So my friend and I are debating because I am an Atheist and he is a Christian. I tell him that evolution is much more believable than a "God" or "imaginary being" that created us. He says "if we evolved from apes than how come all apes didn't evolve into humans?" And i simply replied by saying "it would only take two apes to evolve into humans and then they could reproduce and reproduce and reproduce. Point one atheism!
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A few short videos on the subject, that are easy to grasp:
Richard Dawkins: Why are there still Chimpanzees?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0F4FBLJRE
Richard Dawkins: Comparing the Human and Chimpanzee Genomes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEtw7esmvg
Richard Dawkins: Show me the intermediate fossils!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o92x6AvxCFg
Stated Clearly: What is the Evidence for Evolution?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIEoO5KdPvg
I agree with Pragmatic, videos are a great way to convey a true understanding of evolution. The only thing I would be concerned with is will your friend truly view the videos?
Another angle to plant seeds of doubt in a later discussion would be the Noah’s ark story. There are so many illogical things connected to that fable, you might plant some seeds if he doesn’t tune you out. Seth Andrews a former Christian broadcaster and radio host did a great video on Noah’s ark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CccaGaKOlSI
It is a little less than seven minutes long, so hopefully he won’t tune out before he hears something he had not considered prior.
@ImFree -
Your avatar is eye-tearingly heart rending. I'm aware of these extreme conditions world wide and I've seen a lot of death 1st hand. It's the suffering of the living I can't juice. If you have a less hurtful image please feel free to switch it out. If you feel it needs to remain I'll understand but I'll probably avoid threads you post in.
Thank you.
Since I removed the avatar you found offensive, in turn I would appreciate you not advising fellow atheists to commit suicide: http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/site-support/i-find-atheism-boring...
You said: "It's the suffering of the living I can't juice" Provide an example by practicing what you preach.
Sincerely,
ImFree
I was once a Christian, and the deconversion process,even after coming to a position of atheism...was hard. I'd suggest to keep presenting facts but it's important to note that people who cling to faith, aren't all that moved by scientific facts. Just my thoughts on it, anyway.
He says "if we evolved from apes than how come all apes didn't evolve into humans?" And i simply replied by saying "it would only take two apes to evolve into humans and then they could reproduce and reproduce and reproduce. Point one atheism!"
Yea your reply is correct to a point.
"If humans evolved from apes", then it only takes a particular GROUP that is exposed to the right environment (to allow adaptation and natural selection) to make only those particular apes evolved to humans, given enough time.
The the best answer is to say that it does not matter, how we came to be as humans, what matters is that if one wants to claim anything about our existence he must provide evidence for it.
The theists are the ones making the claim about creation.
It is OK to say that we do not know yet.
I usually leave them speechless in this way.
If by some miracle you manage to prove human evolution wrong, that only means that we need to research more our origins.
In NO way does that support your extraordinary claim that a capricious and wasteful invisible entity created the entire universe with all the species, planets, stars and black-holes with you in mind.
Humans are (great) apes...
Humans are member of the family: Hominidae - the great apes
When it is said that humans evolved from the "apes," it means that we evolved from "apelike" animals, a different species, not exactly apes. But evolution is NO LONGER theory, it is proven FACT. Scientists, and archeologists HAVE the fossils, and other data to link different species to different time zones. They just recently found the bones to a creature that they were able to link to the human species...I forget how many hundreds of thousands of years old...but it is amazing, and, much to the dissappointment of the theist, true and REAL!!
Recently, some people have been saying that we didn't evolve from apes but from a common ancestor of apes. I'm going to use bigfoot as my example even though I doubt it was it haha. Anyway, The bigfoot species were reproducing but those offspring were separated from one another which caused them to evolve separately. Those two evolutions then became Humans in one group and Apes in the other. Could be the case, or maybe we evolved straight from apes. But anyway, that's something else you could say.
Recently, some people have been saying that we didn't evolve from apes but from a common ancestor of apes. I'm going to use bigfoot as my example even though I doubt it was it haha. Anyway, The bigfoot species were reproducing but those offspring were separated from one another which caused them to evolve separately. Those two evolutions then became Humans in one group and Apes in the other. Could be the case, or maybe we evolved straight from apes. But anyway, that's something else you could say.
Bigfoot could easily be decedents of the Miocene apes.
It is only an assumption that all the apes that dominated the world 3 million years ago are ALL extinct.
In fact if we would see an ape today it would look like a bigfoot.
Upright walking, tail less monkey-like, covered with hair creature. = ape= bigfoot.
The only difference, is that apes came in all sizes, there is even the dwarf kind of apes, but yes, there was the bigfoot size too.