chihuahua or poodle. Those were domesticated from wild animals, more specifically wolves. If turning a wolf into a poodle doesn't convince you that evolution is possible and, in some cases, very rapid, then there's no hope for you.
Crick says DNA is the product of Aliens, not [I[evolution[/I], he won a Noble prize btw. Sir Fred Hoyle on evolution – "The possibility that higher life forms arose this way is the same as a Boeing 747 being the result of a tornado striking a junkyard". If only closed minds like yours had closed mouths.
Excellent reply.
Evolution can be proven in one word: Platypus.
I don't believe that my ancestors swung by their tails from the trees. Although some of mine swung by their necks from the trees.
Me either I don't believe the whole evolution theory most of these are ancestors of todays common Gorrilas and monkeys the first two evolution proof they found on the theory where both hoax's there has never been any skeletons found with any type of mutation.
Evolution is a fact, already proven by the emergence of anti-biotic resistant bacteria. Another example is the different species of dogs, from selective breeding. It's observable, right in front of your eyes.
For those of you with closed minds, let me quote some scripture. This one comes from Lennon – Imagine – Track 1 – Verse 2 – Stanzas 1-5. His logic is undeniable.
up to I saw the draft ov $6896, I be certain that...my... neighbour was like really erning money in their spare time on their apple laptop.. there neighbor had bean doing this 4 only about 12 months and a short time ago repayed the morgage on their mini mansion and bought a great Buick. read more at,........ ZOO80. ℂom
Now we know what Santa's elves do during the offseason. They contract to make fossils and plant them around the world. Sadly, they don't even know that the client is Satan.
Proof: Satan is an anagram of Santa.
only in english
Fossils are products of the mass destruction during the Great Flood when the entire Earth was destroyed via massive, massive volcanism coupled by a deluge. Santa had nothing to do with entombing fossils within rock, and evolution remains a fairy-tale.
OK so fossils in sedimentary rocks are from the Flood but where is the reference for volcanism associated with the Great Flood? That aside do you believe the skies cleared from this volcanism in 40 days? All that aside wouldn't this have resulted in fossils being deposited in layers consisting of a mix of volcanic and sedimentary deposits if these arose from a single event? How would you explain fossils in discrete layers of sedimentary or volcanic rock?
Buck, your reference to fairy tales is interesting. The flood story on the other hand is hard science. How do you explain all the species that are extinct, the dating evidence that they are millions and some billions of years old? Oh that's right, scientific hoaxes. Man can create a nuclear magnetic resonance machine and detect disease, but landing on the moon was a hoax. You need to retune your foil cap dude.
@ Suzanne
The biblical reference to 'volcansim' is in the description to life on Earth being literally destroyed "with the Earth" and physically being "overturned" as the OT states. The only force that could overturn the crust of Earth is massive volcanism. Take for example Surtsey. This island did not exist until 1963, and when it's formation was complete (dynamically via volcanism), the new island rendered geologic 'layers', pebbled beaches and even marine fossils. All within a relatively short timeline. If man did not witness Surtsey, sure enough the fossils discovered by orthodix scientists would be 'catalogued' according to their preconceived "time line", yet Surtsey overturns this.
The Flood continued for 150 days as the 40 days is referring to the rain prior to the eruptions. So given the scale and magnitude of the destructive Noahic event, fossils in various layers is not a 'problem' from the biblical viewpoint. Rather, they solidify the sheer, almost incomprehensible, size of the event, which is why Earth is fractured.
Yeah, the flood never happened, sorry.
ok, but the earth wasn't destroyed we're still on it and floods can "overturn" the Earth as seen in the Great Missoula flood in North America, so I don't see how volacnism needs to invoked and if these eruptions occurred after the flood then how did Noah survive and why did God bother when everything had already been wiped out? Also the fossils found on Sertsy were in blocks not layers and layers matching these blocks are found elsewhere in Iceland so I don't see how the eruption could create them, also the fossils were small zooplankton (the same type the White Cliffs of Dover were made from) and a few clam shells. It is certainly interesting they were found at all. I also don't see why pebbled beaches matter, certainly erosion happened very quickly but that's kind of what you'd expect with newly formed volcanic material, also there are no sedimentary layers even if the volcanic rock can be seen as layers because of multiple lava flows. I believe the statement from Icelandic scientists was they were seeing changes in years that in other areas would take decades or centuries. Also if these volcanic eruptions occurred after the flood why don't we see a clear signature of sedimentary layers overlaid by volcanic layers world wide? I am assuming you feel we don;t see a mixed layer because the water receded prior to the volcanism? As far as fossils in layers, I am referring to strata where you see layers with lots of fossils followed by layers with no fossils followed by layers with fossils, how did the flood create these?
Surtsey is interesting but overturns nothing. Volcanoes come through the sea bed. The sea bed has fossils in it. The magma carries those fossils to the surface. That doesn't overturn any timeline.
I see no reason to debate Buck Rogers – he believes in magic, and is willing to ignore any facts that don't fit with what magical story he has already decided to believe in. Evidence or facts are not going to be persuasive.
we all know god put us on earth in time release eggs
Now that I've slept on it, I can't help but wonder even more about these "fossils" that Satan has laid in our path to delude us. Since Satan cannot create anything physical in our world, who makes the "fossils"? I mean, apparently hoards of people have been at this for generations, and it looks like a really cool job. 😉
That's not a fossil, just the portrait of my ex-wife!
aint mine
History repeats itself that's all I'll say 😉
Well, what would philosophers say after reading the article? Are they going to say that every change in chemistry needs condition and every change in physics needs time?
We have learned some stories on how scientists, for instance, Archimedes, Newton, made their historic discoveries. Do we call that inspiration? Well, wish scientists get more and more surprises from the inspirations.
However, it does say that the evening and morning conclude each day; therefore, how would you argue your point based upon that information? Many fundaMENTALists believe the scriptures literally, whereas other fundaMENTALists believe the scriptures only figuratively.
I understand that you're attempting to make the "To God, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day" argument, but the scriptures state otherwise.
The above comment is meant for Jon. BTW, I do not believe in any of the nonsensical fairytales contained within the Babble.
..........and God breathed into the nostrils of a chimp......bah hahahahahaha! Go on being proud and stupider than a sack of hammers.
"..........and God breathed into the nostrils of a chimp......bah hahahahahaha! Go on being proud and stupider than a sack of hammers."
LOL so you are going to call someone else stupid, yet you believe in a story written by MEN over many years as the word of a god? bhahahahahahahahahaha talk about gullible.
hey atheists. why are you saying that God doesnt exist if he doesnt exist. that would be like me saying i dont belicve in bigfoot. so i am going to call myself a juvonist ( i just made a name up)and i am now going to argue with anyone who believes in bigfoot. and start calling them names like stupid because i am an adult whostill likes to name call
Just because you believe something or do not believe something has no relation as to whether it exists or not. Our beliefs do not alter reality, history or truths, they are not even related. You believe what you "want to" believe and your pride keeps you from believing anything else. You have blinded yourself from certain world views with your own self pride prevents you from "exploring" other possibilities. So even if someone presented you with eye witnessed facts and accounts, you will not be able to believe it. I know, I used to be an atheist for many years and lived a very selfish, prideful life, mocking Christians every chance I could. Then Christ changed my life and opened my eyes to Him and His truths.
JamesI am impressed and pleased with your views. I have saved them to share with people I know.
That was amazing, I read your entire post agreeing with you, only I expected it to end, 'I used to be a Christian but now I have more sense I am an atheist'. Your story works either way 😉
Wow, thank you for sharing!
Amen James
exactly....just because you believe in a god, doesnt mean that god exists......
Now, please provide proof of your god using sources other than the bible. Until you can, your believe is nothing more than speculation at its best.
Don't forget that the "a day is like a thousand years" part comes from 2 Peter and most scholars believe 2 Peter was not actually written by Peter and is thus a forgery. It was written much later than the other epistles to specifical address the problem that both Jesus and Paul were obviously apocalypticists and believed the end would be in the lifetime of the people they were preaching to. When this didn't happen, the early Christians needed a way to explain the problem, so they came with the "a day is like a thousand years" bit.
How can you even speak of the scriptures if you don't believe. Only those who truly believe – translation, Saved by the Grace of God – can understand the hidden meanings in the scriptures.
Paul said it best in 1 Cor 13:11 – "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Once Salvation is given to someone, then understanding is revealed and the cares of this world and worldly thoughts are put aside.
How can you even speak of the scriptures if you don't believe. Only those who truly believe can understand the hidden meanings in the scriptures.
Paul said it best in 1 Cor 13:11 – "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Once Salvation is given to someone, then understanding is revealed and the cares of this world and worldly thoughts are put aside.
1) Anyone who has an understand of any language can easily translate the meaning (both literal and figurative) of any piece with in that language. It doesn't matter whether it's the bible or not. The bible does not possess any mystical properties that makes it impossible to understand without belief. This is a ridiculous argument.
2) How can you know what it truly means! Unless you are reading the original Hebrew bible, then you can never take the meaning of the bible seriously. Meaning is lost when it's translated between language. It was even worse when the bible was first written. In that time, every single copy had to be hand written by scribes. As scribes translated, the bible into other language, they will make decisions that will alter the sentence structure. Altering the sentence structure can and will change the meaning of some sentence. This is completely ignoring any mistakes and/or purposeful changes the scribes made to the copies that they were writing.
Isnt there ever a story on here that doesnt have some Agenda
If reporting on reality as discovered through science is an "agenda" then no.
2 million years ago? If you traveled tomorrow to Africa you'd find a creature with human hands with an ape-sized brain.
What are all you bible-thumpers doing visiting a news website? If you're going to make-up history why don't you just make-up the news too?
they DO make it up, Its called Fox News
For those that are religious...Lean not to YOUR OWN understanding. Also, the Bible says he will reveal mysteries in the end so obviously there is a lot that we don't know and that wasn't shared with us in the Bible
Lastly, Science and Religion at its origination went hand in hand...Religion was essentially "AETIOLOGICAL STORIES...a method to explain the happenings in their environment at the time. As man's need for power grew, they realized that knowledge is the ultimate power and the withholding or manipulation of knowledge is the only way to truly control them...
This is the reason of the First Council of Nice.....
A "day" in Gensis is not a 24 hr period, its a period of time that could have been millions of years each. dotnt over compicate it. Gensis never stated a "day" is 24hr period.
It never stated that it wasn't a 24 hour period.
And since everything else in the Bible seemed to be based up on earthly times, there is no reason to not read that literally.
Jon, I don't know where you get this 2 million year theology thinking but God has a "history" of creating everything with age. When he created everything He talked about in the Bible it was always mature and fully developed. He didn't create a male baby and a female baby, they were created as adults. The wine that Jesus had converted from water during the wedding, it was considered by the hosts of the wedding as the BEST wine. It was not in an early stage of aging, it was FULLY MATURED wine. God's ways are not our ways and it requires "knowing Him" to know what He is saying with the scriptures.
So god tricked us into thinking they were older than they really are.
