September 19, 2007

How Chimp Chromosome #13 Proves Evolution

When the genome of the chimpanzee was published it shed some light on human evolution and our relationship with chimpanzee. In the video below Ken Miller explains how chimp chromosome #13 not only proves we are related to the chimpanzee, But also how we managed to lose a chromosome during our own evolution.

It was an amazing discovery and a discovery which, Even now, Has never been refuted by anyone arguing for intelligent design.

WOW! Hello diggers! - You may be interested in another article i wrote today on How Endogenous Retroviruses Prove Evolution. Thanks for stopping by! :D



Here is the full speech by Ken Miller.

To the people claiming that this doesn't disprove god. I'm not saying it does. I'm saying it disproves the biblical account of creation.

88 comments:

  1. God and science should be seperate. Therefore we should never say that science disproves a god.

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. That's absurd. How are we ever supposed to know the truth if we follow your approach?

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  4. In the clip the guy says he believes in god. Using a religious mans words to prove their is no god? Now that is pretty hypocritical.

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  5. Just because the "bible" says that Adam and Eve were put here by god, doesn't exactly mean they didn't evolve into what they became. I'm an extremely free minded Christian. The reason I choose to be is because things just don't happen. They just don't. That and that alone is why I believe in intelligent design. I'm not sure if his name is "God" but there's something that did this. Saying otherwise doesn't make sense. There's a reason for everything, and saying everything just sparked into existence is bliss.

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  6. Why do people think God and science should be excluded from one another? I find that they compliment each other.

    I also find it sad that so many Christians believe in a young Earth and they don't know why. That is either extreme ignorance or extreme faith.

    I'm a Christian and believe in a 4-billion year old Earth and am very comfortable with that.

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  7. People need to recognize that 'god' is a concept from the human mind creating structure where there isn't any. The only workable concept of 'god' is the Pantheist perspective.

    Abandon transcendence, accept that the cosmos is physics and psychology.

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  8. "In the clip the guy says he believes in god. Using a religious mans words to prove their is no god? Now that is pretty hypocritical."

    I'm using a scientists words to disprove intelligent design. Strange how you see him as a religious man, But i see him as a scientist.

    What religious people believe in in their spare time is up to them, But when they use their god as a stick to beat evidence and science i feel i have to step in.

    If only more "people of faith" had the courage and intellectual honesty of Ken Miller.

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  9. stfu, you know nothing about god and/or science. the human mind is not as developed as it should be.

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  10. Eric Atkins: You mean complement each other.

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  11. Here's why he's wrong - If the ape has 48 pairs, and we have 46, then not one, but *two* pairs would have to fuse. Show me the other one, baby.

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  12. Even the pope has said that intelligent design is a load of crap. I find it ironic that the people that believe in intelligent design are anything but.

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  13. Dear Keru,

    Here's why he's wrong - If the ape has 48 pairs, and we have 46, then not one, but *two* pairs would have to fuse.

    There's two parents, silly. Didn't you watch the video?

    Love,
    Cheeseburger Brown
    http://cheeseburgerbrown.com

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  14. We don't have 46 pairs.. we have 23 pairs, and 46 chromosomes. 48 chromosomes --> 36 chromosomes is one pair merging, that's 24 pairs --> 23 pairs.

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  15. Two pairs did fuse. He is not saying one isolated chromosome fused leaving one behind. The pairs fused.

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  16. God and evolution are separate. Until Adam and Eve sinned, there was no death. Evolution relies on mutations in species to allow the stronger to survive and the weaker to die out. There was no death until after Adam and Eve; therefore, evolution and God cannot co exist, they are different.

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  17. "God", as in Yahweh, or Jehovah, can be proven, or disproven, by Science, because this being, or entity has specific relationships with reality and history.

    Now, if you use the term "God" similar to how the term "Tao" is used by Lao Tzu, then science would most likely prove its existence, because that form of God is nothing more than what is already in front of our eyes. The "Tao," according to Lao Tzu, has no image or form, it is nothing but what we observe it to be. This is exactly what modern Quantum Mechanics tells us about origin and reality. So sadly, you are wrong. Nothing is seperate from science, because all science is is the empiracal observations, predictions based upon those observations and theories derived from experiments based on said predictions.

    Also, you can always use the words of someone to disprove their point. To use "a religious mans words to prove their is no god" is valid. That is basic philosophy and critical thought. A man could say "That tree is the color that is formed when you combine blue and yellow" and then say "but I do not beleive it is green." He thus, has an uneducated veiw on what "green" is, because his own observation proves that the tree is green. That is not to say that this video disproves any God, but it help disprove intellegent design, which this speaker admits he believes in. He, like the tree guy, has an uneducated veiw on what the "theory" of intellegent design says. A visit to the Creationist Museum will show you how any proof in favor of evolution would disprove this "theory."

    In the end, without more discussion, quit reading the bible as a reference to reality, just as no one should look towards Star Wars for historical reference. They have great ideas in them, and their characters can be used to symbolize current events and the path that we all might take in our lives, but they are fiction. Jesus wasn't real, neither was Yoda, but their words hold truth.

    Good Day.

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  18. To clarify something, you either embrace the Bible as is, or throw the whole thing out. To all the Christians who state that it's okay to believe in evolution, follow this mind set.

