[MP-Ryan]

I think MP-Ryan meant population rather than species.

As in once a particular population of the species evolves, that particular population doesn't have members of the ancestral species.

If thats what he meant what does he mean about the ancestral "population" always dying out? I dont see any reason why that has to be necessaily true in all cases of evolution. I keep thinking I must be misunderstanding because it doesnt make sence to me.

Heh, perhaps I'm not being clear.

Speciation is either:
1.  Anagenesis - a single species undergoes changes such that it can be classified as a new species with no other derived lineages.
2.  Cladogenesis - a single species diverges into two or more new lineages.

Have you ever seen an evolutionary tree?  If you look closely, you will see that there is no taxon for the original species any longer, because it forms new one(s).  The ancestral lineage can continue INTO a new lineage with another derivation forming a second taxon, but it doesn't remain the same.

Think of it this way - as a tree branch grows it gradually gets narrower and produces different structures near the top.  The top of a single branch is qualitatively different than the bottom of the same branch.  Meanwhile, when a branch splits into two the original branch is no longer there - two distinct new branches emerge.  This is how evolution works at the species level.  When one species diverges off in a historical lineage, the remaining lineage or taxon is no longer the same as it was prior to divergence.

Ancestral species do not exist at the same point in time as their derivations.  To take a concrete example, the common ancestor of the ape and human lineages cannot exist today, because its divergence actually produced the new taxa.  It is possible that one of these new taxa more closely resembles the original ancestral species than the other, but it is NOT the actual ancestor because it is qualitatively different from it.

To move down to the petri dish level, let's say I snag a population of good old C. elegans on a medium.  I then physically divide them and then do nothing to population 1 but apply selective pressures to population 2.  Population 2 will lose individuals due to selection pressure, but some of them survive.  These few survivors will be adapted to the selection pressure.  I wash, rinse, repeat for 100 generations, all the while keeping population 1's environment constant.  At t=101, population 2 will likely have sufficient genetic changes courtesy of mutation and homozygosity in the population that it can be classified as a new species, incapable of interbreeding viably with a standard C. elegans population.  Meanwhile, population 1 has not been subjected to selection pressures but it is a closed population, not interbreeding with a larger C. elegans population.  By the same virtues of random mutation and closed mating, this population will also be fundamentally different from a regular population of C. elegans, and could be classed as a new species.  Now, in that example we still have C. elegans all over the world in its regular form, so the common ancestor of these two lineages does exist, but that is only because this is an artificial recreation of an extremely small blip in evolutionary time.

In real-world scenarios, the entire population of the species around the world is subject to different geographic or behavioural segregations in population which lead to closed breeding populations in which speciation occurs.  One population does not remain constant while another changes.  In transitory time, we will see multiple populations which derive into new species co-existing.  In evolutionary time scales (that is, hundreds of thousands or millions of years). the period of co-existence is a tiny blip in time.  Thus, for practical purposes of evolutionary discussion, an ancestral species does not exist at the same time of its derived lineages.

Even in the human lineage, the transition from Australopithecus to modern Homo sapiens sapiens (through its various other ancestors) was relatively short in the evolutionary time scale, but the periods in which intermediate populations between species or derived species co-exist with ancestral species are very short - remember, the ancestral species is undergoing natural selection which transforms it, over generations, into the newly derived species.

Really grasping this requires people to get their heads wrapped around the sheer massive time scale involved, number of individuals, and the combinatorial effects of silent genetic changes which all contribute to how species change over time.

But rather than explain all of that, it is much simpler to state that in terms of evolutionary time, ancestral and derived lineages do not co-exist; for speciation to occur, the ancestral species ceases to exist and a new species or multiple species are derived from it.

If you still don't quite get it, I'll dig up an example of Drosophila taxa to demonstrate the concept visually.

[MP-Ryan]

That WOULD be true if it were a matter of obtaining the resources required to survive.  But it's not at all.  It's about getting more than the next person.  Wanting, rather than to be simply good, to be better.

Ever seen wolves take a kill from a bear in the wild?  They will do it even if they're not particularly hungry at the moment and they'll continue to guard it well after they've eaten their fill.  Is that pride?  They take because they can, not out of need (at first glance).

There is a very good biological reason for pride as Lewis defines it (which isn't really pride, but anyway...), and its called natural selection.  The organism that can take at will and retain resources is much more likely to survive and reproduce than the organism that eats its fill and move along (and before any ecology people jump on me, yes, I know, there's much more to resource competition than that but I'm making a point).