Genesis 1: 5-6 ".............:and god divided the light from the darkness. and god called the light day, and the darkness he called night. and the evening and the morning were the first day"...........
and so on and so forth clearly indicating that a day was a period of light and dark so unless the earth was a thousand years rotating on its own axis then clearly a day was 24 hours, give or take the appropriate number of minutes and seconds
In that case, you have liquid water on the surface of the earth for millions of years before the sun was made. You have vegetation on the earth for millions of years before god gets around to creating a photon source to drive photosynthesis.
I don't think you nutters have thought this through.
lol telling people what the scripture "could have meant".....bhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I knew it all along! Homer Simpson is the missing link! There's no getting around this one. That skeleton is Homer J's!!
Proving, once again, that blacks are indeed the missing link between human beings and simian primates.
O.K. you win. You're the most ignorant person on this thread.
Why must religion and science be so separate from one another – can they not coexist and complement each other? Who says evolution is not the hand of God?
The uninformed and unimaginative.
The only problem with what you propose, is it makes god out to be a beast. The process of Evolution is cruel and extremely waste full. So many born, to become food for others. Torn apart alive. Parasites evolving to invade hosts.
No, any being that would design the process of Evolution as the process for the creation of the diversity of life as we see it, would be a beast.
Ouch...that word....dieversity....that's a no no in America. It is what is actually killing this country off...
Not to mention evolutionary 'dead ends' – why go to the trouble of evolving lineages and organisms just to have them die out?
And what benevolent being would deliberately 'evolve' parasitic wasps and flies whose larvae slowly eat their paralyzed host alive, taking care to avoid eating the vital organs until last so as not to kill the host too soon. Only the absolutely worst kind of sadistic serial killer would contemplate such a fate for another living creature.
What are you talking about? Our world is just as horrific as the world you describe that makes God a "beast" You ever eat a hamburger? Do you have any clue how horrific the life of that cow was? The fact is life is pretty horrible for almost every being except the parasites called "Americans". they are the only form of life allowed to feed on the life force of other beings while living in complete deluded bliss
Calling god a "beast" assume that we should or even can apply the same type of morality to god as we do to humans. Do YOU call it "cruel" to swat a fly? Are you a "beast" when you wipe out an entire hive of hornets? If you presuppose a god, you do not need (dare I say "should not" ) require that this deity is required to adhere to human morality. It is entirely reasonable to suppose (a) god created the universe and set things in motion, without requiring him to have moral responsbility for the outcome.
In addition to Chris's eloquent comment, Genesis describes God as creating life during a human day, with the evening and the morning concluding each day of creation. If you read the Babble literally, then evolution has no place in it.
Furthermore, even if you took evolution out of the equation, science completely refutes every single scripture in the creationism story. Light, water, Earth, and vegetation before stars, birds and whales before mammals, etc. It's all absurd, because religion is NOT truth; science, however, IS truth.
It is fair to say science is the "pursuit of truth" but to say it "IS truth" is to ignore things like plate tectonics was laughed at until information about it's mechanisms became available, it was "true" continents couldn't move until it wasn't. Science is an ongoing process not an absolute truth
Because evolution stems from completely random genetic mutations.
Good point. The fundamentalist do not have the final word. In fact, it's the minority position. There is another side to the faith..which must change and evolve as all life does. I refer you if I may to the writings of the Jesuit Priest, philosopher, and paleontologist Pierre Theillard de Chardin.
They Do Co-Exist to the MAJORITY of Christians, the 6 thousand year thing is something that has
shwon up in churches just in the last 20 years. I grew up on Both Creation and Evolution
God Deseigned, nature evolved.
You Atheists are just wrong about us, and really i dont care what you think of us, it only makes
you look like children.
Science and god don't go hand in hand. If god designed evolution, and man then he did a terrible job at it.
We have a blind spot in our eye, one of our other internal organs (I totally forgot the name of it, but it also commonly has cancerous growths) is at a terrible spot on the human body.
"They Do Co-Exist to the MAJORITY of Christians, the 6 thousand year thing is something that has
shwon up in churches just in the last 20 years."
Incorrect. In the 17th century, James Ussher calculated the world was created in night before Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC and this date has been used ever since. Just to clarify, the 17th century was not " just in the last 20 years". Further, the biblical literalism that permeates modern Christianity has it's roots in the evangelical movements of the 18th century. Again, not "just in the last 20 years".
Biblical literalism also is more A USA phenomena than a world-wide phenomena
Carla, Evolution is a grand hoax, a lie. Its usually supported by atheist, or God hating "scientists" and others who are out to "prove" that God is not real. So how can they co-exist in agreement? Here's the problem with that, they are NOT in agreement: God either created the world as it is OR everything that is in PERFECT harmony with each other (nature, animals, food, reproduction, life, death, even living cells, Sun light, air, water oxygen etc...) all took place RANDOMLY and life came as a random act of "nature". A bunch of baloney. What evolution says is that everything took time (millions of years, even billions, depending on which "scientist" you ask, and it became perfect in the way it is today. What you need to really understand is this simple thing between the two: The Bible is a fact and has never been proven wrong and never needed to be changed or "updated". In fact, many archeologist today use a Bible to FIND NEW discoveries in the Holy land because its so accurate. Evolution is a "THEORY" NOT a FACT. Big difference and many "amateur scientists" will try to argue that evolution is true, wasting your time and theirs. What they don't talk about is the fact that you can go to any old science text book from 10 years ago and older and see how much those so called "facts" have been changed by new science. Go back 25 years in a science textbook and you may as well throw it away in the trash because of all the changes. The further you go back, the more past lies are uncovered. The hoax of evolution is sad, it misleads a lot of people who seem intelligent yet know little about the true original of life and never have the faith to believe in God. I am sharing this to you as an ex-atheist myself. I wanted nothing to do with God or the Bible for many years of my life until Jesus Christ changed my life and proved Himself to me in a way that I could understand. Now, I have a relationship with Jesus and we keep in touch through prayers, answers to my prayers, visions and dreams and yes, The Bible.
what proof is there that Jesus even existed? A man walking on water etc its all a fairy story, pull the other one.
@John: You are ignoring the historiographic realities of the time. It was very common in greco-roman culture to embelish histories/biographies with fantastic or supernatural events. So within the context of 1st century writing, the fact that a story contains miracles, or similar events, is not sufficient evidence to claim it is completely ficticious, even when the stories of miracle or other "fantastic" aspects form the central theme of the story. You are also ignoring the fact that people in the 1st century did not have the same level of understanding as we do today, so would frequently account for unexplainable events by calling them "miracles". The result was often a description of the event in terms to make it understandable to them. With just a little thought all of the "miracles" in the new testament can be accounted for without having to reject the historicity of Jesus.
James if the bible is fact and has never changed, how do you explain the Gnostic gospels? Also how do you reconcile the Old and New Testament and stories of Lilith?
Suzanne DeCosta, the gnostic gospels are NOT in the Bible for a reason. They were written about 300 AD, much after all eye witnesses were gone. The Bible is complete with only 66 books for a reason, these are the only "Holy Spirit" lead books of the Bible. Man likes to "add" or "take away" from the Bible and thus bringing new religions to the world and false teachings. The gnostic gospels are not based on what God says, plain and simple. As for your second question: "how do you reconcile the Old Testament and the New Testament"? They complement each other. The Old Testament gives us a preview of the coming NEW covenant with God through the Prophets. The Old Testament shows us God with a divine judgement that every trespass must have its consequences when His laws and commandments are broken. It makes you depend on God's mercy and grace. The Old Testament always points to the coming Messiah, which is Jesus Christ. Over 350 prophesies point to Jesus Christ as the ONLY possibility. The New Testament gives us the "way out" or the payment of those trespasses or "sins" in our lives by believing in what Jesus did on the cross and his atonement of sin by his sacrifice. This must be personalized by an individual with faith in Him, that Jesus died for you. Thus being called the "Lamb of God", perfect in every way and payment for the sins of the world. The entire Bible is love letter to man from God, Spiritually given for these reasons: 2 Timothy 3:16: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." Concerning the old Jewish mythological figure "Lilith", she doesn't appear in the Bible. Sorry, I am not into myths and fiction.
No offense meant but saying Lilith does not occur in the Bible because the manuscripts mentioning her were later omitted doesn't seem right and the earliest known New Testament manuscript fragments are from the 2nd Century, and all the early forms are not identical so how can we know what is fact. It is beautiful to think of the New Testament as love letters to God but doesn't that say they were written by man who is flawed? Even if divinely inspired, the variations of early versions says these were interpretations by flawed humans, this must have been intended since Jesus did not write the New testament and give it to his disciples, which he certainly could have done. Also 3rd century is the high end estimate for the age of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the low end is the 1st century making it possible for them to predate the earliest New Testament fragments, they certainly predate any complete copies of the New Testament, why can't these be other sources of divine inspiration conveyed by flawed humans? I don't know how we can accept the current version as fact when the early versions while certainly related are not identical?
Also while your personalization is also beautiful, it was that kind of talk that got the Cathars labeled as heretics.
James: Isn't it wonderful knowing Jesus?
It's a friggin' monkey. that's it!
Bzzzt – wrong!
I despair when I read these comments.
It would never occur to me to hang around in the religion section of cnn and make ignorant comments on articles that I fail to comprehend. What, therefore compels fundamentally religious folks to read articles anathema to their beliefs, and comment upon that which they cannot comprehend? I specify fundamentalist, because I know plenty of Christians who take for granted that evolution is a fact, without diminishing their belief in God in the least. I guess I just find it weird that there are religious trolls.
contro yourself ....http://www.livescience.com/25471-piltdown-ape-man-hoax-scrutinized.html
When you are secure in your beliefs, you are not threatened by, nor do you feel the need to denigrate, the beliefs of others. They are not secure in their beliefs and feel the need to force them on others so that they feel better about what they believe.
it works both ways 😉
Becareful of stories like this ....there is alot of fake ancient human bones hoaxes to confuse people.
Be careful of posts that make unsubstantiated assertions (see above).
Also of posts with horrible grammar.
Prove it.
And all those fake dinosaur bones, and all the fake links in the fossil record showing evolution like Tiktalik, Archaeopteryx, feathered dinosaurs etc etc etc.
How do fools believe in evolution when there is no evidence whatsoever and the evidence for the bible version of creation is just so overwhelming? I'll leave it up to warning! to list all the irrefutable PROOF of the biblical flood, Noah's ark, the garden of eden, the 6000 year old age of the Earth, the co existence of dinosaurs and humans and modern mammals, the tower of babel etc.
What are all you bible-thumpers doing visiting a news website? If you're going to make-up history why don't you just make-up the news too?
Ok Phooeey – just in case my post wasn't clear;
IRONY – where the ACTUAL meaning is the OPPOSITE of the LITERAL meaning.
The point I was making in an ironic way was that there is NO EVIDENCE to support the biblical fantasy and LOTS of irrefutable EVIDENCE that proves evolution.
I am NOT a 'bible thumper'. If you feel it necessary to give me a tag, I am an evolutionist or, to put it another way, a RATIONAL THINKER, who looks at evidence and proof.
It is truly sad to think that here we are in the 21st century and we still have grown people believing in this silly fairy tale about a man who created our universe in 6 days but couldn't end famine or genocide in our modern times.
