How do religious people explain the human tailbone?

Question

I think the tailbone proves that humans once had a tail. So, how do people who refuse to believe natural evolution explain this?

Answer 1

That's absurd.

Having a tailbone proves you have a tailbone. Since a tailbone is compatible with Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design, Panspermia, and a zillion other cosmogenies, it proves little else.

But thanks for showing your bias. Evolution is actually an illusion created by materialism (the unprovable belief that the cosmos is an absolute).

-Aztec276

Answer 2

Well, a lot of religious people believe that human evolution is compatible with supernatural creation. Their idea is that God created man by guiding evolution. I don't buy that myself, but that's a possible way of reconciling it.

Another method of explanation is arguing that the tailbone never was really part of a tail, that it's just there to protect the spine. This requires ignoring the similarity between skeletal structures across species, but for most people, it's easy not to think too hard about that.

Also, there's the tactic of drawing an imaginary line between one's own "group" and another "group," scientists, and declaring the others to be untrustworthy. This is where you get people arguing that evolutionary theory is a tactic by the evil scientists to impose their Godless view of life on everybody else. These people don't think much about tailbones at all; it's enough that whatever the scientists say about it is probably wrong.

Answer 3

Can you make an appointment with your local orthopedic specialist to have your tailbone permanently removed? If we are convinced that we really do not need it, let’s get rid of it. I think we need a case study group of about 1000 people that are willing to get "rid" of their tailbone because it is the worthless remains of a tail we do not have anymore. We can form a better hypothesis if we are able to study people without a tail bone. I believe that it is for balance and to help with the way the spine can curve when we sit, as well as redistributing body weight off of the lumbar bones while sitting, but we can only prove this through a test group. If we are wrong about needing a tailbone or it being worthless the test group will allow us to provide tested scientific evidence that the tailbone serves no purpose since we no longer have a tail. We also need to prove that through the osteoblast and osteoclast process of building up and breaking down bones that it is possible to not just go through osteoporosis, by aging, but that whole sections of our bones no longer from at all. (ex: a tail) Can we find a skeleton with human DNA that dates back 1 million years ago that has more bones in the coccyx (tail bone?) We can also start actively studying the process of meiosis and closely document any cases of the coccyx bone losing more sections. Why can't a building evolve? It is made up of matter. My point here is to think on a common sense bases using intuition. I will gladly give a sample of my DNA if anyone thinks they would be capable of tracing it back to non-human bones and find an matching ancestor. As for now it is easier for me to believe that there is a GOD who loves me, and wants me to be with him forever and made it possible for that. If I am wrong I have lost nothing. If I am right I live forever with no night, no illness, no pain, no suffering, and with someone that has perfect love for me. I John 5 :13

Answer 4

Religions did not develop in order to provide a complete explanation of reality. They develeoped to explain good and evil, right and wrong and what will happen if you if you are naughty or nice.
Very few religions attempt to explain reality in the way that science or medicine do. So it is unfair to expect followers to explain reality on those terms. :)

Similar it is unfair when people tell us that their religion does "explain" everything in the same way that science or knowledge attempts to. Or better. Gone is any doubt or need for testing a theory. It was written thus (via several languages, hundreds of editors and the odd transcription error).

Darwinism is so powerful because the number of things it explains is huge compared to the number of assumptions it makes. Does it make sense? Yes. Does it require the suspension of rational thought? No. Darwin wasn't the first to consider it, but he had the guts to make people think what evolution meant.

I don't know whether the tailbone is the best example to use to "prove" anything. Though I am glad that we don't have one.

Answer 5

I can appreciate that question because I am easily amused by the minds that have grasped a lint of knowledge and ran with it like it were a brick of gold. We also grow wisdom teeth that require removal for most people. Does that mean humans once had protruding jaws like dogs?

I'm not religious, but I think the religious community's best response to your question would be, "shut the **** up, idiot."

Answer 6

The human coccyx, or "tail bone," is a group of four or five small vertebrae fused into one bone at the lower end of our vertebral column. Most of us never really think about our "tail bone" until we fall on it. Evolutionists are dead certain that the coccyx is a vestige of a tail left over from our monkey-like ancestors. The coccyx does occupy the same relative position at the end of our vertebral column as does the tail in tailed primates, but then, where else would it be? The vertebral column is a linear row of bones that supports the head at its beginning and it must end somewhere. Wherever it ends, evolutionists will be sure to call it a vestigial tail.

Most modern biology textbooks give the erroneous impression that the human coccyx has no real function other than to remind us of the "inescapable fact" of evolution. In fact, the coccyx has some very important functions. Several muscles converge from the ring-like arrangement of the pelvic (hip) bones to anchor on the coccyx, forming a bowl-shaped muscular floor of the pelvis called the pelvic diaphragm. The incurved coccyx with its attached pelvic diaphragm keeps the many organs in our abdominal cavity from literally falling through between our legs. Some of the pelvic diaphragm muscles are also important in controlling the elimination of waste from our body through the rectum.

There are organs in the body which have no known function in the adult but are still not vestigial in the evolutionary sense. For example, poorly developed and inactive mammary glands are found in adult males of all mammals, including man. Even evolutionists do not believe that these rudimentary glands are vestigial mammary glands left over from female ancestors of males, nor do they believe that males once nursed their young. There is a much better explanation for the male mammary gland. Males and females develop from nearly identical embryos which, at an early stage of development, become either male or female under the influence of genes in the sex chromosomes. The same parts of an embryo may produce either male or female sex organs and mammary glands. In humans, almost every component of female sex organs can be found in a rudimentary form in the male; and the reverse is also true. Thus, the presence of rudimentary organs in the adult do not tell us something about evolution, but rather tell us something about embryology.

In conclusion, the "vestigial" status of many organs has often been merely a way of covering up our ignorance of their true function. Unfortunately, there is little inclination to investigate the functional significance of organs believed to be "useless." There are now few, if any, organs that are considered to be functionless in both embryo and adult. Even if vestigial organs were to exist they would not provide evidence for evolution but rather for devolution. The problem for evolutionists is not how useful organs are lost, but how evolution produces new useful organs with all their integrated complexity. It is here that we find true evolutionary tales.

Answer 7

Simple. The tailbone protects the spinal cord.

Answer 8

You "think"? Based on what fact? The truth is that you are making an assumption that is not supported empirically nor objectively, and you are ready to justify your whole philosophy of life on this assumption. Now that is flaky. If you are a materialist, then for goodness sake learn what that means, and learn to discuss it intelligently. And here is a bonus -- Learn what being intellectually honest means.

Answer 9

You put your tail in the pew. Religion is about faith and that belief is inexplicable. Grace and faith is the acceptance that allows us to live with ourselves with or without a tail. Life is what we worship and personification of perfection places that ideal before us to strive for in life. Mythology provides us with personification. I am what I am, that is the image we are given and aren't we all.

Answer 10

Who says the tailbone is part of a "tail"? Also if evolution is true how come mankind has not developed wings since we "really need to be able to fly"...I want to fly ..why can't I just develop wings ..darn it I am FORCED to have to take a plane because there is something wrong with my evolution gene..

If evolution were true we would be seeing ONGOING development of animals and mankind actually evolving ..it is just not happening.... there is no ongoing evolution occurring..