How can you laugh at me when I say we have a common ancestor with apes?

Question

How come Christians laugh at me when I say we have a common ancestor with apes, but they believe we came from dust?

Me: We are evolved primates!

Christian: Hahahhah no we are formed from dust and gods' image

Me: Hahahahh

Christian: ...

Answer 1

Well ... considering that most people in this world believed in creation for thousands of years until Darwin came along with his "Origin of the Species ..." in 1859

...  and considering that Darwin didn´t actually "see" the evolution of species but constructed that story of natural history by fusing together his comparative zoological knowledge and his knowledge of animal breeding with Malthus´ and Lyell´s theories ... I would think what Darwin offered wasn´t experimentally testable scientific "truth", but a new version of history.

And this theory was used by enlightenment thinkers to argue agains the medieval church authorities and became a major ideological force of the modern european "enlightened" state and its scientific ideology.

Don´t get me wrong, I´m not a christian fundamentalist; all I´m saying is, there are ideological issues and interests involved, as well as epistemological ones (such as the difference between "literal" and "metaphorical" truth).

If you are interested ... there is a third position sort of in between the two, that seems to become more popular among scientists. It´s called "catastrophism", and some autors in that field try to provide a framework into which both creationist and evolutionist theories have their place.

You could check out the book "Catastrophism and Evolution" by Trevor Palmer at amazon and in your local university library - it has a chapter on "The Erratic Descent of Man" as seen from the perspective of a "catastrophist" (who is neither a believer in creation nor a believer in evolution).

Catastrophists believe that it is possible that sudden (instead of gradual) changes happened due to cosmic radiation, and one scenario discussed in that field involves sudden large mutations that created homo sapiens within a very short period of time. Sort of resembling a "creation by fast evolution".  

Sometimes catastrophists even interpret creation stories as "memories" of those events, but I´m not sure what to think of that.

Bottom line is, if you want to be safe, just keep on believing in evolution.  It´s the officially promoted belief in the western world ... not in most of the world, though. If you are curious, and maybe want to be understanding towards christian creationists (and to what most of the rest of the world believes as well), maybe check out catastrophism as a possible view that can integrate both evolutionism and creationism ... but be careful, most scientists do not believe in catastrophism, you run risk of being called names!

The lesson I learned from exploring this topic was that "history" is different from experimentally testable fact ... what actually happened in history is subject both to memory and to imaginative construction, and people construct history so as to serve their present goals!  So there is no objective history, and to decide what I think "most likely happened", I will have to ask: "what are the goals of those telling me those different stories?"

Cheers!

Answer 2

It is tinny laughter, though, as they know in their secret selves that you are right and backed by the evidence. Do not let the willfully ignorant get to you.

Answer 3

Apes are not as smart as humans, admitting that you evolved from apes makes you look inferior.

Answer 4

A bit unkind to laugh. But the idea that man evolved from an ape is completely false, and is itself laughable.

It is not supported by any evidence whatsoever.

All hominid fossils are clearly human or clearly ape.

Evolution requires the creation of new genetic information. The proposed mechanism is mutations, yet all obser ved mutations are information neutral or lossy.

All hominid fossils are clearly ape or clearly human. History is full of frauds and over-enthusiastic claims of anthropologists

Man was created as man. We are very different to all apes/monkeys and there is no evidence that we evolved at all.

History is full of frauds and wishful thinking in regard to alleged missing links:

Piltdown man - fraud

Java man - a few teeth, and a few skull and bone fragments

Nebraska man - a pigs tooth

Australopithecene (Lucy) - portrayed with human like hands and feet despite the fact that it is known to have ape like hands and feet.

To believe we evolved from an ape requires an awful lot of faith! It flies in the face of the evidence, and of scientific knowledge.

Check here for lots of articles

http://creationontheweb.com/content/view...

Answer 5

HA! Don't flatter yourselves with all that rubbish.  We aren't even remotely related.  

From dust you guys came and from dust you shall return.  Everyone knows that god has a tail!

Answer 6

since evolution is a proven occurence, it is stupid to look at soley religion... you have all the right to be the one laughing

Answer 7

How do you know apes didn't devolve from humans?

If you think that's ridiculous, then show me proof.

Answer 8

I don't know.. but it happens. I was laughed at once for calling Humans, ''animals''.

Answer 9

The people who believe in religious nonsense are a prime example of how ignorant the majority of people in our society can be. Although we have proof in evolution and the fact that we evolved from a common ancestor with apes they still choose to believe bronze age myths. This shows us how many humans still have a LONG way to go in terms of education and understanding logic thought.

