http://www.dbskeptic.com Skepticism. Critical thinking. Podcast. Community. Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:30:05 +0000 en-us hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 Digital Bits Skeptic brings skepticism and critical thinking to a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture. Andy Kaiser clean Andy Kaiser skeptic@dbskeptic.com skeptic@dbskeptic.com (Andy Kaiser) 2009 Skepticism and critical thinking in a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture skeptic, skepticism, critical thinking, new age, religion, pop culture, skeptical articles, critical thinking articles, philosophy http://www.dbskeptic.com/images/dbskeptic-logo-144.jpg http://www.dbskeptic.com/category/religion/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/06/08/the-bible-word-of-god-or-myth-of-men/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/06/08/the-bible-word-of-god-or-myth-of-men/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:38:56 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2175 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/06/08/the-bible-word-of-god-or-myth-of-men/feed/ 15 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/02/bible-prophecies-and-myth/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/02/bible-prophecies-and-myth/#comments Sun, 02 Jan 2011 21:29:56 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2095 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/02/bible-prophecies-and-myth/feed/ 4 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/02/07/jesus-miracles-religious-myth-and-biblical-contradictions/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/02/07/jesus-miracles-religious-myth-and-biblical-contradictions/#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:45:01 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1889 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/02/07/jesus-miracles-religious-myth-and-biblical-contradictions/feed/ 15 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/01/24/modern-day-miracles/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/01/24/modern-day-miracles/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:51:15 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1858 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/01/24/modern-day-miracles/feed/ 52 Nicholas Covington By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 143 - Can miracles occur today? - Let’s look at the evidence by examining three kinds of miracles: One type is “Marian apparitions”. Another is the spontaneous remission of cancer, By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 143 Can miracles occur today? Let’s look at the evidence by examining three kinds of miracles: One type is “Marian apparitions”. Another is the spontaneous remission of cancer, in which malignant tumors reduce or disappear, and can’t be attributed to any standard medical treatment. The final type is what I call “mundane miracles”, seemingly inexplicable and fortunate events which people attribute to the supernatural. I wrote this article for two reasons. First, I am genuinely curious about these strange events. They need explanation, and could perhaps tell us something meaningful about reality. Second, the faiths that we Westerners are most familiar with (like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) all depend upon the idea that miracles occurred in the past. If there is insufficient evidence that miracles occur today, or if there is evidence against miracle claims, this presents difficulty for those who want to argue that miracles occurred in history. Imagine the following: you’ve poured yourself a glass of soda, then you set it down and walk out of the room. When you walk back in, there is more soda in your glass than when you left. How do you explain this? Did someone add soda to your glass, or did more soda somehow emerge spontaneously? Since you have experienced the law of conservation every moment of your life without a single exception, it’s extremely unlikely that it’s been broken here. On the other hand, you have probably experienced people playing jokes, or a faulty memory. These second set of alternatives must be deemed far more plausible than the first, unless some extremely strong evidence is discovered which vindicates spontaneous soda generation. Let’s examine some modern-day miracles. Marian apparitions From 1900-2007, Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, allegedly made 386 reported appearances.[1] Out of all these, the Catholic church has deemed only eight as authentic. The rest are undecided or negative. How are these appearances judged? According to one source, the Catholic Church judges a Marian apparition as authentic based on the following criteria[2]: 1) The facts in the case are free of error. 2) The person(s) receiving the messages is/are psychologically balanced, honest, moral, sincere and respectful of Church authority. 3) Errors in doctrine are not attributed to God, Mary or another saint. 4) Theological and spiritual doctrines presented are free of error. 5) Moneymaking is not a motive involved in the events. 6) Healthy religious devotion and spiritual fruits result, with no evidence of collective hysteria. These criteria are rather problematic. For one thing, how do we know that the doctrines of the Catholic Church are correct? We don’t, so using doctrinal correctness as a criterion to judge these apparitions is spurious. Other criteria, such as “the facts in the case are free of error”, “the person(s) receiving the messages is/are psychologically balanced, honest, moral, sincere…”, “Moneymaking is not a motive” and “Healthy religious devotion and spiritual fruits result” are really only preliminary questions. The sanity and honesty of the witness must certainly be established before we begin to investigate whether the apparition was real. However, the fact that we have established that the witness is sane and honest does not by itself indicate that the apparition actually occurred. Roughly one in two hundred people are schizoid personalities and are prone to hallucinate, even though they are otherwise sane and normal people.