Ever notice how many prideful people tend to do economically and socially better than humble people?  Our biological roots are still with us - much as we may resent the by-products of the emotion of pride as immoral and unreasonable, we also have a begrudging envy (oops, there's another functional sin) of the position pride can afford an individual if directed productively.

Here enters the tautology of evolution:  If a behaviour or emotion exists today, there's probably either a good reason for it which confers selective advantage to individuals exhibiting it, or it has no negative effects on survival.  This holds true for all the deadly sins (what are they again, wrath, sloth, envy, pride, lust, gluttony, and greed).  A wrathful individual will survive a fight.  A slothful individual will rest whenever possible to conserve strength and resources.  A prideful individual will be confident/assertive/aggressive, capable of taking what it wishes.  A lustful individual will spread its genes and reproduce as much as possible (I mean, this one is dead obvious).  An envious individual will not be content with the status quo, but seek to better itself.  A gluttonous individual will be well-nourished with many resources available.  A greedy individual will take and hold as much as possible so that it commands the resources necessary to compete and survive.

Arguably, one reason for Christianity's opposition to the seven deadly sins is that they are traits which refer back to our basic biological nature, while Christianity presents a construction of man as a chosen species, above all the rest.  Which is nonsense - we're a product of our evolutionary history, just like every other species on the planet.

Genghis Khan was a prideful individual - he is also the ancestor of 1 of every 200 men alive on this planet today.  Pride seems to have gotten his genes in a pretty good position =)

Whether or not Genesis is taken to be literal is insignificant next to a risen Christ.  So is the whole question of how we came to be, for that matter.  I believe the primary intent of Genesis is to illustrate how we (humanity) came to be in our present state of dispair.

Now you're backpedaling.  The risen Christ wasn't part of this discussion.  I was pointing out the likely origin of serpent symbolism, and you were claiming the natural biological fear of snakes in all primate species (that's humans, chimps, monkeys, apes, etc) is because it is associated with evil.  You haven't addressed that yet - do you honestly believe that all primate species fear reptiles, and especially snakes, because humans have come to associate them with evil due to mythology?

[Edward Bradshaw]

Heh, perhaps I'm not being clear.

Speciation is either:
1.  Anagenesis - a single species undergoes changes such that it can be classified as a new species with no other derived lineages.
2.  Cladogenesis - a single species diverges into two or more new lineages.

Have you ever seen an evolutionary tree?  If you look closely, you will see that there is no taxon for the original species any longer, because it forms new one(s).  The ancestral lineage can continue INTO a new lineage with another derivation forming a second taxon, but it doesn't remain the same.

Think of it this way - as a tree branch grows it gradually gets narrower and produces different structures near the top.  The top of a single branch is qualitatively different than the bottom of the same branch.  Meanwhile, when a branch splits into two the original branch is no longer there - two distinct new branches emerge.  This is how evolution works at the species level.  When one species diverges off in a historical lineage, the remaining lineage or taxon is no longer the same as it was prior to divergence.

I appreciate you taking the time but Im still not sure I understand. I appreciate the ancestor species will evolve as well, but you said the ancestor species necessarily dies out when a new species develops.

Imagine a group of humans were isolated on an island for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Imagine that they could no longer breed sucessfully with humans so are therefore a new species of human. According to youself, wouldnt the ancestor species of human be dead?

Seeing as how we can observe speciation in a lab, what happens if we see a species split into two seperate species. The original species is still the same species it was before, so why would it have to die out just because a new species was formed?

You said you need to get your head around the idea of all these millions of years, but Ive heard reports about species evolving in the last 1000 years in nature.

Ed

[MP-Ryan]

"Dies out" was a poor choice of worlds.  No longer exists is a better way of putting it - the ancestral species has become the new one, or several new ones.

Imagine a group of humans were isolated on an island for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Imagine that they could no longer breed sucessfully with humans so are therefore a new species of human. According to youself, wouldnt the ancestor species of human be dead?

It is dead.  The rest of the human population would have changed in that time period as well.  Thus you would have two new species derived from Homo sapiens (or perhaps two subspecies of Homo sapiens).  Nothing is truly static in evolution, not even "throwbacks" like the caelocanth.  Even if physical change is not apparent, genetic transition has occurred.

Something else to remember is that as population size grows, evolution slows down because the gene pool is so large.  Today, the lineage of Homo sapiens is evolving at a slower rate than ever before in its history.

Seeing as how we can observe speciation in a lab, what happens if we see a species split into two seperate species. The original species is still the same species it was before, so why would it have to die out just because a new species was formed?

