Did God start trying to create bi-pedal, homo sapiens millions of years ago? Did it take God millions of years to finally get bi-pedal movement right? If so, why did he leave the curve in our lower back that seems to be the one great weakness of our skeletal structure?

It's getting more and more difficult to argue with evolution - it's everywhere, in every species of plant and animal life and it's becoming more demonstrable than ever.

Why do we continue to think that we modern humans have a beginning and ultimate destination that differs from every other species on the planet? The more I study this wonderful sphere we are on the more I realize this is our beginning and ultimate destination – “from dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”.

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/11/human-ancestor-candidate-a-weird-mosaic/?hpt=hp_c3

Some people's minds simply cannot fathom such scientific
reporting. It has nothing to do with the world they live in.
The Adam and Eve story is relatively simple -- many people
learn it as children, in lessons accompanied by illustrations
designed for a child's mind.

Short of putting such folks through a university education,
not much can be done with them -- and even the acquisition
of such an education might not help much.

In the case of Mormons, the truth is even more difficult to
convey. They are convinced that Eloheim in their Father in
even the biological sense. They may not understand DNA, but
they will say that Eloheim has a glorified human body, just
the same as any member of the Homo sapiens species. There is
no use in trying to convince these people otherwise.

They have found their "truth" and will die believing it.

UD

I am dumbfounded by my SIL and her husband's belief in a literal Adam and Eve. I can understand, somewhat, a person buying into it if they were raised believing in it. My SIL and her husband, on the other hand, were not. They grew up neither in the Morridor nor the Bible Belt, and attended very well regarded public schools. Neither their teachers, their parents, nor their churches taught them to believe in a literal Adam and Eve; Genesis was a metaphor.

And yet, as young newlyweds, they moved to the Bible Belt, got involved in a fundamentalist church, and now teach their children Creationism. Sigh. Poor kids.

People like feeling superior to animals and to each other. How many people fantasize about some rich uncle or discovering they are related to royalty. Believing you were created by a divine being goes right along with these desires. People want to believe they are descended from an all powerful King of Kings, not some weak hairy jungle animal. A dead monkey has no power to save a persons eternal soul, so it provides no comfort when contemplating death. It is the fear of the eternities that prevents people from accepting evidence from the past.

The thought that this physical frame is composed of star
stuff is quite enough for me.

A bloodstream full of iron, forged in eons-old stars.
Bones and organs contains trans-ferric elements flung out
from supernovae before the earth was ever formed...

What a heritage! Infinitely more awesome than a child's
explanation, given by a creationist.

Looking over our tiny corner of this magnificent cosmos,
both at the micro level and at the macro level, I count
myself blessed to be part of it all.

Why settle for anything less, folks!

UD

I am not disagreeing with you, just trying to provide a reason why people would not accept the truth no matter how obvious. Sure star are powerful, but when has a star ever cared about you as an individual? Stars are just burning balls of gas. If it wasn't for the fact that the earth has an atmosphere thanks to its molten core generating a magnetic field, the sun would burn you to a crisp and eventually in the distant future it will finally achieve that goal.

The universe doesn't care about human beings or intelligent life or life in general based on observable evidence. Even our lovely planet earth will squash the life out of anyone who gets in the way of her hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, wildfires, or extreme temperatures. The only thing that cares about humans in the entire universe are other humans, and most the time even they don't have much compassion.
Rather than be enthralled with the thought of some mythical sky father, or benevolent universe, we need to realize that we are all we got, and if as a human species we can't put aside our differences and work together for the betterment of the entire human race instead of just a particular chosen elect few, then maybe we don't deserve eternal life, or to continue as a species.

helemon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...
> The universe doesn't care about human beings or
> intelligent life or life in general based on
> observable evidence. ...

Then I suppose that is my job -- the one tiny bit of
relevancy that I can add to the environment I find myself in.

There is a basalt rock wall near my home -- it has been in
place since shortly before I moved here, years ago.

I walk by the rocks now and then. Today they are not barren
hunks of black lava, like they were when first I saw them.

First came the lichens -- little patches of pale green
and yellow, that barely covered 1% of the wall.

A few years later the mosses came -- thin strands of green
when first I noticed them, but now thick verdant layers,
covering the entire wall.

Later on there were tiny flowering plants, invading the
crevices and taking root. They grew and attracted the bees
and butterflies and ants. Lizards came to feed upon the
insects, and now and then a mongoose stops by to snatch
up a lizard or two.

But it's all one thing to me -- a tiny world that I watch.

My role in all of that? To contemplate. To appreciate.
Perhaps to help preserve. But, most of all, to tell you.

I am no different than those first lichens, trying to find
their footholds. I have my foothold. And that's OK by me.

UD

Read the comments after the article. Creationists will never stop believing.

Yup, one of my ironclad proofs that we are not created by a Divine Being is....bad backs.

And another thing I believe--fundamentalists simply cannot imagine millions upon millions years of time; like they can't conceive of hundreds of generations of dinosaurs walking around on top of the already fossilized remains of hundreds of generations of the dinosaurs' own ancestors.

Curve in the lower back a weak point? That is one of my favorite features on the human body. At least on a woman.

Thanks so much for this link...undeniable and absolute proof of our ancestral heritage!

Unfortunately the bad news is that...on picture #5...that lower jaw has better looking teeth than mine!!!

Or so it seems to me...

Denying evolution is just sticking ones' head in the sand. Far, far too much evidence to the contrary! And yet, I have family members who still insist it doesn't apply to humans. Yeesh.

The next time I meet someone who thinks Adam & Eve are real, I'm going to remind them that the bad guy in that story is a talking snake.