[3] The Church’s criteria do not allow us to establish that these apparitions are real beyond reasonable doubt. At best, they act as a filter to remove some obviously false Marian apparitions, though even this is questionable. One could always wonder if some extremely well-documented and genuine Marian apparition has been discarded because it collided with Catholic dogma. Andy Kaiser clean 18:06 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/01/10/mistakes-god-made-where-is-the-mongoose-of-truth/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/01/10/mistakes-god-made-where-is-the-mongoose-of-truth/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 03:20:42 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1788 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/01/10/mistakes-god-made-where-is-the-mongoose-of-truth/feed/ 48 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 141 imagine the Creation of the Universe watch a true God in His Act Of First Creation time is forever and never space is an infinite pinprick there is nothing except One who is Alpha and Omega - By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 141 imagine the Creation of the Universe watch a true God in His Act Of First Creation time is forever and never space is an infinite pinprick there is nothing except One who is Alpha and Omega the Creator gathers to Himself energy in an effortless collection of All That Will Be after an eons-long mental glance at a Very Long and Holy Checklist He begins there is an explosion of pure thought a torrential rush of raw, primal creation Light Darkness The Heavens The Firmament Man and Woman God holds the creation aloft in one cosmic hand He turns it back and forth examining with multiverses of experience and a perfectly-evolved I that sees All when  He speaks this too is a miracle as the Universe hears the first words after its own wondrous birth the Lord of all looks down on creation reflecting these works of His might He stops, considers and says with a shrug "Sorry. Let's call it 'Version 1', all right?" The Christian god is supposed to be infallible and perfect, but he's not. Consider this list of mistakes God made. Noah's Ark The ark itself wasn't a mistake, but a symptom of a bigger problem. It's a great story for kids, until they get older. They they start asking how and why. It's quite a puzzle when you have a loving god murdering almost everyone alive, when the god created those people in the first place. So we have the story of Noah's Ark: in probably the biggest admitted mistake in all of humankind's existence, God says, "Sorry, world, you're just not working out. I'm going to destroy you and try again. Hey, Noah, 'Humankind 1.0' is acting a little buggy. I'm going to reboot the computer in a little bit. Trust me on this - Get in a boat." And yea, God said, "Whoops. My bad." The Tower of Babel Here we have the massive, intelligent, ambitious culture of Babel, whose accomplishments are symbolized by the construction of a gigantic tower. Worried that the people of Babel won't need him anymore, God curses the people of Babel into speaking many different languages. As a result, people can't communicate and the tower project is dropped faster than Noah's Ark after the Great Flood. The culture is destroyed. If being unified by the same language is really such a threat, what does today's God think about globalization and the Internet? Sure, he's tried to disperse and confuse humankind with some difficult and scary languages. But, so far, Fortran, COBOL and BASIC haven't done too much damage. The Tower of Babel is certainly here today, only we've built it not with bricks but with electrons. The creation of Lilith You think Eve was bad? Then you do not want to mess with Lilith. According to the text of the Jewish Talmud, Lilith was a demon seductress - a succubus - who lived around the time of Adam and Eve. Some traditions describe her as Adam's first wife. Others describe her as Adam's post-Eve lover. And love they did - she and Adam were parents to many strange non-humans. One interesting point about Lilith comes from the anonymous medieval text, "The Alphabet of Ben-Sira". God created Adam from scratch - collecting up dust, dirt, mud, snips, snails and puppy dog tails. Eve was created from parts of Adam. Not so with Lilith - she too was created from scratch, just like Adam, and was then introduced to him. The world's first argument - the first ever Holy Squabble -  was about Lilith's equality to Adam. Lilith refused to submit - socially and sexually - and so Lilith was banished and demonized. The snake in the Garden of Eden The evil Satan - disguised as a snake - enters The Garden of Eden and tricks Adam and Eve into eating the Forbidden Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The next step, then, is to banish those stupid humans. Couldn't God have predicted this? Yes. So why didn't he do anything to prevent it? Why allow Satan access at all? Andy Kaiser clean 10:07 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/12/20/advanced-apologizing-proof-of-the-existence-of-god/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/12/20/advanced-apologizing-proof-of-the-existence-of-god/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:07:44 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1733 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/12/20/advanced-apologizing-proof-of-the-existence-of-god/feed/ 12 Nicholas Covington By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1349 - Let's examine the evidence for a god's existence. Some arguments are well-known and very well covered, like the Problem of Evil, the First Cause Argument, the Argument from Design. Instead, By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1349 Let's examine the evidence for a god's existence. Some arguments are well-known and very well covered, like the Problem of Evil, the First Cause Argument, the Argument from Design. Instead, let's look at four lesser-known, overlooked oddities. Welcome to the strange world of religious apologizing. 