While I have advised many of my fellow Christian participants that I am trying to voluntarily remove myself from the Religion Forum as basically nothing changes and there is no sense in wasting time redoing the same thing over and over I do reserve the option to respond from time to time either to explain or clarify a position I hold. In this case my response is to A Rob's post regarding evolution. I have stated before that my opposition to evolution is based more in evolution's glaring absences and defeciences than in my Religious beliefs. There are examples of Religious people who believe Evolution is the vehicle of life from a singular common organism. Since it's considered so stupid to ignore scientific "facts" as they are referred to here lets go on the assumption that A Rob's post is 100% accurate in the way transitions happen. My opposition still remains valid based upon the following:
First of all we live on an Earth that is beneficial to and reinforces the development of life. If all life evolved from this primordial pool of organisms and evolution is an unintelligent, unguided process, then the exact same processes and transitions should be occurring, across the board and scope of life, today just as they did eon's ago. We have the base organism's (most simplistic) as well as an environment that fosters life and growth, so since evolution is an unguided and unintelligent process it should be assumed and expected that the same process replicates itself over and over as long as there is sufficient reinforcement for life to continue. The hypothesis of all the various species of life from most basic to however complex should be an existing and present road map for all to follow and examine. Instead what we are expected to believe is that the map is there in extinct fossils many of which are jumps in time, and we are expected to just accept that they all fit together. Evolution in and of itself (being an unintelligent process) decided that various stages of completion had occurred so therefore replication of those transitions no longer needed to occur even though the base elements were still there and the environment that could foster their growth was still present.
A Rob you presented a quite detailed list of transitionary steps but all stages of life and transitions from single to complex species of all the various life forms (plant, bacteria, mammal, amphibian, bird etc) each of it's own but missing is the interspecies and extra-species transitions still happening today as it did eon's ago in time. If Evolution is a non-directed and non-intelligent process then there can be no way to know transitions have occurred and therefore can stop as you still have the most base organisms who long to be more complex and thrive in life. It is this missing evidence that I believe most glaring speaks to evolution's inadequacies at explaining life.
What Evolution does do though is provide anyone that seeks to explain life as an unintelligent accident without direction a process by which they can cling to in order to attempt to explain how we became who we are without a God or deity to direct it. Evolution is a process that Science can test and examine therefore is accepted without reservation by those who cannot conceive of, or envision, a realm apart from the physical realm that we are a part of. A realm or source where life could have originated from which is beyond the ability of science or any other physical process to test or explain. It is the acceptance of the possibility, also, that the source and process of life and life forms come from a process which is beyond human comprehension and understanding.
If you are going to defend Evolution then please explain how some non-intelligent and non-directed process determines that transitions have occurred and therefore can cease or are no longer valid and necessary to continue on? How is it that we can find the base organisms and single celled entities and have the, to date, finished products yet somehow the process roadmap or schematics of life has to be constructed from fossils of long past entities that were once a part of the process and now are no longer necessary or present? I believe that Evolution is it's own worst enemy once one starts asking critical questions about the process and attempting to piece together development of cross species transitions. This is but one of the problems I have with evolution as an explanation for how lIfe became and developed.