    If there was no original Adam and Eve, then death preceded them. Death wasn't due to the original sin. If there was no curse and death as the result, then there is no need for a savior, Jesus, who died to take away the sins of the world. If there is no need for Christ, why believe in him and associate with His name? Moses refers to the creation and so does Christ. If it wasn't true, they are both deceived or liars. If that's the case, throw out the Bible.

    Even Richard Dawkins stated something similar. It is inconsistent for Christians to believe in evolution. They either have to take the whole thing, or leave it.

    And by the way...I was an atheist for 24 years. I became a young earth, creationist, Christian when I was an adult with no indoctrination. I also have a masters in Polymer Chemistry and a professional chemist by trade. I am not scientifically illiterate and was duped into it. It just made more sense than the story that evolution produces from the same set of data that creation scientists use.

    I'll readily accept your flames now.

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  19. "Here's why he's wrong - If the ape has 48 pairs, and we have 46, then not one, but *two* pairs would have to fuse. Show me the other one, baby." First off, there are 23 pairs and 24 pairs total, for a total of 48 and 46. He is saying that the 2 pairs bonded, since chromosomes are usually attached together in sets of 2.

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  20. Christians empathizing science. "Whom, then, does Christianity deny?"

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  21. I post no flame. The believe in God in based on faith...whose very definition is believe without proof.
    Which is the whole point. God can not be proved...it's faith alone that makes it valuable. Being able to prove something is valueless. Having faith without proof requires strengh and conviction and I must say courage.
    Proving something with science is childs play.

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  22. The idea of Intelligent Design, god etc seems ludicrous, but can somebody clarify the math on merging chromosomes correctly? I don't believe it has been shown correctly yet.

    I'm looking at a figure representing the 23 paired human chromosomes here:

    http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/VL/GG/human.html

    Let's say you merge PAIR 23 with PAIR 22. That means you have the first 21 pairs plus what? Does that not now equal 22 total PAIRS - a decrease of just one pair?

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  23. Josh, Why is it that we can't just happen but "God" or whatever can. If something created us who or what created it.

    P.S.
    I don't think the word "bliss" means what you think, but i could be wrong.

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  24. How can you say Jesus wasn't real? You base your fact on what?? It's like saying Pharaon Ramses didn't exist. All the historical fact in the bible is true. Archeologist used the bible to found lost civilization. So if the bible said that Jesus lived once in this planet, it must be true too.

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  25. What you said makes no sense.

    If i write a book that states two things. 1) that a dog is a type of mammal and 2) there are elves living in my shoes would the fact that a dog is a type of mamal mean that elves do live in my shoes?

    it is possible for soemthing to contain factual data and fabricated lies.

    So your assumption that all in the bible has to be true because some of it has been proven is illogical.

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  26. IT IS NOT INCONSISTENT TO BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION AND GOD. Period. I've never understood how many christians feel the need to take the book of Genesis as literal truth when they don't take other parts of the bible as literal truth. Jesus himself taught in parables to people who were probably more intelligent than those who lived when the book of Genesis was written. So it's downright ignorant to assume that that one book has any literal truth to it. It obviously has spiritual and moral value and provides a cosmology that frames reality in a way that people understand.

    And any christian or atheist needs to look up Teilhard de Chardin, a french priest who wrote beautiful prose (and science) about God manifesting through evolution.

    The reality is religion and science don't contradict each other. Truth contradicts ignorance. The first scientists were priests!

    Evolution doesn't prove there is no god. It just proves we have an old way of thinking about the universe and creation. It proves we have an old way of thinking about what God is and who we are.

    And for the most part we humans are arrogant and delight in our ignorance.

    The dichotomy between science and religion is FALSE. And frankly I'm getting tired of this primitive and stupid bickering.

    People to look up:
    Teilhard de Chardin
    Ken Wilber
    Michael Dowd
    Andrew Cohen
    Barbara Marx Hubbard
    Father Thomas Keating
    Gottfried Leibniz
    Sri Aurobindo
    Hegel
    Goethe
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    Immanuel Kant
    Alfred North Whitehead
    Brian Swimme
    Schelling

    Terms to research:
    Evolutionary Christianity
    Integral Theory
    Evolutionary Enlightenment
    Spiral Dynamics
    Four Quadrants
    Evolutionary Spirituality
    Integral Cosmology
    2nd axial age

    Please people...EDUCATE YOURSELVES!!! I'm sorry but reading these comments really gets my blood boiling.

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  27. "How can you say Jesus wasn't real? You base your fact on what?? It's like saying Pharaon Ramses didn't exist. All the historical fact in the bible is true."

    Actually there is no historical evidence whatsoever that he ever existed...none of the historians of the time ever mention him.

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  28. This whole science vs religion war thesis is such nonsense. Unfortunately people on both sides continue to play into the myth.

    It's beceause of this fiction that today, less religiously identified people believe in evolution than did 100 years ago. That's right, most Christians thought evolution was brilliant when it was first developed. Obviously there still exist thinking people of science and faith like this gentlemen in the video. Would that there were more.

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  29. Theres nothing hypocritical about him saying he's religious too. Just because evolution and how we were formed might not be how we were taught in the bible doesn't mean that it might not have been gods plan all along or barring that there is still no real explanation for where matter and the spark of life started to begin with, leaving a creator in the equation for those of you who believe in such.