If evolution is false, why are there so many of these intermediate species in the fossil record? Scientists have sequenced the Nearderthal genome and it is almost the same as ours. Did god create all these close relatives and then kill them off? It doesn't matter if we currently have a map of how all these species interrelate if at all, why are they there? It seems that there is either a massive conspiracy within science, or a supernatural being planted these fossils to fool or test us. Neither of those options are credible.
If evolution never occurred, and we were all created "equal"... then explain blacks. What happened there? If no evolution, would a "God" really screw up so terribly?
If evolution never occurred, and we were all created "equal"... then explain what happened to you. What happened there? If no evolution, would a "God" really screw up so terribly?
The paleontologist who assembled Lucy took a part of her hip out to make it look like she walked like a human. If look up answers in genesis and look up this subject, you will find the truth.
Whats your point?
We can tell quite a bit from bone structure.
AIG is nothing but outright lies for Jesus. Ken Ham is a complete fraud. He's a YEC. To be YEC is to advertise your insanity . YEC should be classified as a mental illness.
Somehow I missed those paragraphs in Genesis that talked about anthropology and ancient species physiology.
If you are finding your information in Answers in Genesis, founded by Ken Hom, a man who has created a creation museum depicting humans and dinosaurs co-existing together, then you have major educational issues.
You mean they didn't exist together???
But what about all the human skeletons and modern mammalian fossils next to dinosaur fossils in the the fossil record? The irrefutable proof that would rubbish the whole fact of evolution?
Oh, that's right, they've never found a single human or modern mammal fossil anywhere near to a dinosaur fossil in the fossil record.
In short, there's not a shred of PROOF.
I believe that you have misinterpreted my message. I was stating, in essence, that dinosaurs and humans did NOT exist together, as all of the scientific evidence clearly proves otherwise.
Yes, you are correct: the fossil records clearly proves that evolution is a fact. DNA evidence is astounding in proving evolution as well.
Dinosaurs and humans DO coexist, they're called birds
As scientific evidence clearly shows
Hi PA – I don't seem able to reply to a reply so I'll post here re the posts below.
Rest assured, I didn't misunderstand your original post – I think the English 'humour' may have got lost in' translation'. I thought everyone knew they didn't co-exist until a few years ago when I saw that 'museum' you mentioned on the TV. I was being a little facetious in my comment to the NEC and biblical literalists.
Suzanne – I know birds evolved from therapod dinosaurs, the so called 'bird hipped' dinosaurs. I reference this in another post. I wouldn't call birds 'dinosaurs' myself as they have clearly evolved from dinosaurs – there are some differences but therapod dinosaurs are clerly the ancestors of modern birds. The amount of evidence for this is growing with recent discoveries from China.
While it is very slow in coming into the general public Aves is being abandoned for Dinosauria (actually it really has already happened in academic circles), this has great macroevolutionary significance especially if you look at the history. There were many incorrect interpretations about dinosaurs by people in museums when they were first being described (not the least being they were cold blooded reptiles), this still appears in high school textbooks. People still default to dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous rather than all large animals went extinct the vast majority of which were Dinosaurs at that time. You are still steadily seeing the phrase non-avian dinosaurs went extinct but that should eventually be abandoned. Dinosaurs survived just like mammals and both seem to have arose around the same time. When people use the "Dinosaur hammer" to club christian fundamentalists it doesn't further an understanding of what we see in the fossil record and it doesn't own that science doesn't have all the answers and we are still figuring stuff out.
To Logenthe9, you might be interested in recent work from Canada that shows wings evolved before flight, and consider if "flight" is justification for creating a new phylogenetic class then shouldn't bats be given their own class?
If you are deriving your information from Answers in Genesis, founded by Ken Hom, a man who has created a creation museum depicting humans and dinosaurs co-existing together, then you have major educational issues.
Interesting article. Never heard the nose referred to as a human snout.
its properly referred to as "human horn."
This might help to explain why black's nasal passages are interconnected, just like their simian ape ancestors.
I knew it would be a mistake to look at the comment section of this article. I regret doing so. Faith in humanity lost.
Don't let the religious get you down. Things are slowly moving in the right direction.
My Jessus Good worship the creator in heaven. Heathens must be destroyed. This article is untruth!!!
How are people anything but excited about this?! I think it's pretty incredible.
It is way cool. We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to hominid fossils now. We have sequence Neandrathal DNA and know that we cross bred with them. Its a great time to be alive and understand our true past.
It was this Neanderthal DNA which gave us our intellect, our ingenuity, our creativeness, our resourcefulness, our yearning for exploration, out humanity.
There's one group on this planet, and only one, that possess no Neanderthal DNA whatsoever: blacks. Explains a lot.
And since Neanderthals are now extinct, and you do not gain this Neanderthal DNA through interspecies breeding between human beings and blacks, I'm afraid blacks are doomed to never evolve to even a low level of humanity, forever.
The great thing is that we are finding more and more and will continue to do so. The more fossils that are found the more ridiculous the NEC look. I'm excited about the recent discoveries of feathered dinosaurs in China that prove that birds evolved from therapod dinosaurs and I'm positive that we'll find more in the near future.
Exciting times indeed for scientists, Darwinists and evolutionists.
Spielberg built it
I think we who understand evolution should underline that there is not debate, that there are no 'dawinists' who worship Charles Darwin, that there are no 'evolutionists' who follow the ideology of 'evolutionism', that there are no 'materialists' who deny the existence of non-material things such as force fields and exotic matter. The people who wish to debate us can't even use the right words to label us. I have never heard a single creationist who could tell me what evolution by natural selection actually was.
It's all so frustratingly simple:
1) All populations of organisms have some diversity, such that individuals can be recognized.
2) Some unique traits are transmitted from parent to offspring.
3) Some transferable traits confer advantages, or disadvantages.
4) Thus, some individuals have more than their fair share of offspring, and many have less (many have none).
5) Thus, the average individual in the total population is not a constant, but shifts its properties in the direction of superior traits, so that a lineage of organisms has a direction. If the population is cut in two by a mountain, a river or a sea and conditions vary enough the lineages will travel in two different directions, and two species will come from one. This has been observed in real time.
But, of course, this will convince not one of the cultists.
Essentially, stop recognizing them as sentient beings, as 'persons'. Anyone who would worship Big Brother (calling it Yahweh, Jesus, or Allah) and profess that 2 plus 2 is 5 (splitting seas, walking on water, teleportation) has lost their personhood. You'll being doing your own sanity a favor.
"Since the dawn of history the negr0 has owned the continent of Africa – rich beyond the dream of poet's fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet. Yet he never picked one up from the dust until a white man showed to him its glittering light. His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never dreamed a harness, cart, or sled. A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe, spear, or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. He lived as an ox, content to graze for an hour. In a land of stone and timber he never sawed a foot of lumber, carved a block, or built a house save of broken sticks and mud. With league on league of ocean strand and miles of inland seas, for four thousand years he watched their surface ripple under the wind, heard the thunder of the surf on his beach, the howl of the storm over his head, gazed on the dim blue horizon calling him to worlds that lie beyond, and yet he never dreamed a sail."— Charles Darwin
All modern humans, of all 'races', are of one species capable of interbreeding. Biologically, there are no 'blacks' or 'whites', just a continuous spectrum which some insist on dividing arbitrarily. In the year 1500 there were perhaps more than 100 000 people who could claim you as a descendant, and they are essentially guaranteed to be a mixture of people of nearly all invented 'races', especially if you are an American. Suggestions of intellectual potential being different between different peoples are generally silly: with poorer agricultural conditions less high technology is to be expected. 'Guns, Germs and Steel', written by Jared Diamond, presents an account of differences in human technological achievement free of racist assumptions of different potential.
Speciation has not been observed in real time, the quickest reported speciation is 6000 yrs, shifts in alleles and traits have been observed and they have even been observed going back and forth with environmental variation. "Superior" traits exist only in relation to the environment which is constantly shifting on various scales.
Incorrect. Simply google "observed speciation"
Google really, first off Darwin Finch's still interbreed, second the allele frequency and general character shifted back when the environmental conditions changed, yes this couple claimed they had a "new" species and had observed "evolution in action". That doesn't mean they did not overstate their data. They had was a shift in characters which shifted back when the environmental changed (they haven't publicized that part too much) and yes that could result in different looking species overtime, just as humans today look differently than humans 20,000 years ago. Look at these to see what I am talking about.
Also please don't come back referencing Wikipedia, this sort of stuff is becoming very problematic to people's understanding of science and the scientific process
I feel the need to add I mean aspersion against the Grants, I have not had the opportunity to meet or talk with them, but my general experience is that if you sit and talk to the people who do the actual research you get a much different picture of what is going on than if you simply read what is written about their work for popular culture. Their work is significant and does have value demonstrating a mechanism of how speciation can occur
I see a typo now, I meant NO aspersions against the Grants
Speciation has a broad spectrum, but this is because it is a man-made category. Nature does not always conform to the categories we want to place them in. Look at Kingdom Protista if you believe otherwise. As for speciation, many types of speciation have been observed. Look up allopatric, peripatric, and parapatric for observed instances of speciation.
I am not saying speciation does not occur (read the articles) I am saying it has not been observed in real time. As far as Protista yes it is a junk category created by organisms that did not fit elsewhere and is in the process of being broken up by genetics and establishing actual relationships. It doesn't relate to speciations (you seem to be confusing micro and macroevolution), I am talking about genetic isolation of organisms to the extent they can no longer breed and yield viable offspring which is clearly defined and demonstrable, yes there are other definitions of species which are harder to demonstrate. As far as the mechanisms you mention on how it can occur, there are still others you don't even mention, but they are mechanisms or pathways. Changes in allele frequency does not have to lead to speciation
If you have the time read this
The name of the article is Sympatric, Parapatric od Allopatric: The most important way to classify speciation?
Oh I do agree organisms do not give a ra%^*&as about what categories we put them in.
Mosaic means gay in Arabic. Yep. It's a gay skeleton.
Humans didn't 'evolve'!! We are in the SAME EXACT form since our CREATION.GOD made us in HIS image,and NO 'science' will PROVE anything or make the public CHANGE their believes cause some guys in coats says that they have 'evidence'.
You know what? You know ehere this 'evidence' was from? You know how it came to be? I'll tell you: SATAN put it here in order to trick and lead astray the GOOD people of GOD.Don't fall for it!!! You must find the path of LIGHT and GRACE through GOD!
Yes, and satan planted the false evidence that there would be semiconductors that would allow transistors, and fast computational devices and communication devices allowing vast information networks. All a big hoax as we know since none of things are possible.
Whoa... Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. You don't have to admire and believe one at the detriment of the other. Biology doesn't make any sense without evolution (which you can see happening, by the way, in antibiotic resistant bacteria like MRSA).
All human beings are subjective. If you don't believe it, then you are exhibit A. If you have read the biographies of different successful modern scientists, you know that there is as much prejudice, subjectivity and human weakness in the scientific community as there is in any religious community. The idea that one is perfect and the other imperfect is not a reflection of reality.
The god delusion strikes again. So sad.
No one really cares if you "believe" in evolution or not. Its the fact whether you do or don't. Throwing in the magic sky wizard mythology does nothing to change the facts.
finally some knows the truth!!!!!
