How can an intelligent person deny evidence that can be seen and touched.?

Question

Fossil fragments of an early species of hominid have been unearthed with rhino, giraffe, monkey, hippo, and antelope remains in Africa. Hominids are upright-walking primates including modern humans and extict and related forms. The new fossils are helping scientists piece together the earliest chapters of human evolution.

The research team said the fossils were of the Ardipithecus ramidus species. This hominid species lived shortly after hominids split from the common ancestor that gave rise to both chimpanzees and hominids some six to eight million years ago.

Hominids gave rise to a number of human and near human species, including the extinct Neandertals and the hobbit-like Homo floresiensis—and the only surviving species, Homo sapiens.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0121_050121_hominid.html

Why is it preferable to remain willfully ignorant?

Fish what history books about Jesus? Name one non-fiction book!!!!!!!!! Just one. The buy-bull is fiction.

Answer 1

Christians believe in the imaginary and deny physical evidence... what can I say!

Answer 2

As an intelligent homo sapien, I have come to realise that my intelligence is limited. Limited to the physical. What I can see and touch. However, there is another part of my being that understands there is more to life than the physical. So I do not close my mind, but open it up to other possibilities.

Seems to me that most of the responses to your question are evidence of limited thinking. Minds already made up. Hmmm, don't suppose that will endear me to anyone, but we really don't want a one-sided argument, do we? By the way, has the missing link been found yet? (Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb - lol!) Just feeling mischievous, folks!

P.S. The notion that the earth is only 6,000 years old is a wicked rumour put about by a certain Bishop Joseph Usher who was instructed by his masters to calculate how long humans had been on the earth (since Adam) - nothing to do with the age of the earth. Refer to the book 'Annals of the World'. The Bible account of creation in the book of Genesis makes it clear that the earth already existed BEFORE God got to work creating light, atmosphere, water, dry land, vegetation and then life. The Hebrew word for day is 'yom' and can be used to mean a period of time - thousands or millions of years. It is not a literal 24 hour period. The only thing in contention is the question of whether life happened by accident or whether there was a superior intellect behind it.

Edit: Thumbs up to wtim68 - hands up everyone who knows the difference between macro and micro evolution?

Answer 3

Put yourself in their place and it's not hard to see. They place their total existence and eternal life in the hands of someone they have never seen or heard based on things they've been told, usually since childhood. Their leaders have made leaps to conclusions (like the earth is the center of the universe, the earth is 6,000 years old, etc.), and they have defended those positions in order to be seen as loyal to God. But since the initial premise of their belief system (Christ died for their sins) can't be empirically verified, they don't see empirical evidence as something to put their faith in. It's really sad. The world would be much better if people dealt with what we can experience with our senses than what we're afraid might happen to us if we don't appease some imperceptible deity.

Answer 4

Because religion provides something scientific fact cannot: Emotional comfort. False though it is. Religion gives people a sense of belonging, purpose and security. And most of all, the promise of an afterlife. That's enough incentive for the less strong among us to remain willfully ignorant of scientific evidence and embrace the obvious fiction of God.

Answer 5

Why? Because it's easier for them that's why.
Being willfully ignorant is easy, it's thinking on one's own that's scary.
Seeing evidence for something, even something that their mythology says doesn't exist (yeah, I know) should be enough to persuade them that perhaps, just perhaps, the bronze age authors of the bible really did'nt know what they were talking about and that their book is more motivated by the money they could fleece from the ignorant and gullible, than divinely inspired.

Answer 6

Theists are in general, uneducated simpletons.

The few that are not tend to be in positions of leadership and they naturally tend to abuse this position by behaving in the complete and opposite way they brainwash the sheep to behave.

The herd choose to remain ignorant as it makes their belief that they are 'chosen', or special in some way, that much easier to believe.

Answer 7

How can an intelligent person deny evidence that can be seen and touched.?

Why? It is because they are not using intelligence, but emotions to make the important decision as to weither religion is real or not. It is as simple as that.

Answer 8

The problem is tha they follow a religion that asks for unquestioning belief and total obedience. If you are brought up by you parents to believe in a book. Then it is hard to do otherwise.

Answer 9

Nice story! However its tough to believe because there is no solid body of evidence which indicates that anything of the sort has ever happened --or could happen (with any reasonable probability) using all the time and matter in the present universe. This situation is mainly true, because the more time is involved, the more mistakes are made in the passing down of genetic information, resulting in more genetic diseases and problems, rather than improvements. In fact de-evolution seems more likeliy than evolution of one spie into another!

Since we can't see 'macroevolution', it is at this point that the appeal to the fossil record is then routinely made, --with supposedly impressive lineups of bones which are said to provide evidence of macro-evolutionary progressions down through the millennia. But fossil evidence of the large transitions between major classes of life required to demonstrate macro-evolution is basically totally absent, which is even admitted by some evolutionists, such as the late Stephen J. Gould, who admitted this lack of empirical support for his view, as he stated:

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution."
(Gould, S.J., "Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?")

Most importantly: The fossil record does not supply any uninterrupted series of transitional forms between phyla or classes or even families of animals or plants ---even though about 90% of the families of all animals are represented in the fossil record! One of the outstanding characteristics of the entire fossil record, is the systematic presence of non-transitioned gaps throughout. Just trees that remain trees, roses remain roses, corn remains corn, and human beings remain human beings. Micro-evolution has not been shown to add up to macro-evolution, no matter in which way or over how long a period the evidence is observed!

Now there is refrencing to DNA ... There is claim that humans and apes share 95 percent of their genetic information and that this is proof of evolution. It is also shown for example, the genetic analyses published in New Scientist have revealed a 75% similarity between the DNA of nematode worms and man. This definitely does not mean that there is only a 25% difference between man and these worms! It is surely natural for the human body to bear some molecular similarities to other living beings being that we are on the same planet. This "common material" is the result not of evolution but of "common design," that is, of their being created upon the same plan.

The theory of evolution is supported neither by the fossil record nor by genetic or biochemical data. On the contrary, evidence shows that different life forms on Earth appeared quite abruptly without any evolutionary ancestors and that their incredibly complex systems prove the existence of an "intelligent design."

Answer 10

You people are a laugh riot. Scientist, with a few pieces of bone fragment 're-construct' pre human races and you eat it up. The findings are laced heavily with 'it might have..' or 'it could have..' or 'just maybe...'. Satan has taken the wonderful intellect that GOD gave man and used it against man.