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  30. "God and science should be separate".

    They are. They're as separate as two things can be. One's complete fiction, the other is based in testable, verifiable reality. You don't hear scientists saying "I believe in evolution because I believe Darwin's The Origin Of Species is infallible". Scientists say "I believe in evolution because there are literally billions of pieces of evidence from a dozen different fields of enquiry (incl. archaeology, paleontology, genetics, climatology etc) stretching back 150 years that back it up".

    What do Christians say, on the other hand? "The Bible is the infallible word of God. How do I know? It says so in the Bible. If the Bible says the Bible is the word of God, it must be true because it's in the Bible, which is the infallible word of God." You Christians must get dizzy using circular logic like that all day.

    "Being able to prove something is valueless. Having faith without proof requires strengh and conviction and I must say courage.
    Proving something with science is childs play."

    Believing something without proof requires nothing more than a willingness to submit to other peoples' opinions without considering if they have any basis in reality. Science is child's play? Such simplistic nonsense. Only someone with little or no clue of how science actually works would say that. Tell the people who decoded the human genome or landed us on the moon or discovered the smallpox vaccine it was child's play.

    If ignorance is bliss, bliss is overrated.

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  31. Love is a chemical reaction brought about by millions of years worth of evolution in order to solidify troop bonding and thus ensure the survival of the troop and hence the species. So by some people's perspective "Love" does not exist. It's a construct of the mind. Stop believing in it.

    Whether or not your brain perceives god because you're programmed to do so or because he's real is irrelevant. Taoist, Maoist, deist, theist, atheist, Jedi, do our differences really matter. It's what actions we take because of that perception that matter. If you choose to not believe based on a preponderance of evidence and live your life well, helping others, furthering the species, finding a cure for cancer than kudos to you. If all you do is sit around and complain about how the other half lives then no kudos for you. And the same goes for the "faithful".

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  32. Very happy to have discovered your blog - great work!

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  33. "If there was no original Adam and Eve, then death preceded them. Death wasn't due to the original sin. If there was no curse and death as the result, then there is no need for a savior, Jesus, who died to take away the sins of the world. If there is no need for Christ, why believe in him and associate with His name? Moses refers to the creation and so does Christ. If it wasn't true, they are both deceived or liars. If that's the case, throw out the Bible."

    Are you kidding me. No serious theologian believes in a naive literal Adam and Eve.

    And even if Moses and/or Jesus understood the passage literally it doesn't mean they were decieved or liars it means they understood the text in the common context. It's called the doctrine of accomodation. God inspires grand ideas in the common langauge and understanding.

    Also Jesus' role in history (to a theologian) was much more broad than the common "died for our sins" oversimplification.

    Read some better theology than what's on late night TV.
    Try NT Wright or Brian McLaren or already mentioned brilliant Teilhard de Chardin.

    I'm not saying you have to buy into any of it but attacking straw men (granted commonly seen and heard straw men) doesn't equal an inteligent theological discourse.

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  34. Assume God exists. What if God used evolution to create man? If you are a creationist, who are you to dispute God's work? If God does exist and God used evolution, then believing in God and Evolution is not incompatible, but correct.

    Scientists who study evolution who are real scientists will NEVER say they know exactly that evolution created man, because they know they can't say that. They can show proof which suggests STRONGLY that evolution is at least close or part of the picture if not all of it.

    On the other side, you have people who disbelieve in science saying they know EXACTLY how man came to be. Pretty arrogant, and God may have a word with you when you die and join him, assuming that actually happens in any sense of your understanding. For those in this second category, good luck explaining your hubris to God.

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  35. Uhhh. God made evolution. Who's GOD? A GOD. Your GOD? My GOD. Any mechanism that People scientificaly discover, which was already here I might add, can easly be incorporated into a person with faith. Just don't listen to your preacher when they preach against new discoveries like there is a competition for your loyalty. Time will tell and we know tommorrow will be different from today.... Peace BEEEAAATCCCCCHESSSSSS.

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  36. So a pair of chromosomes fused in an ape, by chance I suppose. That gives you exactly "one" new creature. Was this new creature male or female? With what did it mate? How did this new creature procreate?

    Seriously.

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  37. Bob said...
    ...it's faith alone that makes it valuable.

    Valuable for what? Courage in the face of the unknown? Sure, but you can do that without giving up your reason, mankind's greatest gift.

    Bob said... Being able to prove something is valueless.

    Umm... what? I'm not even going to touch that one. Think that though for a second.

    Bob said... Having faith without proof requires strengh (sic) and conviction and I must say courage.

    I'll say so, but so does being a serial killer... or an atheist... actually being an atheist takes more courage because many people would sooner see them expatriated... or even killed.

    Bob said... Proving something with science is childs (sic) play.

    Sometimes it is, but no matter how hard it is to prove it, getting people to believe that truth is impossible if they have made up their minds beforehand.

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  38. Anonymous said:
    If there was no original Adam and Eve, then death preceded them. Death wasn't due to the original sin. If there was no curse and death as the result, then there is no need for a savior, Jesus, who died to take away the sins of the world. If there is no need for Christ, why believe in him and associate with His name? Moses refers to the creation and so does Christ. If it wasn't true, they are both deceived or liars. If that's the case, throw out the Bible.



    Lets take it back a little further than that, shall we?