If evolution is false, why are there so many of these intermediate species in the fossil record? Scientists have sequenced the Nearderthal genome and it is almost the same as ours. Did god create all these close relatives and then killed them off? It doesn't matter if we currently have a map of how all these species interrelate if at all, why are they there?
Just a small piece of advice. It is OK being ignorant, not having an education, and having a low IQ. Just avoid making a fool of yourself stating your stupidities in an open forum.
My mom, who was a Jehovah's Witness, used to say that Satan planted the fossils to fool us. I don't think that was part of their doctrine, it was probably something that she thought up herself.
it wasn't part of their doctrine, they say God created and killed the dinosaurs for reasons we will never know. Don't think for a second though that they might be slightly enlightened, their views on science are archaic. They denied the Big Bang ever happened until about 1996, until the 50's they believed God lived in a star in the Acelyon constellation, until the late 90's they taught that college was evil to attend because it poisoned your mind... they are pretty kooky. from an ex-JW who got out of that cult
Fundamentalism does not have the last word.
Seriously? I suppose you think the sun revolves around Earth too simply because the church said it was so? You are aware that humans wrote the Bible, aren't you? Over several hundred years? By people who didn't witness any of the events talked about? Do you still stone your kids, sacrifice animals, beat your wives and own slaves? Bible says you can.
Only the ignorant and fools ignore science.
Okay then, explain blacks. What happened there? Would an omnipotent "God" with so much power really screw up so badly?
If Satan put them there, then God must have allowed him to do so, because nothing happens unless it's God's will. Therefore, God allows Satan to deceive humans into believing that God doesn't exist, which ultimately paves the way for billions of souls spending an eternity of H ell, all because He loves us and wants us to make it to Heaven??? What a loving God your sky daddy truly is!
It's already been proven – the evidence is there for all to see and it's irrefutable. More is being discovered with each decade. Not to mention DNA and mitochondrial DNA and the mapping of genomes that clearly shows the relationships between species.
Choose not to see the evidence if you wish but it's there, no matter how hard you try to pretend it isn't. You believe, I know based on evidence and proof. That's the fundamental difference.
I always knew Neanderthals and cave men were gay. This proves I was right. All of them gay. Yep.
What does mosaic mean? Does that mean gay?
Displays traits from what we would call human and traits of earlier forms. Small brain, but walking upright. A true transitional form, a missing link.
Wow, you wrote missing link, you really should spend more time learning and understanding evolution rather than bashing fundamentalists, it really doesn't help or elevate the debate, one of the biggest problems I see is atheists who have little understanding of evolution and use as a club against other people. Seriously missing link?
Yes he is my ancestor. Please have him call me I need to know where he left th car keys.
Looks like a Jay Leno ancestor.
looks like obamas ancestor to me
looks like my wife
Don't be picking on our president. He is colored you know. We are supposed to be nice to colored people.
We've pandered to them, coddled them, fed, clothed, and sheltered the inferior species long enough. It is high time they put on their "big boy pants". (Let us hope that when they do....they can at least learn how to properly wear a belt, this time around.)
what a witty remark!
we are a ET project called
"project earth"
Wow poorly written article at best...the Lucy fossil had no feet!
IIRC, however, it DID have a distal tibial and talus, which would have given scientists some information about the ankle joint. In fact, the lower end of the tibia of this fossil clearly showed that A. afarensis had an ankle much more like a human ankle than that of a non-hominid primate. The presence of the talus bone may have been enough to extrapolate the width of the heel of the "Lucy" fossil also. Additionally, other specimins of A.afarensis have been found; possibly some of them contain the tarsals and metatarsals missing in the "Lucy" fossil.
Very true they have found other fossils but that is not how the article was written, they may have used the Laetoli footprints to make this claim, but those footprints were linked to Lucy because of the belief at the time that humans were so special there could only be one hominid at a time. We now know this to not be true. So one of the main justifications for making A. afarensis a separate species was wrong, the entire species description (which was not published in a peer reviewed journal) was based on a false premise. These objections were raised at the time by Phillip Tobias and others, but the media ate it up. It is nice to see progress being made but there is a lot of sketchy science that enters the public realm when it comes to "human evolution" and never disappears. A rather obvious point to consider from this find is that it's feet are adapted for walking on tree limbs and not the ground. I am not saying this is true because I haven't read the actual publication yet and there is no info on the environment in this article or whether the finds were dragged to the cave by a predator, which has been reported in South Africa on other finds. At this point this is just an interesting primate find.
simple question, what would it take to 'believe' in God, all the knowledge, understanding and wisdom a human can posses, or just faith? which one is the one you want? God will honor your honest heart. I am just opening the door to truth, you must walk through it.
John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Before you go to sleep tonight, it will take maybe just 20-30 seconds of your time, if you need to kneel down by your bedside, do so, it shows that what you seek, you're doing it out of honesty of finding the truth, ask and you shall receive, just be honest to yourself, no one will watch you, no one will know that you're doing this, only God will see your honest heart and humble spirit, and is right at that moment that faith starts to grow inside of you, it will lead you through the open door, and may God bless you in your new found faith.
you are nuts.
Thank you Jesus...
hey, if being nuts is what it takes, then I am all in, but seriously, there are no infinite words I can say to convince anyone here that God is real, it is up to faith from your individuality, from the honesty of your heart, and sincerity of your thoughts, and humbleness of your spirit is where you can have an encounter with the True Living God. Love you Bro.
What would it take for me to believe in God? Show me some form of evidence that proves that a deity exists.
This is I share with someone in this comments section, and is Just part of evidence, thats if you choose to believe.
[would a miracle in your life will help?, like for (real life) example, a handicap person not being able to walk because a broken spinal cord, and he just happen to hear about one of those crazy talking evangelist coming to town with the gift of healing in Jesus name, and he just happen to be attending the saturday night "healing & miracle crusade" and after the crazy talking evangelist talks all this crazy stuff and at the end He asks if anyone who wants to receive healing come forward, so the man ask his attendant to wheel him to the front in hopes that this Jesus will heal him, in hopes that he may be able to walk again after so many years and probably many years of therapy, that at one point he had lost all hope because the doctors told him that the chances of him walking again were less than 0.0000001%. The evangelist just told Him, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy spirit, be healed, get up and walk again", and the man just did that, he got up and walked again. You should of seen his reaction, thats all I have to say.]
For your example of a miracle, I find it very hard to believe personally.
A vast majority of the 'miracle workers' have been found to be frauds. I suspect those that have not been found to be frauds just have not been caught yet, but that's just my belief.
Now with the crippled man that can now walk, has there been any copies of medical records from before and after released? Because I'm sure his doctors would have gladly performed the tests free of charge to find out how he's walking again. More than likely, he was a plant as someone acting crippled.
why does your god not care to save the children who die from terminal illnesses each day?
which god?
What would it take for me to believe in God? Something more than your good word. And something more than the good word (or fib) of some sect from 3000 years ago, or the fanciful stories of the New Testament. No thanks. I'm not that gullible. But apparently you are.
do the believers in other religions understand how misguided and doomed they are since they don't share in the one true religion that you found?
To believe in him, I'd need evidence. I don't believe in things on faith alone since faith and gullibility are interchangeable.
To worship him? He'd have to prove that he's not the monster in the Bible because that god is truly immoral.
If there's one god, and he's omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, why did it take six days for him to create the universe? Why at the end of each day he had to say it was good? If he's omniscient he should know the end result before starting the creation and wouldn't have to say it was good. He would know that. If he's omnipotent, he should have been able to create the entire universe in one stroke. And if he's all that, he should have created before the first day? Why the delay? Was he lazy? Was he doubtful?
In 32 years of life on Earth, I have had literally thousands of pieces of evidence on why there is no God. Take a guess as to how many points of evidence I've had that shows the possibility of one.
I agree with you on overwhelming evidence supporting evolution, basically bible does not make any sense on the existence of the universe. The only problem with you is that you are an extreme racist who quotes Darwin's few racist remarks. By the way, Africans built using stones in places like Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, before the coming of the Europeans, Darwin could not have figured that because he did not travel all over Africa. Those who built the pyramids(although not very sure whether they were black) moved them on boats in the Nile, there were a university in Timbuktu and writing in Ethiopia, the spears were made of Iron tips. By the way before the invasion of the Romans, the Germanic tribes(the pinkish whites) did not build using blocks, bricks etc.They were considered barbaric by the Romans because they lived in mud hut villages sharing their huts with the animals that they kept, they only used primitive tools just like most of Africa before colonization. It is people like you who make believing in facts of evolution seem bad to the average person.
The God argument will be gone as soon as a scientist can prove there is no afterlife. Sorry, its like shutting off the light and your gone. Hopefully one of you will say something like "if you don't believe it doesn't work" this is real life your not Peterpan trying to fly
I accept things that are proven. Accepting things because they can't be disproven is what children do.
What does the proof or lack thereof of an afterlife have to do with proving God???
What do you mean as soon as someone can disprove God? I can do that right now. An all-knowing being cannot interact in real time with people. It's impossible. Here's why. At the first instant he created the world, an all-knowing being would know everything that was going to happen. He could never change his mind from that point forward (even if he did change his mind, he would have already predicted that he was going to change his mind, so it would not really be a change of mind). He becomes a prisoner of this so-called super power of omniscence. All of a sudden, there is now something he CANNOT DO! He cannot interact with people in real time because he already knew everything they were ever going to do. Sure, he can PRETEND to interact with people, like an actor who knows the whole script. But he can never be surprised, or disappointed, or angry. So we've found something else he CANNOT do: experience emotion. Indeed, this god is like a computer program. It simply sets up the rules at the beginning and therefore does not require any further interaction–EVER. This is what the so-called Hebrew God is–a logical contradiction of properties that could neverreally exist! So there you have it: a god like the one in the bible is a logical impossibility. He CANNOTexist.
And you even dare to call yourself "thinker"!! If you find so trendy to be an atheist (or a non-theist, even more chick) at least you take the time to do some reading on the matter. You know, the Dinkins and stuff.
Your reasoning began to fall apart just in the third sentence. That happens because you don't really make the effort to really understand what other people think or believe before desecrating them. Besides, your notion of logic sucks. Let me try to help you.
Christians and other Abrahamic faiths followers believe that God has gave or conceded free will to humankind. It means than God himself, and because He has the power to do so, decided to let something out of His omnipotent grip: human decision. If so, the future doesn't exists, it is not. Whatever will happen in the future, as long as it is the product cause-effect's relationship, it will be the result of events that are certain (the laws of physics, mathematics, etc., acting on every existing thing) and things completely uncertain, and nonexistent just to the moment -and for the moment- they do exist: human free will based thought and/or decision. If the future does not exist, God doesn't have to know it to be omniscient. Omniscience means knowing everything there is, including what is on record (the past), but not what is not. Capisci?
But, how come God doesn't the future? Aren't him and His PR people (the prophets) making predictions all the time? Well, an omniscient being could do very good predictions indeed. He would have all the data and the applicable formula or methods to know what will happen, just as statistics experts do, but with infinitely more precision. If, in addition, that being is omnipotent, He can predict about things that will happen, not because of knowledge, but because of an unavoidable decision: His. (That's the way, for example, how high rank US officials predict that some small country government will fall: because they already decided to make it fall, and have a stick big enough to make it happen).