1) "The common consent to God" Catholic theologian Peter Kreeft offers the following argument for God’s existence: [1] A belief in God—that Being to whom reverence and worship are properly due—is common to almost all people of every era. Either the vast majority of people have been wrong about this most profound element of their lives, or they have not. It is most plausible to believe that they have not. Therefore, it is most plausible to believe that God exists. As Kreeft says, “the majority is not infallible.” Big groups of people can make mistakes. He concedes this point, citing the fact that once upon a time most of the world believed the sun revolved around the Earth, rather than the Earth revolving around the sun. However, people back in those days could directly experience the sun and Earth. But in the case of God, what exactly is it that people experience and possibly misinterpret? This argument fails to convince me. For one thing, “belief in God” is not common to people of every era. Today, at least one third of the world’s population does not subscribe to any of the major monotheistic faiths. [2] It is my understanding that before the rise of Christianity (which covers almost all of human history), almost everyone was polytheistic or engaged in some form of nature worship. If Kreeft is right about the majority being an indicator of truth, he can't also argue for the existence of God (with a capital 'G'). His argument, if correct, actually supports polytheism! Another big problem is when Kreeft attempted to refute the “majority is not infallible” objection. Kreeft admitted that ancient people misinterpreted their experiences and so came to believe that the sun revolved around the earth. Apply this to present day religion: A religious worldview could simply be the result of misinterpreting reality. Animism (personifying nature) seems to grow out of falsely attributing human characteristics to impersonal things (like regarding the moon as an "Earth Mother"). Polytheism appears to have grown out of animism, since the gods of ancient polytheistic religions were originally often just aspects of nature. We human beings, in our modern monotheistic societies, still personify inanimate objects. This supports my theory that religion is based on a fundamental misinterpretation of reality. Have you ever seen someone get angry at their car because it won’t start? Have you ever seen someone plead with or threaten a faulty computer? Think about what this person was doing: She was personifying inanimate objects. How rational is it to get angry at something with no will of its own, an object utterly incapable of being persuaded by curses or violence? It isn't rational. It makes no sense, unless this person believes, even subconsciously, that the inanimate object is actually animate. 2) "The singularity argument against God" The "Big Bang singularity" is the moment, after we extrapolate backwards in time, when we see that the Big Bang was infinitely dense, infinitely hot and was so tiny it consumed no space at all. The singularity is a cosmic "division by zero" error, where physics and general relativity break down. Philosopher Quentin Smith [3] says that the Big Bang singularity was a lawless, chaotic, and unpredictable state. In principle, it is impossible to predict whether such a thing could ever evolve life. Smith argues that God would not create the universe this way: a life-creating God would not leave open the possibility of a lifeless universe. There's a flaw here. Since God is omnipotent, He could have created the Big Bang, Andy Kaiser clean 11:55 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/10/18/what-is-faith/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/10/18/what-is-faith/#comments Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:55:09 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1579 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/10/18/what-is-faith/feed/ 11 Jeff Kilroy by Jeff Kilroy Article ID: 1341 - I attempt to have rational arguments with theists about their beliefs. I really do. Unfortunately, it seems that every time I present an argument that almost makes me shout “Checkmate!”, by Jeff Kilroy Article ID: 1341 I attempt to have rational arguments with theists about their beliefs. I really do. Unfortunately, it seems that every time I present an argument that almost makes me shout “Checkmate!”, I get the dismissive reply of “You just need faith,” or “This is just MY faith”. In most religions and even some pseudo-scientific circles, faith is touted as a necessity or virtue. But is faith really a good thing to possess? Better yet, do we really know what faith is? One of the more commonly used definitions comes from Merriam-Webster: faith is a "Firm belief in something for which there is no proof". That doesn't sound so great to me. I decided to post on a few religious forums and see what faith was all about.  My question to the readers was pretty simple. I wanted to know how they would define faith as well as why they felt that it was good to have. Unfortunately, the responses were not as captivating as I hoped they would be. I received generic responses that really were non-answers more than anything else. Some explained their relationship with God, which really had nothing to do with my question. The primary stance was that faith is simply one’s trust in something. We need it because we don’t always have proof. The problem is that whatever is taken on faith must have some faint evidence or reason to begin with. This often comes from your surroundings (including parents, culture and friends), otherwise the person with faith in Jesus Christ should also have faith in Muhammad, Zeus, and unicorns.  