Answer 10

Consider the Argumentum ad Ignorantiam situation. It seems to occur often on these pages when an evolution question is posted. The definition is:

"a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false or that it is false simply because it has not been proved true. This error in reasoning is often expressed with influential rhetoric.

Example:

Johnson: It is impractical to send more men to the moon because the money spent for that project could be spent on helping the poor.

Hanson: It is not impractical.

Johnson: Why?

Hanson: Just try to prove that I wrong.  

  (Hanson is defending his claim by an ad ignorantiam, i.e., his claim is true, if Johnson cannot refute him.)

http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/ignor...

When you read the creationist posts you get this argument. It's often "god made humans and evolution is wrong." There's never any real proof except from creationist sites.

Read further an you will find a constant "It's only a theory." (but isn't religion also "only a theory?" and numerous claims that evolution has faults. Strangely, creationist seem to spend most of their time trying to prove evolution doesn't exist rather the researching proof of their own theory.

Most of the creationist theories (and they are only theories) require that natural selection and evolution exist. It's only when you get to the literal creationist theory (world created in 4004 BC and everything in the bible is literally true) that natural selection isn't required. Then you have to deal with the approval of slavery, wife beating,  flat earth, Cain's wives etc.

The difference between science and creationism is that you can make a mistake in science. When that happens you have to reinterpret the data and change things. With creationism you're locked in. The world has to be created in 4004 BC. It's in the bible and you can't just toss stuff out of the bible. It would be devastating if someone had to re-examine their beliefs. Much easier to smugly make outrageous claims.

Answer 11

We share ancestors with apes and we are apes.

Answer 12

Since it's a proven fact, I don't.  But many people don't understand this, and prefer to believe in their mythology.

Answer 13

People are afraid of the idea that if they reject their mythology of their God(s) they are damning their souls to h**l (which is a hill in Israel to be factual, it's quite pretty, I have no problem "damning" my "soul" to this pretty hill in the countryside). But this fear is what scares everyone into believing that we as humans rode dinosaurs like T-Rex with a saddle as if they were tamed pets...

Yes it blows my mind too, I personally don't buy into that rubbish, it makes no logical sense, but my neighbor and best friend does and we have some of the best debates over it which frustrates the h**l outta him =P.

Answer 14

Creationists accept the Bible as the true word of God and the account in Genesis as almighty God's Word as to how and why we are are here on earth. If God states that he created us from the dust of the earth and breathed life into Adam, then we accept His word on the matter.....He was there, we weren't. The hypothesis of natural abiogenesis, which supposedly led to evolution, would have us believe we came from a primordial soup at some point, so what's the difference? The difference is that natural abiogenesis does not occur. To date, there is no scientific explanation that is observable and testable as to how life began on earth or anywhere else through any natural processes....the scientific Law of Biogenesis states that all life comes from previous living things and has never been refuted. All non-natural creations require a Creator. If we are created by God, perhaps we should listen to His word as to how He created us and not the nonsense of evolution which is unverifiable and false and was originated by Darwin and others to deny a super-natural creation or Creator.....the premise of naturalism and gradualism that all life forms gradually changed from one life form into another over millions of years of mutations and natural selection. Even catastrophism or punctuated equilibrium have problems as well.

For humans to have evolved from a primate common ancestor, we would have had to have undergone millions of beneficial mutations since we differ by 2-6 percent of our DNA (around 60-180 million differences based on 3 billion base pairs of DNA) which is highly unlikely since even a single beneficial mutation is quite rare....the vast majority if them are either harmful or neutral. The belief in unobservable or testable macro-evolution is just that...a false belief based on an extrapolation of observable micro-evolution that assumes no barriers.

There are also many evidences of a young earth and universe and that man and dinosaurs co-existed until fairly recent times and other out-of-place fossils which falsifies evolution theory. The scientific evidence that falsifies evolution is out there if one really chooses to look....some will not in order to preserve their rejection of God's true Word. If God's Word is true, we are beholding to our Creator...if man's word is true, we are our own god.

http://www.halos.com/

http://www.creationscience.com/onlineboo...

http://www.dinosaursandman.com/

Scientists that reject or dissent from the premise of evolution....

http://www.christiananswers.net/dinosaur...

http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

http://www.whoisyourcreator.org/assets/P...

http://www.pssiinternational.com/