So, the Abrahamic God can interact with men in real time, because that is the only time there is, the only He created. The past ceased to exist; future has not begun to exist.
If you think that all you need to prove that God does not exist is sloppy logic, you could have spare us all your waffle. All you had to say was: can God create circles with corners? He can't, so He doesn't exist. See? So, next time know, please, that your logic stinks, and at least make it short.
So god is bound by time, not knowing the outcome of a human decision until it's made? I don't think many of your theist friends will agree with you...
I listened to a lecture on explaining the Higgs Bonson and what it meant, and he hinted that the discovery of it actually helped prove that there was no soul since it was the tiniest thing that played any direct role on us.
He explained it a whole lot better than that obviously, but I thought it was interesting.
They dug up Thugvon Martin's head?
Congrats on winning today's Biggest Dumbass award. There's been a lot of competition.
I don't think that's StayGone's cranium, didn't StayGone have the infamous n1gger gap tooth syndrome?
I have a hypothesis, that when the king James version of the bible was written, there was no proof of our evolutionary ancestors to be included in the beginning of Genesis.
I do not know who was the first author of the KJV, which today, is one of the most widely read and understood books of its time. But if the author was told to write the genesis chapter, or did so on his own account, I would not be surprised even if there was ancestral evidence of linking man to more primitive species, such as this one, that he would had to....or there would be shock among the priest, and King James that man had evolved from ape like creatures.General population was not allowed to own a bible at the time and only priest and kings would own and read from it. Perhaps they had something to hide from its truth? It is possible the author could have been imprisoned for such blasphemy. I think at the time, for what the author of the Genesis chapter wrote, what was he knew, what vision he experienced, that it would have been Acceptable to the church and the people at the time. I am both a lover of Science, and Religion and attend every Sunday.
You don't know what science is. Nobody cares about your hypothesis; save it for your church, god-boy...
The KJV was not written, it was translated (and probably altered somewhat). But we do have copies of what it was translated from. We also have the Dead Sea scrolls (or at least some of the surviving ones) which the copiers of the KJV didn't have available to them.
There is no conspiracy.
wow, delusional
I have a question for all the religious nuts...i mean...people out there. What color were Adam and Eve? Were they white? If they were, who created asian people? or black people? Or Native Indian people? Did they all have their own Adam and Eves as well? Or did Adam and Eve's offsprings migrate outside Adam and Eve land, and their bodies changed over time to adapt to their environment? Please shed some light on this for us crazy evolution believers.
There bodies could not change over time. That would be evolution, and evolution does not exist. At least according to Christianity. I think the religious-nut explanation is that after the tower of Babel, god got decided to make it so people couldn't communicate with each other by mixing their tongues (nice guy that he was), and this somehow involved changing their features too. You gotta hand it to him–at least he was kind enough to indicate visually which people a person could no longer speak to (by their different-colored skin). A god who REALLY wanted to confuse people would have left everyone looking the same but still changed their language.
And why, you may ask, did god feel it necessary to take such drastic action? Well, because man was building a stairway to heaven via the Tower of Babel. With each passing day, man was edging upward toward heaven. God had to do something, didn't he? I mean, he couldn't just let gravity and the physical impossibility of building a tower that extended into space operate as foils in themselves. He couldn't just wait for the tower to collapse under its own weight and kill a bunch of people. And he couldn't just wait for the builders to discover that there was no physical place called heaven up in the sky, that it was really just air and clouds. He had to take some action!
On the other hand, it could all just be a silly story told by ancient men who did not even understand that rain comes from clouds, that there is no physical world up in the sky, and that the earth is actually just a tiny ball in a massive universe.
I can't speak about who the author was of all the Old Testament books. I was told that they are works found written on papyrus scrolls and clay tablets that were translated into old English from the original Hebrew script. There are many other finds by archaeologists. Many are being attempted to be translated. One person offering theories on recent finds with partial translations has written a series of books called the Earth Chronicles. Others have there own theories.
They didn't have any originals to copy from.
Hell the oldest NT writing they have is a section of a page and the only complete word on that entire section is the word and (it may have been the oldest OT writing, I forget).
But the dead sea scrolls, which are copies of copies of copies of copies of copies are far older than the scrolls that the KJV were copied from, and when they were translating to the KJV they didn't have the dead sea scrolls to copy from.
Well, KLV was translated from the Latin Vulgate, itself a translation from Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic..not to mention ancient Syriac and Coptic. Higher Biblical criticism..Linguistics, Historical and textual criticism, Archeology, Anthropology and comparative Religions. The tools used by Eastern orthodox, Catholics, Mainstream (historic) Protestants, and the majority of evangelical Theological Seminaries. Fundamentalism is the minority position. largely a reaction against modernity.
Should read "KJV" not "KLV". Apologies.
I can't wait for the day when an article such as this one can be posted and we can just stay on subject without debating the existence of God.
Doubt I'll see it in my lifetime though.
Only when people stop brain washing young minds with religion, will that happen. aka never
I enjoy how these guys will find a bone fragment, I'm talking just a small piece and low and behold they will create a whole freaking skelton off that one small piece. There was a story once how they found this "missing link" back in the early 90's. The paleontologist reconstructed this missing ape man off this tooth and part of a lower jaw. years later it was determined to be an ancient pig. Point to the story. don't believe all the mumbo jumbo some of these guys come up with especially when its just bone fragments. It is all theory keep in mind
Gravity is technically a theory....
So is "Germ theory". This guy is an idiot.
Theory? It would seem you have NO clue as to how the term theory is used in science. You just dropped you pants in front of the science class and we are ALL laughing.
A scientific theory is completely different from the use of theory in the common language. For a scientific idea to become a theory it must explain all the evidence and be contradicted by none. It should also make predictions about new findings which eventually occur and continue to support the theory.
In other words, the theory of evolution explains what we currently know about species past and present on this planet, is not contradicted by anything we know, and continues to predict new findings with amazing accuracy.
There are small parts of evolutionary biology that are still being refined, but no one who isn't brainwashed by religion would say that it is "just a theory."
Evolution is both a theory and a fact.
Now do you know what a theory is? A theory has been tested, retested, and then tested some more. And it is still being tested to this day. But as far as evolution goes, it is a fact, its been observed both in natural and laboratory experiments.
These studies are based upon a nearly complete skeleton, not just a fragment. At least that is what it said in the article I read. Even then, I don't really know what you are upset about. Are you upset that some humans use their brain to try to reconstruct the past. Would you be happies if they watched television instead?
If the skeleton of A.sediba is more complete than the famous Australopthecine "Lucy", then we are talking about considerably more than a "fragment". We are talking about a skeleton that has complete lower limbs, complete torso, skull, and more. "Lucy" also had a complete upper limb and hand. This is way more than enough material to analyze gait, stride, muscle insertion, dexterity, etc. The garbled tale you tried to relate sounds like the story of so-called "Piltdown Man". You left out one very important detail of that story – namely that it was a deliberate fraud perpetrated around the turn of the 19th-20th century. The jaw was from an orangutan and the teeth were filed down. It has never been absolutely determined which of the two men who presented this so-called fossil to the Royal Society was responsible for the fraud. Deliberate fraud is VERY different from genuine mistakes. At the time of this fraud, most scientists were convinced that modern man must have evolved in Europe. In retrospect, it is clear they were operating from an absolute belief in the superiority of white western humans over other "races" (I say that as a direct descendant of white europeans). They simply could not believe that man evolved in Africa, because they believed that people of color were biologically inferior. So the finding of a fossil in the English countryside validated those beliefs. But the first real scientific investigation of the fossil rapidly uncovered the fraud – it just didn't happen for something like fifty years! The irony is that the skull of the so-called "Taung child" was found in South Africa just a few years later, clearly demonstrating the presence of early hominids in Africa, but the find was ignored for more than twenty years BECAUSE of the "Piltdown Man" forgery. At no time since the discovery of the Piltdown forgery have "whole skeletons" been reconstructed based on single fragments of bone. However, if an anatomist is experienced enough, one does NOT need an entire skeleton to project the existence of certain structures based on the size and conformation of the existing bone, whether it is entirely complete or not. It's kind of like having a missing piece in a puzzle. If you have enough of the surrounding pieces you can reliably project the size and conformation of the missing piece.
Thank you. I enjoyed reading that.
A true scientific theory is an explanation for observed events in nature and the universe supported by vast amounts of research and data. Something that's based off of observations but prone to errors and are often dismissed is called a hypothesis.
Not true. An Anthropologist could or would only reconstruct the bone that the piece was from . If they have enough fragments to construct a partial skeleton then they can extrapolate using comparative anatomy skills to get an "idea" of what a completed skeleton or skull might look like but only after key physiological questions were answered like the hip bone, limb bones and how the spinal column entered the skull. Nobody credible would take a few bits of bone and create a whole skeleton around it.
You accept that a god speaks to you, perhaps by story (which you call scripture), perhaps by errant thoughts (you will say that a god is talking to you), or perhaps by the testimony of others whose report matches your beliefs closely enough. Imagine then, that a god is speaking to you by whatever route you accept, right now. Can this god say anything, and be believed?
For instance, if god were to say that 2+2=5, and you knew it to be god, would you believe it?
And if god were to have people rounded up and tortured in a special place, would you still love it?
If so, do you dare call yourself a person?
Oh my God.......they finally found my mother in law!
God promises a New Heaven and a New Earth (and the literal removal/dissolving of this Earth). When man dies, he returns to dust which is a biblical and scientific fact. The false doctrine of 'dualism' or the idea of 'departed spirits' has created much confusion within the church. We die, we sleep and wait to be resurrected, and then judged – in a new resurrected body. This applies to everyone including Adam.
Christ died a physical death and rose physically. If He did not go through with the Fathers plan (and yes, it was before ordained for Christ to die), then mankind would never live again. You don't hear this from 'preachers' due to the false dualism theology, and even the bible clearly says that Christ alone has guaranteed immortality.
So my point is yes, God speaks to us through His Word, and yes He will "gather the nations" (after the resurrections) and yes there will be a separation for a certain period of time. Those who are "cast into hell" are separated from the blessings of God, prepared in His Kingdom (not of this world and the 'old hell' was a valley outside Jerusalem). They are alive and have a body. They are not "tortured" as many Christians believe thus making God out to be an Ogre, but will receive wrath (Sodom and Gomorrah is an example).
Yet even though judgment, separation and wrath are biblical and true, nothing can separate us from the love of God and Jesus also said "behold, the last will be first and the first will be last" and that He has "power over all flesh". Read the end of the Bible, because the Gospel of the Kingdom is good news.
What the ding dongs are you rambling on about?
So your god was powerless to forgive people for their sins unless he sacrificed himself to himself (a blood sacrifice, very Aztec like).
Let me ask you a question, if someone steps on your toe and apologizes, do you need to punch him in the nose to attone for stepping on your toe? An all powerful god should be able to forgive without a blood sacrifice, especially if those crimes are minor. And if you do believe in a god that equates a thought crime, or a white lie to murder, then your god is extremely immoral.