There has to be a reason why one obtains a particular faith in the first place. That faith is not a belief in something without evidence, but rather belief in something with some bit of evidence. And even with "evidence", it's still not enough to convince another, otherwise the believer wouldn't need to mention faith in the first place. The amount of evidence required in order to believe a claim should depend on the initial believability of the claim. For example, I walk into a grocery store and notice the man behind the counter has a nametag on his shirt reading, "Hello, my name is Bill". I would not need any more evidence to be convinced his name is Bill. This would be perfectly fine to assume since the evidence is sufficient in comparison to the claim. Since I may never see Bill again, I am not terribly worried about getting his name wrong. Next, I lean over and say, “Hi, Bill!” as he rings up my items. What if he corrects me? What if he explains that he had accidentally switched nametags with another employee, and then rushes over to the "real" Bill to get the correct nametag? Would I reject his claim of not being named Bill? Of course not. While the excuse is a bit odd, I have witnessed enough evidence to change my previous assertion. This is where faith is different from the normal way we reason. When someone has faith in something, they have an unjustified alliance with an idea.  While it could be said that we all have this to a degree, that we will continually qualify something as true until we receive a specific amount of evidence to oppose that assumption, the main distinction is with the amount of evidence required by a belief. If you have strong faith in an idea, you're saying, "It will be very hard or impossible for me to change my mind." This is a problem. When a person is closed to critical analysis of their own ideas, it's tough to trust the other choices they've made in their life. I feel everyone has the right to believe whatever that want, no matter how crazy I think they are. I would never want to take that freedom away from someone. I would, however, encourage those with supposed "strong faith" to evaluate their stance from an unbiased perspective. Get some opposing ideas and truly consider them. We must all realize how our own beliefs affect our everyday choices - large and small. The more we can be rational with our ideas and justify our beliefs, Andy Kaiser clean 6:28 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/09/13/pagan-parallels-to-jesus-the-forgotten-sons-of-god/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/09/13/pagan-parallels-to-jesus-the-forgotten-sons-of-god/#comments Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:46:12 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1507 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/09/13/pagan-parallels-to-jesus-the-forgotten-sons-of-god/feed/ 3 Nicholas Covington By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1336 "And when we say also that... [Jesus] was produced without sexual union, and that He... was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regar... By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1336 "And when we say also that... [Jesus] was produced without sexual union, and that He... was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter." "...And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus. And in that we say that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Æsculapius." -Justin Martyr, First Apology, chapters 21-23. I’m tired of misinformation in two extremes: On one hand, we have nontheists who claim that Jesus is a carbon copy of Osirus or Dionysus, but often not giving the reader the primary sources to back this claim up. On the other hand, we have Christian apologists claiming either that no pagan parallels to Jesus exist, or that all the parallels are vague, general, and weak. My intention is to end this campaign of misinformation by describing the pagan parallels to Jesus as well as the differences. I have divided this essay into two sections: The first discusses gods for which I have found a great number of parallels (Romulus and Heracles), the second discusses gods for which I have found only one or a few parallels. This is not the final word on the subject, as I am sure there are a great many parallels I have yet to discover. Let me also note that I have gone out of my way to make sure my sources are, as much as possible, pre-Christian. Most of the texts I cite were written when Christianity was a rare and little known sect (and therefore unlikely to influence other cults. [For a good review of the estimates of how common Christianity was in the first century, see Richard Carrier, Not the Impossible Faith, chapter 18]). Major pagan parallels to Jesus Romulus This was written about by Titus Livius (who died in 17 CE) in his book The Early History of Rome and by Plutarch in Numa Pompilius (written circa 75 CE, around the same time Mark’s gospel was written). Romulus parallels: Romulus is born of a vestal virgin, which was a priestess of the hearth god Vesta sworn to celibacy (Early History of Rome, 1.3-1.4). His mother claims that the divine impregnated her, yet this is not believed by the King (there is a certain irony to this since Romulus is later hailed as “God and a Son of God”, meaning that his mother’s seemingly far-fetched tale was true after all). Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, are tossed in the river and left for dead (A “slaughter of the innocents” tale which parallels that of Matthew 2:13-16). Romulus is hailed as the son of god. He is “snatched away to heaven” by a whirlwind (It is assumed that the gods took him), and he makes post mortem appearances (See The Early History of Rome 1.16). In his work Numa Pompilius, Plutarch records that there was a darkness covering the earth before his death (Just as there was during Jesus’ death according to Mark 15:33). He also states that Romulus is to be known afterwards as ‘Quirinus’; A god which belonged to the Archiac Triad (a “triple deity” similar to the concept of the Trinity). This information may be found in the second paragraph of the translation of Numa Pompilius (hyperlinked above). Romulus differences: Although Jesus and Romulus are both known as kings, Jesus makes it clear that his kingdom is not an earthly one as is that of Romulus (John 18:36). Furthermore, the life of Romulus is mainly composed