re: Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution

It may just be me but the simplier question would be "do you believe that God created the universe as stated in the Bible" or "do you believe the Big Bang theory?" I'm pretty sure that most Christians believe the earth is older than 6,000 yrs and that we've "evolved" to some degree (looking around the world today it could be argued that we haven't evolved all that much ).

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I know it's a lost cause and can move on.

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It's time to move on.....for both sides and one day we'll all know what the truth is.

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On the other hand: They have no idea who wrote Luke, John, Matthew and Mark. They have guesses, but when they're written decades after someone who supposedly lived, it's very difficult. I don't think there's a single scholar out there who would say "The Republic" is authored by an anonymous source.

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Your second-hand arguments (I say second-hand because you are dealing with textual-critical arguments as if they're scientific fact) aren't nearly as cut-and-dried as you think them to be. Dating a text through textual-critical methods is fraught with difficulties.

And the attribution of the Gospels to the traditionally accepted authors begins quite early. It is only upon late dating through the histo-crits (starting in the late 1800s) that their authorship was seriously questioned.

That's all far afield of the thread's discussion. But your statement of literary and textual critical theory as fact is not something I wished to be glossed over.

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Your second-hand arguments (I say second-hand because you are dealing with textual-critical arguments as if they're scientific fact) aren't nearly as cut-and-dried as you think them to be. Dating a text through textual-critical methods is fraught with difficulties.

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Dating has many methods now so they can cross evaluate and know if the timing is right or wrong. What we know: The Earth is not 6,500 years old.

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And the attribution of the Gospels to the traditionally accepted authors begins quite early. It is only upon late dating through the histo-crits (starting in the late 1800s) that their authorship was seriously questioned.

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Yes, this method is being used by the same standards (now) as they did the Greeks and the Romans. This means that there's a lot more scrutiny and academic absolute is at a different level.

The authors all published their works 2 to 3 decades after Jesus lived, some as many as 8. That would mean that the author was not an eyewitness to Jesus. The same standard being applied, to, let's say: Tacitus, there's evidence galore.

The authors of those books were held to be so strong in earlier dates because we all know that their identity is an important aspect.

Who's going to believe an anonymous author who wasn't an eyewitness to Jesus?

No one ought to, that's for sure.

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The second sentence has absolutely nothing to do with the first with regards to our discussion

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No you're right, dating has nothing to do with evolution -- especially regarding theories of a younger Earth. Totally right, dude.

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Perhaps you could lay out for me a brief synopsis of the reasoning behind a late date for the Gospel of Matthew.

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The Gospel of Matthew is generally believed to have been composed between 70 and 110, with most scholars preferring the period 80–90;[2] a pre-70 date remains a minority view, but has been strongly supported.[3] The anonymous author was probably a highly educated Jew, intimately familiar with the technical aspects of Jewish law, and the disciple Matthew was probably honored within his circle.[4]

It's funny though, because after doing some research I realize that you're getting your scholarly articles from Christian Apologetic sites.

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You should stick to speaking authoritatively on issues where you have more expertise. The dating of texts of Antiquity ain't it.

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You should keep up to date with contemporary views on historicity. :)

Early Christian tradition held that the Gospel of Matthew was written in "Hebrew" (Aramaic, the language of Judea) by the apostle Matthew, the tax-collector and disciple of Jesus,[80] but according to the majority of modern scholars it is unlikely that this Gospel was written by an eyewitness.[81] Modern scholars interpret the tradition to mean that Papias, its source, writing about 125–150 CE, believed that Matthew had made a collection of the sayings of Jesus.[82] Papias's description does not correspond well with what is known of the gospel: it was most probably written in Greek, not Aramaic or Hebrew, it depends on the Greek Gospels of Mark and on the hypothetical Q document, and it is not a collection of sayings.[83] Although the identity of the author is unknown, the internal evidence of the Gospel suggests that he was an ethnic Jewish male scribe from a Hellenised city, possibly Antioch in Syria,[84] and that he wrote between 70 and 100 CE[85] using a variety of oral traditions and written sources about Jesus.[86]

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Yeah... so are fish... actually fish contain multiple classes... but you have no issues with a certain species of fish splitting into two different species... but you have an issue with a species of mammal splitting into different species. And then I assume splitting again, and again, and again, until you have chimps over here and humans over there.

Yet, fish can split, cause they are still fish...

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Your hypothetical started with two fish of the same species changing into fish of other species over time. I have no problem with one species changing into another, since two different species are extremely similar except in how they look or other relatively-small changes which make them somewhat dissimilar.

I have a problem with the notion that a mammal of one family or genus changes into another mammal from a different class or genus over time. There is a wide variety of animal kinds within the mammal class.

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Why can't ape-ancestor split into ape-ancestor A and ape-ancestor B... then A splits into A-1 and A-2 and B splits into B-1 and B-2. and on and on and on... until you have A-55 (chimp) and B-55(human). they look enough alike, have plenty of genentic and physical similarities... But nope... not possible.. but if the fish did it... then.... maybe... Amirite?

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Again, if one species changes into another species, that is something we can observe over a pretty short amount of time. Since the classification of a species is pretty unscientific anyway. You would have to assume that A-55 and B-55 came from the same source because it was not observable. Common characteristics and similar DNA (the differences are more important than the similarities since all organisms share the common DNA building blocks) do not prove that one organism came from another (from an origins perspective).

Evolution takes the small changes we see today and extrapolates that over time. But that isn't observable. There may be evidence to show that it is plausible, but since there is no better natural explanation for it, it is assumed to be the truth of the matter.

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It's hard to be cordial when there's so much evidence for it.

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Nope it's called being an adult. You & I are 180 degrees apart in our beliefs but it's not my business to judge you or what you believe......no matter how wrong you are

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Again, if one species changes into another species, that is something we can observe over a pretty short amount of time.

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Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The biologist Orator F. Cook seems to have been the first to coin the term 'speciation' for the splitting of lineages or "cladogenesis," as opposed to "anagenesis" or "phyletic evolution" occurring within lineages.[1][2]

Observed instances

Island genetics, the tendency of small, isolated genetic pools to produce unusual traits, has been observed in many circumstances, including insular dwarfism and the radical changes among certain famous island chains, for example on Komodo. The Galápagos islands are particularly famous for their influence on Charles Darwin. During his five weeks there he heard that Galápagos tortoises could be identified by island, and noticed that Finches differed from one island to another, but it was only nine months later that he reflected that such facts could show that species were changeable. When he returned to England, his speculation on evolution deepened after experts informed him that these were separate species, not just varieties, and famously that other differing Galápagos birds were all species of finches. Though the finches were less important for Darwin, more recent research has shown the birds now known as Darwin's finches to be a classic case of adaptive evolutionary radiation.[6]g

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FWIW, I don't think you are dumb either... Blinded by the light maybe, but not dumb.

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I appreciate the compliment? But I believe the same thing about others who don't believe as I do. I guess we've got some common ground there.