I can't wait for the day (won't be in my lifetime), that the world is finally done with religion and people like you, and we can focus on the advancement of the human race. Ughhh...I long for those days.
Your mumbo jumbo is typical of someone who's high.
Another fundaMENTAList charlatan claims to have interpreted the entire Babble accurately, while all of the other fundaMENTALists, whether they be a J ew, Christian, or Mu slim, are absolutely wrong. How typical!
I wish that we were all so enlightened as you. Then, perhaps we could come to the realization that we don't need lightbulbs anymore...because he have torches. :/
I do not believe that this generation will live to see religion eradicated from people's minds and from the planet, but I truly envy the people who are walking Earth when poisonous religious ideology and dogma have been eradicated completely. Then, the human species' progression can truly commence.
mere human thinking, it will take more than critical thinking, cognitive research or emotional reaction to have faith in God, actually is pretty simple, right there where you are or before you go to sleep, if you really wants to hear Gods voice, he will speak to your heart not your ear, just ask with a genuine heart, with a humble spirit, that all you are looking for is the truth and nothing but the truth. You, don't have to be fancy in your thinking, ask from the heart, be humble, God only judges what's in your heart, and if your questioning is honest, God will honor it, make sure that everything you ask, ask in the name of Jesus. -Amen.
I tried and nothing happened...? Then I realized I was trying to telepathically communicate with an invisible man in the sky by using my brainwaves and felt......foolish.
I spent a huge amount of my life as a devout Christian, never questioning the word, accepting it for what it was. Sorry, god doesn't speak to you.
Of course you'll simply say I just wasn't trying hard enough, or didn't truly believe. But of course I believed strongly, and I wanted to hear from him, but it never happened.
would a miracle in your life will help?, like for (real life) example, a handicap person not being able to walk because a broken spinal cord, and he just happen to hear about one of those crazy talking evangelist coming to town with the gift of healing in Jesus name, and he just happen to be attending the saturday night "healing & miracle crusade" and after the crazy talking evangelist talks all this crazy stuff and at the end He asks if anyone who wants to receive healing come forward, so the man ask his attendant to wheel him to the front in hopes that this Jesus will heal him, in hopes that he may be able to walk again after so many years and probably many years of therapy, that at one point he had lost all hope because the doctors told him that the chances of him walking again were less than 0.0000001%. The evangelist just told Him, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy spirit, be healed, get up and walk again", and the man just did that, he got up and walked again. You should of seen his reaction, thats all I have to say.
Do you have any evidence that the man was crippled and not a plant by the evangelist, since many of the faith healers are known for doing such a thing.
Extraordinary claims, require more evidence than a simple story.
Thanks, momo. You are so right.
Markus, you and I and the creationists can all benefit from focusing on our sense of humor. It's fine to have fun with our speculations and opinions but there's no point in taking them too seriously since it's obvious that God and the Cosmos do not. (I got this tip from the statue of Buddha that sits on my nightstand and sends me off to peaceful sleep singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus".) Keep smilin', neighbor!
Perhaps yours, not mine. I was created in the image of God.
Which god?
Don't ask pertinent questions, images of god have NO IDEA what you are talking about. They are too busy grovel lying in front of a graven image.
Molded by god over 10s of thousands of years.
I guess god made a funny
So god is an overweight red neck from the U.S.?
You're a feathery serpent?
Human ancestry has its roots in Mesopotamia where Noah's descendants built their empires (e.g. Babylonian, Assyrian, etc.). This is a historical and scientific fact and their remains are indeed massive. There are no remains of ancient civilizations prior to these – none whatsoever. The genealogy of the nations of Earth is detailed in Genesis chapter 10.
It's also an interesting fact that Earth is covered with thick layers of sedimentary rock that were laid down in an aqueous environment coupled with massive volcanism, which are now 'cured' and contracted. Hence, the world was indeed flooded. Not only was it flooded, it was literally 'overturned' as can be verified by careful scientific observation. This 'overturning' is also mentioned in the Bible (in several places actually) and is attributed to the Great Flood. Earth, as we know it, is indeed a geological wreck, and no self-respecting scientist can refute this fact.
'Dinosaurs' are found buried in volcanic material. This fact too points to a catastrophic event beyond what modern man has ever witnessed, and not to 'millions' of years of evolution.
Given these important scientific observations, one can conclude that the Genesis account is accurate, and evolution is false on all accounts.
"Ever notice that people who don't believe in evolution look very involved? 'I believe god created me in one day'- looks like he rushed it!" – Bill Hicks
The sedimentary rock from an aqueous environment does not mean that water was that high, it means the sediment was below normal seal level at one time and was then thrust higher up over time (through geologic activity). In other words: the water wasn't that high, the land was that low. Moron.
Go back to school Buck, all you did was repeat tired old creationists crap.
The "isolated shinbone from another adult" likely belonged to Adam and was tossed after god's umpteenth failed attempt to create a decent woman. All the funny-looking hominids that those pesky scientists keep digging up are obvious evidence of his amateurish experiments.
False equivalence.
Buck, please please please tell me the story about the talking snake!
So what about the Inuits, the Aborigines, and everybody else who lived in places not connected to Afro-Eurasia by land? Or do you just prefer to not think about it since if you just used your head a little, even you would realize that the Biblical account of human history is complete BS?
Actually Buck, you are wrong on pretty much all cases.
There is no evidence of a great flood, and all of the evidence that has been found has been greatly contested and disproven.
How did they fit all of the animals on the ark? There wasn't enough room for them.
How did the fish survive?
How did the plans survive?
How did the carnivores survive shortly after the flood
Noah putting 2 of every animal on the ark has always perplexed me. If any species dwindled down to 2 individuals there would be such a genetic bottle neck and intense inbreeding the animals would likely cease to exist. Additionally genetic testing shows such genetic diversity among species that it would be impossible for a flood wiping out entire species save for 2 individuals. Plus with the diversity of animals and plants across the planet there is no feasible way for Noah to have actually acquired 2 of each.
I posted a reply to this which contained ABSOLUTELY nothing offensive, and it has disappeared. So I'll try again. There is AMPLE evidence of civilizations older than the Mesopotamian civilizations you cite. The oldest elements of the Egyptian culture, for instance, predate Mesopotamian civilizations of Babylon ans Assyria by more than a thousand years. The Saharan cultures that predated the Egyptians and evolved into them are many thousands of years older than that. Ruins on Malta date back to 6000 BCE, More than three thousand years older than Babylon. Gobekli Tepe has massive ruins in stone of a previously unknown civilization dating back to around 10,000 BCE. Evidences of civilizations in middle Europe date back at least as far as 4-5000 years BCE. So your claims of NO existing civilizations prior to the rise of Mesopotamian cultures in the area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is simply wrong. Dinosaurs have been accurately dated back to 200 million years ago at least, and thousands of fossils of living organisms date back hundreds of millions of years before that. The oldest dated rock formations on earth are from the Acasta Gneiss formation in the Northwest Territory of Canada and date back to between 3.8-4.03 BILLION years. So your bible and you are scientifically WRONG.
I had a few posts vanish too, so its not just you.
But very well said. Plus at least if you take the Bible literally, the great pyramids were built not too long after the flood (and the ones standing prior to the flood were undamaged) so there was no way to build up a large enough population in such a short time, especially with such inbreeding.
Then of course, the flood wouldn't have preserved many footprints found in the strata, which also shows no flood.
In the Academic world-the Theological Seminaries and University Departments of Religious studies a deeper, richer appreciation of Genesis is conveyed by a non-literal understanding using the tools of Biblical criticism. As mythic allegory it speaks to the full dimension of the human condition. I refer you to the work of the comparative mythologist and Religious scholar Joseph Campbell..for a start.
The God given, Holy Bible clearly states that we were created from the dust, after God made the Heavens and Earth in the space of 5 days... And women were created from the rib of man. It is all in there.. what is so hard to believe is all this fantastic theory about us being related to dung beetles..
Only kidding, you have to be a moron to believe that bible stuff.
Tres bien.
christians need to grow up.. accept reality.
That's right. we need to grow up and start believing that every type of living thing on earth evolved from one single type of organism. LOL
Yes, you can believe in evolution, or believe in the talking snake. Whichever makes more sense. I know which one you'll pick.
"Churchill argues that Australopithecus sediba is an ancestor of, or at least a sister species to, the direct lineage of humans. But paleontologists who believe this are in the minority"
This self-disclosed controversy shows in high contrast a key difference between science and religion:
In science, facts are argued, hypotheses are formed, more facts are found to test the hypotheses, repeat until there is consensus. While the discoverer may be biased, many other scientists won't be and will be skeptical.
In religion, dogma is proclaimed, no questioning, follow dogma.
Don't forget, while no one can dis-prove god created man, most would agree that man created religion.
lol H omo erectus
uhuhuhuhuhuh he said "erectus" uhuhuhuhuhuh
Fascinating anthropology! What is just as interesting is the (much more recent) evolution of our intelligence—or at least of our understanding. Statistics say that half this country still believes in the six day Creation. Posters hereon are case in point. Fascinating!
Evolution, like NASA's outlandish claims, is fake....
Are you from the Ozarks by chance?
I belong to the NG exercise of the haplo group. They decide which group your ancester's started in. Mine, 65,000 years ago . My group as everyone else's started in Africa. Really, there were dinosaurs before humankind. No one set the bones in he ground nor did any anthropologist bother to this to prove their point.
There is A, Eve B, Adam named by he scientists who found them and believe they are the first of our kind.
Christ existed , he was a carpenter, rabbi and a good man. he was transfered for Money and not because of who he was thought to be. Barabus owed money to everyone, gambling debt and bar tabs, women he wanted, which meant pay. he owed everyone.
tac time was due and the Romans would kill mosre than not if you did not have taxes set in hand. Most were slaves.
They chose the man they needed to pay them back.
jews did not kill jesus , who they called the Messiah, but the Romans did.According to records the man Jesus of Nazareth did exist. he never proclaimed to be God and he never said his mother was a virgin. It or that was proclaimed 75 years later by Luke.
All of these people real and very human. Science is complex and so the argument is moot.I am not attempting to convince anyone to change thought nor beliefs. I am simply giving anthropology facts and science.
I still believe in a higher power however.
also know both books were written by men and the catholic church took out many or much of the history.
The earth is old and and we are as old as the world after the frost thawed.
Evolution has been observed in the laboratory, and we've seen new species evolve.
Evolution is fact. Only people trying to cling onto the last remenents of the literal translation of the Bible even though the literal translation is contradictory therefore can't be true.
Thats Gary BABA BOOEY Dell'abate's uncle!
Get it right people.
Man created god in his own image
So god's some organic goop?
Knowing humans, we saw this other species that were 'sort of' like people and we wiped them out.
Still looking for that missing link huh? We can find all these old bones that are supposed to be older than us but we can't find any shred of proof at all that we even evolved at all from these animals. There is no missing link or any DNA evidence ANYWHERE. We are actually biologically closer to pigs than monkeys which is quite ironic given our selfish nature and greed. You don't have to believe me but look it up for yourself, we are all being taught lies.. It's all part of the plan, the big plan to deceive you and make you not believe in God. It's your choice not to believe in God but it's also your choice not to believe everything these scientists tell you either. Can you prove what they say is true??