of military conquests and other such things which do not bear the slightest parallel to the life of Jesus as told by Paul and the gospel writers. Heracles (Hercules) This was written about by Ovid (who died about 17 CE, according to Funk and Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia) Diodorus Siculus in the Library of History Book 4. Diodorus lived from 90 to 21 BCE (According to his entry in Funk and Wagnall's New Encyclopedia). Andy Kaiser clean 18:57 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/08/16/jesus-resurrection-and-mass-hallucinations/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/08/16/jesus-resurrection-and-mass-hallucinations/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:43:44 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1427 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/08/16/jesus-resurrection-and-mass-hallucinations/feed/ 23 Nicholas Covington By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1334 - Abstract: This article is a rebuttal to Gary Habermas, who defends the Jesus’ resurrection appearances against the hypothesis that these appearances were simply hallucinations. By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1334 Abstract: This article is a rebuttal to Gary Habermas, who defends the Jesus’ resurrection appearances against the hypothesis that these appearances were simply hallucinations.  A plausible natural explanation... Andy Kaiser clean 15:42 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/06/07/answers-to-objections-about-atheism-and-evolution/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/06/07/answers-to-objections-about-atheism-and-evolution/#comments Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:46:58 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1107 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/06/07/answers-to-objections-about-atheism-and-evolution/feed/ 13 David Annis By David Annis Article ID: 1325 - Atheism and evolution are two topics that I write about and discuss with my religious friends. I encounter the same objections for both. Repeatedly. - Myth: "If you do not believe in God, By David Annis Article ID: 1325 Atheism and evolution are two topics that I write about and discuss with my religious friends. I encounter the same objections for both. Repeatedly. Myth: "If you do not believe in God, you have no basis for morality.  Anything is permissible." I can and do have a system of morality. It's based on what kind of world I want to live in, not on belief that a supernatural being wants me to behave in a certain way.  Wars, genocides, pogroms, holocausts, discrimination, terrorism, and slavery have all been justified based on religion.  I donate to charity, know that murder is wrong, and teach my children right from wrong (there are no toy guns in our house). Show me empirical evidence that the religious behave in a more moral way than non-religious and you might have an argument, but the evidence is not there.  I know many atheists that donate to charity, love their wives, abide by the law, and otherwise act in a moral way. And I know many religious people that do not. If you maintain that belief in God is needed as a foundation for a moral system, is any God sufficient?  Are Xenu, Shiva, Allah and the Christian God, all equally moral?  If so, isn't picking a God just taking the easy way out?  Instead of grappling with the difficult questions you are swallowing a belief system whole. Since you took the easy way out, if a premise fails you end up with a moral structure that can't support itself. If all Gods are not equally moral, how can you be sure that your God's system leads to real morality? Myth: "You can't prove a theory, so the Bible may be literally true." This argument falls into two pieces.  The first piece says that an omnipotent being could change the Universe in all sorts of ways.  Physical laws that work one way today may have worked differently years ago, so we should not believe the evidence before us.  Carbon may decay at a different rate then than it does now, geological process may have been different one thousand years ago, and so on.  Yet, those who make this claim also assume their refrigerator, car, and home heating system will still work just as well tomorrow. They rely on medical and agricultural systems built upon scientific methods.  That's intellectually dishonest. The second piece of this objection is that science only proves that a theory is highly improbable. It doesn't say something is impossible. A scientific theory can be overthrown.  I can't prove that I can't jump to the moon.  I can't prove that I can't pray my way there.  Using the scientific method, however, I can prove that it is highly improbable that either method will put a man on the moon.  Gathering insights about how the universe behaves is what allowed Neil Armstrong to take his giant leap for mankind. Myth: "I can't see evolution happen." Some people protest that they can't see evolution happening right before their eyes.  Plant speciation has been observed and used by farmers for hundreds of years, though not under laboratory conditions.  In a previous post, I discussed macro-evolution occurring in the laboratory, but still got a response saying something like, "Gee, that's a long way from seeing a bacterium turn into a horse." So, why don't we see a bacterium turn into a horse right before our eyes?  It's because we observe over too short a period of time.  My 10-year-old son is growing, but he looks no taller now than he did last week.  There is rich evidence of evolution in the fossil record, in the genetic sequences of the plants and animals alive today, in our ability to breed new varieties of plants, pets, and livestock, and in the changes we observe in the natural world around us.  We can't see changes within our lifetime because these changes normally take hundreds or thousands or millions of years. Does this mean we should conclude these changes aren't happening? If my son isn't taller this week compared to last week, does this mean he's not growing? Andy Kaiser clean 8:24