    In the beginning, there was God.

    Nothing else was there, just god. So where did Evil come from?

    From God?

    Did God create Evil? If not He, then who? Mrs. God perhaps? Colonel Mustard? In the kitchen? With the Candlestick-of-pre-cosmos-power?

    So God is capable of Evil, yet we are to despise it and avoid it?

    So God is a hypocrite?

    Hey, you said it, not me! I was just askin questions!

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  39. I'd like to talk about courage, too.
    Courage is about facing the unknown and acting, despite the fear. The more dangers the unknown has (e.g. a burning building) the more we say they have courage who face it. If the outcome is already known, then you don't need any courage, just faith. So you see that faith and courage are mutually exclusive, as they pertain to living your life. I don't blame you for thinking you have courage though. It is easy to feel courageous when you think your big brother is standing behind you ready to protect you. But I can't see anybody there, and I'm not going to call my big brother, I'm going to face my fights (metaphorically speaking) on my own.

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  40. K, let me just say that I am an atheist, I live in Kansas, and humans did not live on earth with the dinosaurs.

    Also, just because I am not religious doesn't mean I smoke crack and handle snakes. It's does however mean that I will be having unmarried sex tonight.

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  41. Existence of a "god" can not be proved or disproved by any scientific means. This however does give more weight to the theory of Evolution, which may some day become scientific law once enough is finally known. Let the theologians figure out what this means to their religion. I am an atheist, I do not believe in a god nor do I believe there is no god. I simply do not believe. I only know what is provable fact. I only suppose what is based on hard evidence. Thank you.

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  42. This entire debate is a symptom of something very dire in the modern public mind. If it could ever be resolved on the terms of a debate like this one I would be very surprised.

    For every man who has an unreflective and passive belief in religion I will show you a man with passive and comparably unreflective belief in the public idea of science. So long as arguments begin and end on notes of this kind of self-important pomposity, whether one speaks for science or for faith I suspect that he shall possess the spirit of neither.

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  43. So, follow the scientific method. Take a fertilized human egg, un-fuse the fused dna. If you get a great ape, then he's right. Otherwise, it is just a theory based on observations. Without an experiment to verify your theory, it is NEVER MORE THAN A HYPOTHESIS. Any "scientist" that purports his unverifiable theories as facts is a quack and should have his PhD revoked.

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  44. "So, follow the scientific method. Take a fertilized human egg, un-fuse the fused dna. If you get a great ape, then he's right."

    Thanks for demonstrating exactly how poorly you understand this. I actually laughed reading your post.

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  45. I found this on a link on the side of this page. It's rather amusing!


    10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

    9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

    8- You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

    7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

    6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

    5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the
    scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find
    nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

    4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving.

    3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

    2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

    1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

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  46. People who want to strictly interpret a portion of a fragment of a translation of a translation of a 5000 year-old portion of the Bible make me cringe with disgust. You wouldn't take the introductory paragraph of your college science textbook as an exact representation of quantum physics, would you? Of course not. The Bible (especially Genesis) were words written to help explain a universe of unimanigable complexity to a people in a primative world.

    Likewise Christians that believe that the Bible was delivered pristine and unaltered from the "mouth of God" to them for their own personal interpretations. Each generation of Jews, Catholics, Reformists, and modern Christians have changed the "word of God" from something that was given to people called Prophets and apostles into something that more suited what they wanted to hear.

    By the way, I doubt that God used anything as primitive as spoken language to communicate eternal truths. Even then, I'm sure that a Moses or a Paul had to dilute the message they received because the only way they had to communicate the was in spoken and written language.

    Unless you have a personal relationship with God, you've got nothing. You can only get that by keeping the commandments that the Bible contains to the very best of your ability without deception of purpose. For all it's faults, the message of the Bible is to do and not do certain things so that the world will be a better place. "If you do my will you will know if my doctrine is of God, or if I speak of myself" -Jesus

    So, christians and athiests alike that aren't willing to perform the "scientific method" in the bible - Keep the commandments (not just the 10 commandments, but that is a start) and ask God if he exists will never have anything but your theories against those truths that Millions have proven by the scientific method.

    You want to make up some other way to invalidate God or the commandments to soothe your burning consciences about lying, cheating, fornicating, and living adulterous lives. You'll can never find peace and happiness that only comes from a life in harmony with eternal truths.

    I've talked to lots of people that said "I kept the commandments and still don't believe in God". In the end, they decided it was too much work to keep the commandments when it got in the way of their selfishness and lustful desires.

    So, believers and non-believers alike: get over it. You can't tell anyone that something is or isn't true because of your interpretation of a document you don't value enough to test it's basic premise to begin with.

    If you're an athiest or a christian that won't keep the commandments in the bible, but still says that it is true or false, then you are either an agnostic, or a hypocrite.

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  47. Ok MATT, I'll give you the benefit of a doubt. Explain to me your understanding of the scientific method if it's not:

    observe, hypothesize, test, repeat

    I've seen observe, hypothesize, but no test here. i.e. we have a hypothesis, just as valid as any other hypothesis based purely on observation and UNVERIFIABLE.