Please be trolling.
I am a certified genius and all I can tell you is that I do not know.
I agree with you on the part that the missing link has not been found and many scientists now believe that the so called missing link may never be found. Hmmm, I wonder what that means?
Genetically closer to pigs than monkeys?
First of all, which species of monkeys (there are more than 250 known species of monkeys – or didn't you know that)?
Second, it doesn't matter because humans and "monkeys" (all species) are genetic twins compared to humans and pigs.
You can spew your religious dogma all you want, as much as you want, but it doesn't make any of it remotely accurate. Now go back to your fairy tales of bearded sky men and let us adults talk seriously.
Are you trolling for attention?
Sure, sure, you are right and everyone else is wrong.
It is certain that we have physically evolved...but, as is evident from "C's" above statement, we most certainly have not intellectually evolved.
There are somewhere near 3 Billion lines of DNA in humans and Gorillas and Chimpanzee's match 99% of those lines. Our base pairs and chromozones match 98%
Humans and pigs have almost identical digestive systems and that is where the closeness ends Pigs are mammals and Humans are mammals that's about as close as they get. Please put save your Sky man stories for brain washing your kids to be the next wave of idiots for the planet to deal with.
You really think that there is some kind of world wide conspiracy amongst scientists over the past 150 or so years to trick people into not believing in god by putting forth the theory of evolution?
Also you can prove what they say is true. Scientists publish their results so that others can recreate their experiments to determine if the results are valid.
C – I'm very sorry for you and you inability to simply connect the dots and look at the evidence and reach a logical conclusion. But just to refresh:
You claim that there is no evidence of evolution. Neandertal DNA is very similar to ours, and chimpanzee's, our closes cousin, from a different branch of our family tree, share 99% and change of our DNA.
There is a linear timeline of fossil evidence showing the many different types of Homin species, with several or many existing at the same time, but all just a bit better, and different than the prervioous model.
Regarding pigs and humans vs. chimps, from wikipedia:
Humans and chimpanzees share a much more recent common ancestor than humans and pigs. This results in humans sharing more of their genome with chimps than they do with pigs.
Even though a human's genetic code is more like a chimp's than it is like a pig's, all eukaryotic organisms share a significant amount of genetic code, vertebrates share even more, and mammals share even more than that; a human's DNA more closely resembles a pig's than it does a lizard's, and it more closely resembles a lizard's than it does a bacterium's.
I hope this helps, but doubt that it will, as you seem locked into the Bible theory, and that is your right of course, but no one will take you seriosly,
There is and enough to make it all absolutely who our ancesters were.anthropologists get excited when a new find is found and and gain nothing b lying ,except their careers
What? We are closer genetically to APES than we are to pigs or monkeys. Get that right. As for the rest of your nonsense please, next flu season DON'T get a shot because all flu vaccines are based on the fact that the flu virus evolves every year. In fact don't go to any doctor at all because all of their training is based on evolutionary biology and all the medical research is done on animals close to our DNA – again, evolution. Please stay just as ignorant as you are.
I find it funny how god lovers rely on so much proof or mock the lack of proof they claim does not exist for evolution, but they then in turn praise something that has ZERO proof of existence. lol! Before you ask for proof that evolution is real, present us with solid proof that there is a god, and NO, the bible will not be accepted as proof. Yah, you just got intellectually owned. Better luck next time troll.
Everyone talks about a common ancestor, but no one has seen a common ancestor. Either put up or shut up.
A common ancestor between which species?
If you mean between humans and the rest of the extant primates, the only ones still talking about a "common ancestor" are religious types who seek to "prove" by any fallacious means possible that evolutionary biology is bunk, and their religion, based solely on stories written by faceless men long ago, is true.
Time for you to shut up since you will never be able to put up.
I think you should read the article. I have not once mentioned religion.
There's not a shred of evidence that any of that Biblical stuff ever happened yet you choose to believe that nonsense. Why? At least with science they are continuously filling in the blanks – with the Bible the preachers just ask you to have faith to believe what you know can't be true.
I've seen hundreds of common ancestors. Think about it.
BTW, any referance to linking modern day man in the time when the bible was written, vs ancient ancestors of millions of years ago, would have caused the writter to be burned at the stake or imprisoned.
All my ancestors were common, I come from an undistinguished family : (
hey religionist,, your jesus evolved.. why don't you
Evolved from what?
religionist are having difficulty with reality..
Where oh where did it all begin. What is life? Why is life so rare? As far as we currently know life does not exist anywhere else. All I have is why.
Abiogenesis, while the theory isn't perfect it is holding up to scrutiny.
Why is it rare? Because the known universe is really harsh and mostly not suited for life. In other areas that are suited for life, I'm betting there is life. Right now though, we don't have the technology to find those areas very easily.
Life isn't "rare". There are 7 billion people in the world and that's just ONE species. How is that rare? UFOs are constantly visiting Bible thumpers in Iowa and doing anal probes so why would you say there isn't life on another planet?
probably a religionist claiming they never evolved. I think we can all agree with that. Wish they would one day.
Scientist: "I found a bone. It's from an upright walking ape, he was left handed, ate with a napkin on his lap, parted his hair on the left side, and his name was Bob."
Michael : "I'm ignorant of how you can use bones to build a skeleton and instead of educating myself, I'm attacking people who study this stuff for a living (and for life) by building a straw man from my ignorance."
agreed.. Michael is an insult to human intelligence.
It couldn't be Bob. I knew Bob and he wasn't there.
Hey, that was my great grand daughter
The opposite of that is: "I'm a Christian, I believe in virgin birth, resurrection after 3 days in the grave and surviving being eaten by a whale". All of that without a single shred of evidence. I'll stick with looking at bones, rocks, and DNA with peer review over being told whats in the Bible by a "doctor" of theology.
For those who still don't get it...
Nobody is saying we evolved from apes! Apes and Man evolved from a similiar ancestor. Just like you did not evolve from a cousin, but you share a grand-parent. It's really not that hard to get.
Unless of course you're from West Virginia, where your cousin is your grandparent.
Or some parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennesee, Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas......I see a pattern here.
Hey tom, where are you from? I hope you are not reproducing and passing your ignorance to your idiot kids.
While you're right that humans and modern "apes" (colloquial definition) share a common ancestor, that ancestor would also have been an ape, so technically we are apes and evolved from apes (much in the same way that we're still mammals). I do understand however the need to make this distinction to creationists who think the existence of chimpanzees somehow disproves evolution.
Okay okay, apes no good... Perhaps chimps? They are cuter....
The findings are amazing and filling many of the remaining holes in our understanding of our evolution. Yet I have a serious question that I have not seen addressed anywhere...
If you look at our hands, we have webbing between our fingers. We have a layer of fat under our skin. There are many adaptations to an aquatic environment in our anatomy.
If we lives along the Tethes Sea and ate fish and other foods from the ocean... If you watch a chilld in the surf, they leap over the waves, even if they can hardly stand upright, this is where we might have learned the standing behavior. This could have led to the change in our diet.
I know that this location is buried under many feet of water today. But if this is where our major evolution occured, then the findings that are being looked at now is in the fringes...
Has there been any studies in this area?
the aquatic ape hypothesis. you must be familiar with this based on your comment.....
not really in vogue.
Actually, it's spelled "Tethys" not tethes. Also, the Tethys sea was completely closed up prior to the end of the Miocene – at least 15 million years before present. The earliest Hominins are known from around 5 million years ago. Accordingly, there was a gap of approximately 10 million years between the disappearance of Tethys and the emergence of the earliest Hominins, which is far too much time for there to be any evolutionary cause/effect connection between them.
search for the book "The Descent of Woman"
it explores the possibility of an aquatic stage in our developement
That "ancient humanlike" being sounds like my mother-in-law! Especially the a_pe-like brain.
I now believe we did evolve from apes 'n monkeys because like chimps, scientists like to sling their dung on others....
Those other scientist will study the dung to determine the diet and flora residing in the gut of the dung flinging scientist. Their findings will be posted and other scientist will pick over the evidence and methods of the researchers to see if their findings hold up to scrutiny.
Perhaps this is where the mysterious Rh Negative comesfrom... since no one can explain THAT yet, either...
Actually there's a pretty good explanation for the Rh (-) population, from like 5 years ago. Turns out that the Rh negative polymorphism protects against the parasitic protist Toxoplasma gondii giving an advantage.
Source: Parasitology http://web.natur.cuni.cz/flegr/pdf/rh.pdf
I think there was also a study from the RhoGAM patent that said that there is a resistance to HIV/Aids for those who are Rh (-), but neither this article or the one you attached about resistance to Toxoplasma gondii states where or how blood was able to mutate into something that genetically does not match those of "ape" ancestors. I just find it a very interesting topic that will always be debatable...
Genetic mutations happen all of the time. I would be willing to bet that you have mutations in you that neither your father nor your mother have (very few, but I bet there's at least one).
And Bob's my uncle!
Sometimes I can't believe the audacity of humans to think that they are so special they couldn't have evolved from lesser creatures. To think that you are so special that you must have been made by a super being overlord reeks of bald self aggrandizement.
We are one among many creatures that live on this planet and yet out of all the life forms here humans are the ones that are slowly destroying it all, and yet you think you're special.
Gods are for weak minded people who can't accept one life, one chance. I actually feel bad for some of them, their parents brain washed them so well starting so young, they never had a chance.
What they don't tell you is there is not enough time for a missing link to have evolved between humans and apes. It would have taken a time warp of evolution to close the gap in years. The gap in time is to small for a link to have morphed into humans. Why is there such a desire to link humans to Apes. If you don't believe in God, then maybe you would believe that another race from space came here and planted the human race, or genatically altered apes. Both are more logical base on the achelogical record than evolving from apes. You can't put a square peg in a round hole.
Its not like there were apes, then suddenly, humans. There is a difference between saying we evolved from apes and saying that humans and modern age apes have a common ancestor. Also, if you're so sure that the gap isn't big enough to fit a missing link, then post your sources, otherwise its just mindless rambling.
There is no gap, because no one (actual scientists that is) is saying that we evolved from apes. We didn't. Apes and humans share common ancestors.
and where is this common ancestor?
buried under the ground somewhere waiting to be discovered.
The common ancestor is dead. Its an ancestor.
Franco, become an archaeologist, and start digging until you reach soil that's around 20 million years old... you make it sound like searching for the common ancestor is like going to the grocery store. Science takes time, and we have all the time in the world. I'm in no rush to get answers, and don't need fairy tales to fill the gaps until I do. Stop being an idiot. We can tell from haplogroups and DNA that there was a common ancestor, we can see the branching off of haplogroups to others.
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Now shake dem skeleton bones!
The toe bone's connected to the foot bone,
The foot bone's connected to the ankle bone,
The ankle bone's connected to the leg bone,
Now shake dem skeleton bones!
The leg bone's connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone's connected to the hip bone,
Now shake dem skeleton bones!
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Now shake dem skeleton bones!