This is what I was driving at in my C. elegans example - the original is no longer the same as it was before the split.  Even in the absence of selection pressure, a closed population undergoes genetic changes leading to speciation.  It may still LOOK like the common ancestor for many many years, but technically it is not.  The common ancestor ended at the time of true divergence (when no members of either population could successfully mate and produce viable progeny).  Die out, as mentioned above, is an incorrect term, but useful for a simplistic overview.

You said you need to get your head around the idea of all these millions of years, but Ive heard reports about species evolving in the last 1000 years in nature.

There's different levels of evolution.  For example, there's evolution in terms of the divergence of reptiles and mammals from common ancestors, and then there's evolution in terms of fruit fly species diverging into unique ecological niches.

Evolution is a matter of time scale.  Large-scale evolution is the most difficult to understand, while small scale evolution of new individual species (or even traits within a single species) is relatively simple.  hence why people often say they believe in micro-evolution but not macro.  Technically, they aren't distinct concepts, but rather different time scales.  Amalgamating the two is the hardest intellectual task of all, because it requires you to think in both small and big picture at the same time.

Every divergence also has lag time - periods where individual populations are discernable but new species don't actually exist yet.  This is the period in which you will begin to see both common ancestor and divergent forms in the same time scale, but no matter how recently or quickly divergences occur, the lag time is only a tiny tiny fraction of that.  That's also why we see puntuated equilibrium in evolution through the fossil record - changes occurring very rapidly producing new forms from an ancestral species in a relatively short span of time with the total disappearance of the ancestral species.

http://chervil.bio.indiana.edu:7092/allied-data/lk/phylogeny/Drosophilidae-Tree/

Click start, then navigate through the trees.  You'll see how the ancestral line always disappears when divergence occurs.

I'm looking for some other examples, but most of this is copyrighted work from journals that I can't reproduce here.

[Edward Bradshaw]

Ok i think I understand you and that we're probably just using different words and describing things in different ways so that it seems like we dont agree. Anyway thanks for taking the time

So G0atmaster are you coming back?

[Mobius]

Imagine a group of humans were isolated on an island for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Imagine that they could no longer breed sucessfully with humans so are therefore a new species of human. According to youself, wouldnt the ancestor species of human be dead?

Strange thought since a species survives for about 2 millions of years.

[MP-Ryan]

Imagine a group of humans were isolated on an island for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Imagine that they could no longer breed sucessfully with humans so are therefore a new species of human. According to youself, wouldnt the ancestor species of human be dead?

Strange thought since a species survives for about 2 millions of years.

*raises eyebrow*

Some species have been around for several hundred million years... they've changed very little since the Cretaceous period (some species of fish).

Other species last less than a decade.

There isn't really a meaningful average =)

[Mobius]

Erm, I wasn't refering to living fossils. I was refering to evolved species like some Dinosaurs: they were usually replaced by more effective reptiles.

I doubt the humans can survive for hundreds of millions of years!

[Edward Bradshaw]

Erm, I wasn't refering to living fossils. I was refering to evolved species like some Dinosaurs: they were usually replaced by more effective reptiles.

I doubt the humans can survive for hundreds of millions of years!

The dinosaurs lineages didnt die out completely, birds are modified dinosaurs and in cladistic terms are still dinosaurs today.

[G0atmaster]

First I want to apologize for a semi-necro.  I said I'd reply, and gosh dangit I will, if it takes me a month to do so!  I'll start with Ryan's post to me.

That WOULD be true if it were a matter of obtaining the resources required to survive.  But it's not at all.  It's about getting more than the next person.  Wanting, rather than to be simply good, to be better.

Ever seen wolves take a kill from a bear in the wild?  They will do it even if they're not particularly hungry at the moment and they'll continue to guard it well after they've eaten their fill.  Is that pride?  They take because they can, not out of need (at first glance).

No, that is not pride.  From what I understand, wolves bury any spare meat after eating their fill.  They aren't saying to the bear, "I'm better than you" by taking the kill, but merely ensuring an abundance of resources in the future.  If it were pride, the wolves would take the food from the bear, and waste it, dumping it downstream or throwing it to another animal just to make the bear mad, to prove to the bear that it could.

There is a very good biological reason for pride as Lewis defines it (which isn't really pride, but anyway...), and its called natural selection.  The organism that can take at will and retain resources is much more likely to survive and reproduce than the organism that eats its fill and move along (and before any ecology people jump on me, yes, I know, there's much more to resource competition than that but I'm making a point).