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  48. To me its kinda like going to dinner eating, then asking for your check, to find you were charged for something, you did not order. Maybe if i was to be ask if it was okay, instead of be born to worship, maybe id have better understanding, but to worship something just because everyone else does, or says it right, is very one sided, i hate being one sided. Science offers yet another side, and as one sided as you think it may be, you really cant say anything if you dont believe in a religion, cause then your jus being a hypocrite. Just be yourself, and imagine more, enojy the life you live the way you want to enjoy it, dont remorse over what other say you should, just live. You only have one life, after that its, well w/e happens, happens, thats what makes it more comfortable to me, knowing that my fate is not predetermined.

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  49. Of course it's a hypothesis. However, they can show that these two chromosomes probably fused together based on advanced genetics. Just so you know, the fusing alone probably wouldn't create a completely different organism (in fact, the organisms still probably looked like apes, the actual DNA would be extremely similar). This, along with millions of other changes is the theory of evolution, and CANNOT be laboratory tested. It's interesting information, but no one is carrying it as a fact for that reason.

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  50. "I'm an extremely free minded Christian. The reason I choose to be is because things just don't happen. They just don't. That and that alone is why I believe in intelligent design. I'm not sure if his name is "God" but there's something that did this."

    So, who created God? Or did he just happen? So "God" can just happen, but other stuff can't? Sounds like a double standard.

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  51. even though i just saw this video, i still not only believe in the god mentioned in the bible, but will love and worship him, or 'it' for the rest of eternity. Since when does the so called 'proof' of evolution meen theres absolutely no god? Im sure a lot of you geeky atheists are going red in the face but im better off believing in god weather he exists or not -- not only is this proven statistically, but im either right - and theres great consuquences, or im wrong, in which case its totally irrelevant coz ill die and cease to exist

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  52. All you Bible thumpers ought to know that for the first 150 years or so after Jesus supposedly lived, the current text of the bible was a mishmash of poorly-transcribed stories copied by barely literate early Christians. They had no training in transcription, and freely changed things they didn't like or didn't echo the cultural standards of the day. The bible changed. A lot. There's no reasonable way to say, with certainty, what is original and what is not. So, as far as the inerrant word of God goes, the Bible ain't it.

    Read a book or two on textual criticism (published by religious scholars), and see this for yourself.

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  53. How do 2 parents with 24 chromosomes each fuse and make 46 chromosomes, wouldnt we have 47 chromosomes because a pair of 2 fused to become 1???, Well if you want to believe we evolved from apes go for your life, lmao, he says hes a roman cathelic and an athiest, which contradicts himself, you can't be both, maybe he should spend more time in the real world. He proved nothing except that he doesnt believe in god.

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  54. I see a lot of posting from Christians saying that they are comfortable with facts that contradict with the bible such as the earth being millions of years old. But isn't your faith completely based on the bible? if you pick and choose what you believe in bible, you are not a Christian but rather a believer of a "made up" religion of your own.

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  55. PREVIOUS COMMENT:
    Lets take it back a little further than that, shall we?

    In the beginning, there was God.

    Nothing else was there, just god. So where did Evil come from?

    From God?

    Did God create Evil? If not He, then who? Mrs. God perhaps? Colonel Mustard? In the kitchen? With the Candlestick-of-pre-cosmos-power?

    So God is capable of Evil, yet we are to despise it and avoid it?

    So God is a hypocrite?

    Hey, you said it, not me! I was just askin questions!

    MY COMMENT:

    First of all some of you who are trying to disprove the science about the apes are ignorant fools and need to go read a textbook or Wikipedia or something to educate yourselves on the matter.

    Second, I'm not an atheist nor a holly roller Christian, I'm an OPEN Christian who accepts science as the way of the earth and its origins.

    So to answer your question... God did not create Evil, because yes that would be hypocritical. In fact he didn't create evil because there is no such thing... just as there is no such thing as cold, just an absence of heat, so there is no such thing as evil just an absence of GOD.

    And yes, I do think many of you all need to educate yourselves by READING!!! the Bible, other "holy" books, science books, and the writings of priests and scientists that have written on the subject.

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  56. Paul said:


    "The reality is religion and science don't contradict each other. "

    Well, it depends on what you mean. If you are saying that there are miracles, that god has anything to do with this planet at all, we should be able to measure that. A personal god who talks to you on your divine headset is a scientific hypothesis. (Why am I hearing voices? Maybe it's God. Let's test that idea. Where did I put that darned fMRI?) I was told for eons that the Catholic Eucharist was Jesus (talk about some scary cannibalism). What chances? Nothing. No effect--still tasteless bread. If you are saying it's any different, buddy, you better put up. Heck I would take sudden buttery-goodness as evidence for transubstantiation. Now, if for some reason there is a god/creator who is real but completely detached from the universe and has nothing to do with us anymore, what's the point of worship?

    Anonymous said (by the way, I love your poem Beowulf, anonymous):

    "Using a religious mans words to prove their is no god? Now that is pretty hypocritical."

    He can be wrong about god and right about evolution. Not hypocritical.

    Like the site!

    HJ

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  57. I'm glad I found your site, I'm going to be a regular visitor now!

    I agree with everything that was said on that video, hands down.

    Keep up the good work!

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  58. This discovery provides evidence in favor of evolution. But the title gets it completely wrong, and ignores the Scientific Method, when it says that it proves evolution. Because of this we should certainly have more confidence in evolution as a theory, but it does not mean we have proven anything. To stop looking (declaring a theory proven) is to take the rest on faith. Let's distinguish ourselves with reason, let the rest of them have faith. And we will see where each leads.