The hip bone's connected to the back bone
The back bone's connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone's connected to the head bone,
Now shake dem skeleton bones!
The finger bone's connected to the hand bone,
The hand bone's connected to the arm bone,
The arm bone's connected to the shoulder bone,
Now shake dem skeleton bones!
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around
Now shake dem skeleton bones!
The skeleton in the middle was actually found in a dumpster behind the Piggly-Wiggly. Anthropologists have confirmed that it is a distant relative of the Southern Tea Party Patriot, known to have lived south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Looks more like Obama.
No it doesn't. Not at all.
...looks more evolved than Obama
Isn't that how they think bigfoot walks? Anyone seen that Bigfoot hunter show? I'm not saying bigfoot is real. But they did do a pretty good reconstruction of the walking pattern.
Gigantopithecus is often cited as being bigfoot
That's the one.
also known as Shaq-acus Hacqacus
Bigfoot is real... someday, unfortunately, they will prove it, and then they will be screwed.
Illustrations like the one CNN is showing is WHY people don't properly understand the theory of evolution. Australopithecus was not some "middle ground" between humans and chimps. That's not how it worked.
Humans and chimps had a COMMON ANCESTOR. Australopithecus is one of many branches along the way that also shared a common ancestor with humans and modern chimps.
Chimps did not "turn into" humans. Long ago, there were no humans, and there were no chimps as we know them now. There was a species that was similar that ultimately branched out and became the two separate species that we are familiar with today.
I 100% agree with you. I always cringe when I hear someone ask me "Well why aren't chimps still evolving into humans then?"
I just want to shake them as hard as possible while screaming "Go read a book! That's not how it works!"
That may be correct but that's not how they are displaying it here. they have the skeleton between them to demonstrate a missing link.
That is the beauty of holding the position that no missing link has been found. Every time a new fossil is found you can complain about there being two new missing links to find.
Indeed. In actuality the non-fundamentalist Churches i.e. Catholics, orthodox, Mainline Protestants, and about 40% of evangelicals have no problem with either modern science or with Genesis. Best understood as mythic allegory illustrating certain truths about the human condition. Never intended to be taken as factual description of events in the scientific sense. A concept that didn't even exist in the ancient middle east.
This critter might have been one of our remote ancestors' terrible mistake when he wandered into the wrong cave after eating red and white mushrooms and found himself doing it with a pithecanthropus or a cynocephalus. It might have been forced to wear a big red A on its hairy chest and forced to live in a cave by itself because of its spike heels and oversized glutes. Maybe it slunk out by night to hang on a lamp post and wink at Neanderthal men? It is a tragedy of primitive proportions.
lol.. I really needed that. Pwahahahaha.
Please understand, you do not share a common ancestor with an ape.
You were created in the image of God, specifically and purposefully. You are precious to God. You are not the product of random chance.
You will stand before God and answer for the life you have lived. No amount of scientific "theories" will change this, nor wash away sin.
Today is the day of salvation. Repent and forsake your sins and turn to Jesus Christ, while there is yet time!
Yes... the cloud of noodles will save us all.
Can you point me to the transitional fossil showing the short necked Giraffe? Thank you.
The okapi is a short necked relative of the Giraffe.
Island, might as well post the ones for the whale too since that's what he's going to ask next.
Please understand, you share a common ancestor with an ape.
I choose to believe you were created in the image of God, specifically and purposefully. You are precious to my God. You may be the product of random chance.
I believe you will stand before God and answer for the life you have lived. No amount of scientific "theories" will change this, in my opinion.
Today is the day of smoothies. Repent and forsake your sins and turn to Jesus Christ, if you choose to do so.
The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!
So you where there to see god making the humans?
And you were there when things went BANG?
Now having said that, who are you taking to the tractor pull this weekend? Your sister or your cousin?
Created in the image of God? Then they would be invisible.
You could believe God created out universe without ignoring the stuff science brings to light. Its more of a sin (insult) to believe that God, the creator, crafted the universe and us with magic than to believe that the laws of physics are Gods most elegant work which make it all possible. By studying science, we learn more and more of the true language of God. Instead, stupid people like you who think a book written almost 2000 years old has not been mistranslated or modified by humans.
I just wanted to say thank you for wording your comment like you did. I also am a firm believer that the things scientists have discovered, actually prove the Bible correct. Our God is an Infinite God! We can't understand Him fully, as our minds are Finite.
Rob: The book has been mistranslated by humans.
And with every new discovery, the role of god in the universe shrinks because we find that your god is no longer relevant or needed.
Then please explain T-Rex !!
No thanks.
"Please understand, you do not share a common ancestor with an ape." Please understand: God doesn't have a belly-button and fingers on His feet. I doubt that He is physical in any way, especially in the way Mormons claim He put Jesus in Mary. If we were created in His image, it is our minds and hearts that mirror a transcendent being, not our big hairy fannies and lint-filled navels. Somewhere in Africa, long ago, an apelike little creature faced a leopard with nothing but a club made from a bone, and he won that fight; his mate wasn't killed there by a leopard, and they had children and taught them how to use tools to fight and win. Do you imagine God wasn't there? Why did one little creature see the bone as his salvation when all the other went down scrabbling? I know some pretty ugly people who are filled with joy and life, so don't be so quick to judge this little hairy man.
Does God have a belly button?
Your god says this
Science, and all available evidence show otherwise. So I'm going to go with the actual scientific method, science, and the data rather than a book that has been written, rewritten, and translated a ton of different times and is scientifically inaccurate in many ways.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep on devoting your entire life to that invisible man in the sky, or alien, or flying spaghetti monster.
Human V1.0
The first sentence of this article starts off with: "If you could time travel to 2 million years ago in South Africa..."
...we would all be in God's mind, as He hadn't created anything as of yet at that moment in time. He was thinking about it though.
False, the flying spaghetti monster created purple flying hippos roughly 3 million years ago. He then started creating elephants, gum drops and juju bees. Study his rules, or you too shall burn in pasta sauce for eternity!
FAIL. The world is real, and so are dino bones and fossil humans. And you were a terrible president; go back to Crawford and cut brush.
Can you please explain the discrepancies in radioisotope dating? I'll wait.
Care to bring up the specific issues with it?
It is a monumental failure of the US educational system that so many are as ignorant and brainwashed as BoldGeorge. First step is to ban home schooling – it is child abuse.
Don't forget a lot of the parochial schools. Lots of unscientific brainwashing there, as well.
I went to an Episcopal grade school, and a Catholic High School and we were taught evolution at both. However, my friends at the time who went to a Baptist High School all claimed that evolution was false.
You dont believe in science, but you believe some crackpot who somehow "figured out" through speculation, that the earth was created 6 thousand years ago? How do you not believe in dinosaurs? Just look at the grand canyon!! that thing did NOT carve itself a few thousand years ago. And dont tell me that dinosaurs and humans coexisted, because clearly the dinosaurs are no longer around, and if we had been around when that comet hit, we would not be around today.
In my best redneck impesonation voice "That aint my heritage!"
no, you would need some dough and salt for that.
I'm not thinking related to me, but it does kind of remind me of a guy I went to High-school with!
Did he play football?
I will name the skeleton of this species... Adenaeve
oh, that in the right looks like george bush !!!!
Any money found with the bones? If so, yeah...
This is not my ancestor because I believe in magic.
You believe in magic.....maybe you could put yourself in one of those little boxes and make yourself disappear.
Go on.....try it.
Hey be nice. Remember the old guy in the sky with a white beard is watching you.
Nope, not my ancestor. All of my ancestors looked like HUMANS, and walked like HUMANS, becasue they WERE HUMANS.
Look into your heart, Mark. You know it to be true!
So you're worried you're not super special and might not have come from something that looked exactly like you?
Let me guess: Adam and Eve.
No, I 'm not worried at all.
So, you're worried that there might actually be a real God, that really did create Man, and all the nonsense you learned about the "evolutionary" origins of man might be wrong.
Let me guess: Athiest.
It's proven mark. Or did god just create a bunch of versions of humans before he settled on us? You people never cease to amaze me with your shear ignorance and narcissism.
For some reason I don't see God being so petty, about a person being right or wrong about how God decided to create humans, that he will punish those people who looked at the evidence given to them and made a logical connection. If that is the case I better be careful for thinking that fast food I had last night actually caused me to be sick the next morning. Because I could have already been sick. The Bible talk a lot about being humble, forgiveness, things you can and can't do. There wasn't a commandment like Though Shall not take Genesis Literally. The stuff about how God created the world, was in one chapter, Where the Sky is expressed as an other sea but above.
We're ALL atheists, Mark, it's just that some of us take it one god farther.
"you're worried that there might actually be a real God, that really did create Man, and all the nonsense you learned about the "evolutionary" origins of man might be wrong. "
Actually, there's nothing at all like that in the article -oh, right. You might lose your faith if you read the article, because your faith is that weak. Seriously, it's hard to find hominid fossils, but you can dig up a good saber-tooth or megatherium if you need proof. These animals existed and their bones are real, and sticking your fingers in your ears while you squint and yell "no no no" is not going to make them vanish. Just remember that if God is real, and evolution is real, then God is going to save you anyway, so why would the facts hurt you?
What makes you think that?
The likeliest thing is that our ancestors still looked like pro wrestlers when one of them suddenly said "I'm gonna pick up this antelope thighbone and kill a leopard with it. Who's with me?" After that, they owned the earth and told the predators to turn away or die. They were men, no matter what they looked like.
I was wondering this and I never really get a straight answer so maybe you could. What about the evolutionary theory would contradict believing in God? Science does not and at this point cannot answer if there is a God. All science does is take the available evidence, experiments and comes up with evidence that anyone can objectively see. And with this all evidence indicates life has evolved from simple to complex plants and animals with mankind being from a common ancestor to current apes. If you wanted to only take the facts before you you can say this happen all on its own through natural physical processes. But if you chose to believe in a Divine Being you can say God started this process.
In other words, if a scientist told you that beautiful sunset you're watching is caused by light traveling through a thicker part of the atmosphere and the particles floating in it, you wouldn't say, "You are a foolish man! God made that sunset. That's it! Nothing else! All that science stuff you said is wrong!" No, you would probably agree with him but can still say that its a beautiful sunset that God made through his natural laws. So why can't you say the same thing about evolution?
I don't believe in god, however, it seems to me that if you don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve, then there is no original sin, and therefore there is no reason for the sacrifice of Jesus.
It's my ancestor and everybody else's as well.
Oh man... I'm related to everybody? That makes us all a bunch of inbreds.
Yea, pretty much
Whether you believe in Evolution or Creation, we are all a bunch of inbreds. Wouldn't Adam and Eve's off spring have had to mate.
" Wouldn't Adam and Eve's off spring have had to mate." Apparently they just went to the Land of Nod, where there were already a bunch of William Burroughs junkies living, and married some of the hoes. Don't ask me, I didn't make this stuff up.
Does that make WV the center of the world?
Actually according to the bible the world was populated through inbreeding twice, once following the creation of Adam and Eve, and once following the flood.
I guess that could mean that Cain and Able were MFers?
Both had wives so they must have had sisters. Maybe one of them caught up with Lilith.

subset: commoncrawl