Without reading most of the thread, I'll add in my own two cents here.
Many people think that evolution is to create a perfect creature. This is true; evolution seeks to create creatures that can survive, that can prosper, that can rule. But evolution also has a balancing aspect: a creature cannot become too powerful or "perfect" (in the human sense of the word) before it is wiped off the map by other creatures.
My definition of "perfect" is a slight bit different than most.
"Perfect" does not mean ultimate. Perfect does not mean that it cannot be beaten, that it has complete and total dominion over all that exists. Perfect simply means that it fits into nature like a puzzle piece; it does not conquer and burn, yet it doesn't die to the flick of a flame, either. Take flies: they are weak, unassuming, and annoying. They rest in dung and spread diseases. But they also are so deeply embedded in this planet's ecosystem that it would be almost impossible to remove them. They... they are a creature, as perfect as they can get. They serve a purpose, they survive, and they prosper. In fact, I'd think they would be harder to remove from the earth than humans.
Evolution and natural selection (at least from my uninformed opinion) go hand-in-hand. Evolution is the progression of the strongest. Natural selection, for the most part, is the survival of those creatures that are not too powerful and not too weak. For if one becomes too weak, then it is purged by the stronger. If it is strong, then other weaker ones will group up and bring it down, over a period of time.
Keep this in mind: The city of New York has nearly twenty million people living in it. A small suburban area close to it could have eleven thousand. Given that natural disasters are almost guaranteed to hit the area sometime or later, how many more people would die if New York got hit rather than that small suburban county? Let's say half the population of the suburbs and a quarter of New York got hit by two earthquakes: that'd be about 5.5 thousand dead versus a whopping five million. Also, New York would likely suffer many casualties afterwards: if it hit the pumping system below the city, it could possibly fracture and release thousands upon thousands of tons of water into the city, causing buildings to collapse and more to die. The suburbs might be without power, running water, and other luxuries we take for granted; but it's more likely that they would do better over a few years. That is natural selection: purging the weak, hunting the strong, and all else has a better chance of surviving.
Which leads me to my next point: natural selection need not be from other animals. As I said before, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanic activity, tsunamis, etc. etc. etc. are all part of this process. They all strike different areas of the globe, and if it hits at random a certain area there's more of a probability it would hit us than say, a lion. Anything that kills can be considered natural selection: anything.
Of course the process is not perfect: nothing can be but the conglomeration of many products combined. But know that it may delay, it may dull for a while, but every spot we took to get to the rank we are now WILL someday fall. I'm not even sure if we'll be around in a few hundred years, even. We may have overstepped our boundaries, and we may be paying for it.
Right now it's simply if. But what will happen if it becomes when?
But I digress. Those are my thoughts: but do know that my words are not my ultimatum. Perhaps you could convince me otherwise?
Author
Topic: To deny the existence of God is to deny Evolution (Read 24323 times)