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  59. "God did not create Evil, because yes that would be hypocritical. In fact he didn't create evil because there is no such thing... just as there is no such thing as cold, just an absence of heat, so there is no such thing as evil just an absence of GOD."

    I agree with this. The fact that it even needs spelling out like that shines a light on the misconceptions people have about what many Christians believe. Another example of this I think is the following comment...

    "So, who created God? Or did he just happen? So "God" can just happen, but other stuff can't? Sounds like a double standard."

    Now, I can't speak for the Christian community as a whole, I can only speak for myself, but who said God just happened? To say something happens implies a beginning and end, cause and effect, space and time. One thing in this universe happens, which causes another thing to happen, which causes another, etc... These are the rules that govern the universe. But if God is the creator of the universe, then how can he be subject to same rules as us? The universe is not simply made up of matter and planets and stars and space, but time as well. So, if God created the universe, he also created time. Now, apart from that period in history where it is written that He set aside a portion of his eternal glory and came to earth to live as a man and, more importantly, die as a man, the Creator, by definition, exists outside his creation, outside time and space. Therefore, no, he didn’t just happen. He just is. He didn’t say, “I wasn’t. I was. I am no more.” He said, “I AM.”

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  60. You guys a fricken nuts. The primate had 24 pairs of chromosomes, 48 chromosomes. 2 fused, leaving 46 or 23 pairs.
    The Bible is a collection of stories that has been rewritten and retranslated many times over. To take it at face value is ignorance. Every translation, every version has had it's changes and input. One wonders how much is original in the Bible.

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  61. I really do think people that are clinging to the creationist philosophy, with it's base evidence of the bible, need to accept that our religions and our texts are very old and they are basing their "scientific" understanding of the world on texts that were written before nobody damn near knew anything relatively, about where we were, how we got here, you name it, go down the list.

    That being said you see evolution in our intelligence, you see evolution in morality, you see evolution in so many different things you should not assume that it could not happen in physical beings.

    Frankly all the arguing is of little value, to me anyway, all those that believe in evolution should believe also that if it is a fundamentally sounder concept than god then it shall, in time, come up as the dominant philosophy.

    But if we take the foundation out from underneath the house, how then shall the house stand? Is there a coherent humanist system we've developed to be the moral parallel to an evolutionist theory? The problem with accepting evolution, and thereby rejecting creationism, is then we lose that base to condemn bad actions. Everything is made free again, as secularism rises crappy behavior ensues from lack of constraints. I don't like a world where everyone is free to do as they please, don't tread on me kind of bull crap.

    I'm a moralist, though admittedly not perfect, and I don't believe in god, certainly not the conventional conception of it. The problem I have with seriously adamant atheists is they don't bring forth a coherent system of morality to replace that which they are trying to destroy (and yes they are trying to destroy it).

    There is a logical system we can develop that can effectively replace the man in the sky concept.

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  62. Reading the many unintelligible comments in this post furthers my reasoned belief that for many of our human brethren, there is little hope. The vast majority of people on this planet are uneducated, irrational, unreasoned people who strongly hold beliefs for emotional and not logical reasons. Science serves as the framework by which the human brain can construct a world view based on observation, hypothesis testing and theory formulation. Science is the best methodology that human kind has developed for parsing the natural tendency for irrational thought. Everything in your modern life has been provided to you by science. I could describe to you the immeasurable contributions science has made to your daily life, but lets just examine the first few seconds of your day. Most wake to the sound of an alarm clock. That would not be possible if it were not for...electricity, light-emitting diodes, acoustics, electronics, metal refinement, semiconductors, plastics, etc...etc...etc. Religion on the other hand has contributed to what? Bigotry, racism, war, poverty, slavery, masochism, genocide, murder, delusion, infanticide, hysteria...etc...etc...etc.

    Wake up. Get educated, enlightened, rational and reasoned and you to will come to understand that Richard Dawkins is right when saying that the two magisterial ideas of science and religion cannot live side by side.

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  63. To: StraightShootinComputin

    Angels like Humans have free-will. no one is forced to follow or love God because God makes them (what's the point of people being forced into following, that isn't real love) Just as humans can choose to follow God or not, lucifer and 1/3 of the angels chose to rebel and oppose God. that's where the devil comes from.

    God is all powerful, but can God make a mountain so large he cannot move it?

    to answer your question to the best of my knowledge. God is capable of evil, but he is not evil, the devil is evil.

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  64. Someone PLEASE answer this. If this video is true shouldn't we have 47 chromosomes?

    He said that chimps have 48 chromosomes and we humans have 46. He said for us to have 46 one of the pairs would have had to disappear. Instead he says that one of the pair just fused. However, if you have 48 and take two to make one, that leaves you with 47, NOT 46. Where is the missing chromosome?

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  65. To educate on debate ettiquette, its quite impolite to deface and slander the opposing side of the debate, to further your own cause.
    That turns a debate, into an argument, and arguments rarely if ever have any educational value.

    Now, for my point I am wanting to add. To those who keep saying the bible has been translated several times, and to those who believe in evolution created by god, as an autonomus function, I challenge you to think that God had an active roll in overseeing both of these.

    My personal belief of the whole creationism and evolutionism debate, similar to many previous posters, is that God used Evolution, _to an extent_, to creat humanity. But God was involved in it, guidiing it like a potter guides the clay from a rough form into a pot or whatever other creation.

    This belief also applies to the bible.
    Many of original texts from the disciples are still accessable, and the disciples themselves were not 'barely literate' men 'bending it to their own benefit'. Several of these men, through out their travels and life before Christ, were well learned. Several knew more than one language. Also, when gifted with the Holy Spirit, they recieved divine insight, which allowed them to work miracles, and recieve the word of god QUITE clearly, as God intended it to be recieved. Just take the biblical story of the Apostles who spoke to a crowd, and men of different languages all understood the same sermon given. That is the power of God.

    Now, you can point your fingers at me, flame me, and say "Its nothing but faith, and it's all made up", but my friends, if you read the bible, you'll know that the Word of God states that God is neither provable, nor disprovable, as that would deny us as individuals 'freedom of choice', for if we could PROVE God, we'd all be christians, no?

    I base my beliefs off of the Protestant belief system, so my views differ a lot from Catholics and Pentacostal 'Christians'. But I call myself Protestant warily, as each person interprets the bible uniquely to their own, as most of it is figurative.

    The true beauty of the bible is its relevance to anyone in any situation in life, based off of the interpretational value.

    I got a bit sidetracked, lol, but I do believe I made my point as clearly as I could this late in the evening.

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  66. You may recall in the video he talks about the cool little "markers" in the chromosomes. Who created the markers a form of intelligent measure that you're using to make your case?

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  67. You people are awefull at math. What happened? Did you drop out of 2nd grade? The apes have 24 pairs, which means 48 chroms, therefore if we have 23 pairs we would have 46. Its simple multiplication. If one of the 24 pairs of the apes chroms fused, then that would be adding 1 to 1 to make 1. Thats how fusion works. So 24 pairs turns into 23 pairs which is 48 total chroms and 46 total chroms respectivly. Do your math before posting please.

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  68. Let me say something first. I play football and one day during practice I heard one of my team mates talking about God and the Bible and everything with some one that was moderately religious who was also on the team. Now, the first person I mentioned, I'll call him Person A, said this: "I believe and everything, but I'm not religious. I'm not religious at all. But I still believe that there is a God." Now, I'm also like this. I'm not very religious at all. But I still believe that there is a God or some Supreme Being. I wanted to get this out of the way before I said anything else. Now, I think that God caused everything. He caused the Big Bang. He did it. He caused the earth to form and EVOLVE over time. Then God put micro organisms onto the Earth. Which HE, as in GOD, decided to have them EVOLVE into more complex organisms. So I believe that it was Gods will to make things evolve. I think God makes things evolve. God, I think, is the reason why we, humans, are here. It's because GOD DECIDED to make us EVOLVE from APES, MONKEY'S, and so on. This is just what I think and believe. You don't have to agree with me at all. Please correct me if what I said doesn't make sense or if I have some grammar type errors. Or feel free to leave myself a comment or message on my blogg at http://comments-howchimpchromosome13.blogspot.com/. (It's not a very good one.)

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  69. Why are 95% of Christians fucking retarded?

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  70. >Why are 95% of Christians fucking retarded?

    Because the other 5% Are brain dead...

    The Better question is why do we let primitives run the human race?

    These Xians are the same people in olden days that used to shit thenself and shake their fists at the sky when it rain or thundered....

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  71. TO RYANN (A few posts above this one):

    Simply stating that "God did it" when citing the cause of the Big Bang, Evolution, and Earth's formation serves no explanatory value whatsoever. I am confident that you like so many others in the world who are not necessarily dogmatic actually believe that "God did it", however this belief is nothing more than an unqualified opinion regarding the nature of causation as it refers to established scientific facts. Evolution is a powerful scientific theory, based on facts, that has been validated for almost 150 years through intense scientific investigation in areas such as archeology, biology, chemistry, geology, paleontology and numerous other fields. You might as well say, "Purple little flying elephants did it and that's my opinion." Explanatory value is derived by explaining something that is simple by providing more complicated evidence, not the other way around.

    Furthermore, I strongly feel as I posted earlier in this comment section, that many people are uneducated in the very areas that they seek to provide opinions on. It is this fact that belies the reason for the plethora of unreasoned comments. Simply look at the comments regarding people not understanding the basic math involved in the video. 24 minus 1 equals 23. 23 times two equals 46. I learned this in the first grade. And you expect me to explain evolutionary theory to you. Idiocracy is here now, GOD save us!

    -Steve
    www.thenothingthatis.blogspot.com

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  72. This may help in understanding where Jesus and Christianity came from. Everyone should watch it wether you believe it or not.
    http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
    Enjoy

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  73. Hi, i'm Houk. There's lot of chimps with 23 pairs. They cant understand science but they have lot of imagination, that's why they prefer believing in "god". some of these chimps posted messages in this website. scientists should study them.

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  74. Okay, well in that case, I now believe God created chimps. :)

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  75. But you disbelieve in the biblical account of creation Dave? That's good, because that's what the article was disproving. Glad we got that sorted.

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  76. The important thing to remember is that its not actually important at all whether there is a god or not. Any entity with absolute power and knowledge over all of existence would, understanding everything utterly, knowing exactly what will happen at every point and place possible. Such a creature would see the entirety of the universe all at once, it would know exactly what would happen in its creation before it even created it. It would make any action on the part of this creature pointless from its point of view. With every action and reaction known in advance all throughout eternity, and with it's absolute power over what is, it would be unable to react to this existence, only act on it.

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  77. I just have to say this: Some people's complete misunderstanding of genetics is disturbing to me. If you don't understand it, get a genetics book and stop sounding like an idiot and stop saying the speaker is wrong. Everything he is saying sounds valid to me, and it is solid fact that we have 46 chromosomes! So don't say that that makes no sense! You can see the friggin' pairs in a microscope! uggg! And by the way, you can believe in a god or gods and believe in evolution as well. They do not have to be separate. I was raised Episcopal and I was not taught to take the bible literally. Intelligent people who have paid attention in their genetics, biology, and anthropology classes know and believe that evolution happened. There is evidence of it not only in our genetics but via fossils as well.

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  78. lets say this eveloution happened. now spawned from apes. man comes. a weaker hairless crying sticking out like a sore thumb species, living in the wild. If they accepted this new species. they would have to change their lives to this weaker species. children of apes hang on to their parents when preditors attack to get away. a baby cannot do these things. we would perish.

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  79. they wouldn't have to accept anything. we are vastly more intelligent, a tool maker, we made weapons to protect ourselves.

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  80. this guy is great i sorta understood what he ment even though all the hard words he used, some people say this and god should be seperated, but what i believe is there was once a man called jesus but all the things he done and said what he was.. , i am not sure, but this proves that all the stuff they said in the bible about how god made men and universie , i think its just pure wrong and kinda makes the bible out as lying so its possbile they could lie about everything else in the book. And to think we are alone in this unverise is pure wrong, the unverise is huge and to think we're alone... we're not that special.

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  81. WOW I know I'm coming in on this a little late, however after reading all the comments there is one thing that's missing.
    BOTH evolutionists and Christians need Faith in their beliefs. Evolution and Creation BOTH lack the 100% guarantee that it's the "REAL" thing! Both require a level of FAITH. Faith in science or Faith in God.
    When looking at science we can come to realize that over the centuries science has been WRONG on many occasions. (Thousands of examples)
    I'm a 52 year old white male with a college education and when I attended elementary school science, they taught me that matter had THREE forms. Solid, liquid and gas. WOW!! We now know of 6 states, solid, liquid, gas, plasma, Bose-Einstein Condensates which was not discovered until 1995 and the sixth "Fermionic Condensates", which was CREATED by man. Science not so reliable.

    At the same time Society taught me that segregation was OK. How wrong Society was!!

    So science is GREAT I love it, however I'm NOT going to put my Faith in something that has been wrong thousands of times (That I know of) The more science evolves the more we find out how wrong we really have been.
    Society has been just as wrong as science and I'm definetly NOT going to put my faith in Society!

    However as a Christian my FAITH in God can evolve into something that I have discoverd. A personal relationship with Him (GOD). Yes HE is as real to me as the air I breathe even though I can't see it (it's there). He's as real to me as the immensness of the universe (even though I can't measure it) He's as real to me as the solids, liquid, gas, plasma, Bose-Einstein Condensates and the Fermionic Condensates that EXIST!

    He wakes me in the morning and I love spending the day talking with Him and hanging out.

    AND to everyone else out there who does not have this....
    You'll never discover the seventh state of matter unless you're DILIGENTLY searching for it, YES it's hard work, just ask any of the scientists that have made discoveries. Laughed at, humiliated, rejected and more...
    AND
    You will never discover what you're not SERIOUSLY searching for.
    Seek and you shall find it, knock and it shall be opened unto you.
    Youm MUST seek in order to find just ask Cristopher Columbus how easy it was to find. Knock and it shall be opened, just ask Martin Luther King how easy the doors opened. Yeah right!

    Ignorance IS bliss!

    Thank you Holy Spirit

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  82. I have always said that just because God created The World, Adam and Eve etc. The Bible does not say how he created them. Maybe God created that chromosome that way for a reason. If that is the only difference between ape and humans maybe that is why he created it that way. Have you ever studied the Bible? Maybe if you spent more time in it, instead of trying to disprove it you might learn much more and you will certainly gain more. What went on in your childhood to turn you so against christianity?

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  83. Reading all the comments it is sad all the people people who attack the bible.

    If I was an unbeliever I would simply ignore the article and not attack people who don't support evolution as fact. I find it sad that people put forth ignorant comments about the bible in order to support evolution. Look, if someone wants to believe something, I can agree or just ignore it, ingoring it shows how confident you are in your belief/position, but to attack it to me makes me think that those people are doing it just to may be stir trouble, or have some kind of emptiness in their life that they need to attack others (as most the comments are personal, when they become personal you've lost the argument anyway).

    Would it not be better to discuss the article with love and respect and understanding so we can all learn?

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  84. Religion and science are not related. At all. Now everyone shut the f*** up and stop commenting.

    Either you can believe evolution is real or God created everything, whatever, just don't deny others here.

    And if your a religious nut, stay off of Atheist-based websites. I don't like you guys as much as you hate us.

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  85. YALL LIKE COCK

    GO GOD

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  86. The bible is there to merely teach a lesson. Not for historical reference.

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