As I said, that's not true Pride.  True Pride is where one animal has a mound of meat that it could never possibly eat in a million years, yet is still chasing another animal away from a single dead rabbit, just to prove to that other animal that it is better.  Pride is what causes the jocks to hate the nerds in a class that isn't graded on a curve.  It's the anger at someone else for showing any evidence of possibly having a benefit of society, because it might infringe on your getting noticed.  Pride is competition for the sake of competition alone.

Ever notice how many prideful people tend to do economically and socially better than humble people?  Our biological roots are still with us - much as we may resent the by-products of the emotion of pride as immoral and unreasonable, we also have a begrudging envy (oops, there's another functional sin) of the position pride can afford an individual if directed productively.

Economically maybe.  But the Proud man will climb over the top of everyone ahead of him with the help of his good friend, and then turn and stab his friend in the back because he climbed up with him and is on the same level, and his Pride won’t let him settle for anything less than the top.  That's not what I call socially healthy.  Also, this thing you call envy, at the last part of that paragraph, is pride in us.  Pride is something that, the more we have ourselves, the more of it we hate in others.  Pride is, at its very nature, competitive, whereas other sins are competitive only by accident.  But I've already touched on that aspect of it enough, I think.  Another name Lewis gives it is "Self-Conceit."  This is also why Pride is the greatest sin of all.  When a man is faced with God, he is faced with something his Pride won’t let him accept, because there is no way he will be better than Him

Here enters the tautology of evolution:  If a behaviour or emotion exists today, there's probably either a good reason for it which confers selective advantage to individuals exhibiting it, or it has no negative effects on survival.  This holds true for all the deadly sins (what are they again, wrath, sloth, envy, pride, lust, gluttony, and greed).  A wrathful individual will survive a fight.

A wrathful individual will bring fights his way more often.  Wrath is not a measure of one's ability to fight, but rather one's affluence to starting fights.

  A slothful individual will rest whenever possible to conserve strength and resources.

  A slothful individual grows fat and lazy, thus making resources harder to obtain. 

 
A prideful individual will be confident/assertive/aggressive, capable of taking what it wishes.

He will also be the object of hatred of every other prideful individual on the planet.  He will also grow arrogant, thinking he can best anyone, until the day comes when he finds someone he cannot, and that will be his doom.

  A lustful individual will spread its genes and reproduce as much as possible (I mean, this one is dead obvious).

  And, as a byproduct, will destroy lives, spread desease, cause overpopulation problems, and have a whole lot of people angry at them.

 An envious individual will not be content with the status quo, but seek to better itself.  A gluttonous individual will be well-nourished with many resources available.

  You forget the social interactions that take place in these acts.  Generally, if you're invited to a Thanksgiving dinner, and you, by yourself, eat all the turkey, you probably won't be invited back, thus limiting your access to said resources.
[/quote]

  A greedy individual will take and hold as much as possible so that it commands the resources necessary to compete and survive.

  That's if it thinks that said resources alone can keep others from coming after you.  Additionally, the phrase "you can't take it with you" comes to mind.  You will cease to survive eventually, regardless of the resources you accumulate.  I doubt a shelter of dollar bills would save a person from bullets for very long.

Arguably, one reason for Christianity's opposition to the seven deadly sins is that they are traits which refer back to our basic biological nature, while Christianity presents a construction of man as a chosen species, above all the rest.  Which is nonsense - we're a product of our evolutionary history, just like every other species on the planet.

I believe we are indeed set apart.  When was the last time you saw a dog mulling over whether or not it was the "right" thing to do to bark at the mailman?  The "myth" of Genesis states that God breathed life into Adam.  I believe God gave humankind a piece of His own soul, by which we are capable of all of our moral decision-making that rises above mere instinct.

Genghis Khan was a prideful individual - he is also the ancestor of 1 of every 200 men alive on this planet today.  Pride seems to have gotten his genes in a pretty good position =)

  Define "Good position."  Kahn is long dead.  What does he care how many people are related to him?

Whether or not Genesis is taken to be literal is insignificant next to a risen Christ.  So is the whole question of how we came to be, for that matter.  I believe the primary intent of Genesis is to illustrate how we (humanity) came to be in our present state of dispair.

Now you're backpedaling.  The risen Christ wasn't part of this discussion.  I was pointing out the likely origin of serpent symbolism, and you were claiming the natural biological fear of snakes in all primate species (that's humans, chimps, monkeys, apes, etc) is because it is associated with evil.  You haven't addressed that yet - do you honestly believe that all primate species fear reptiles, and especially snakes, because humans have come to associate them with evil due to mythology?

I've never seen any other primate species besides humans interact with snakes, so I wouldn't know.  That much might be genetic.  Mice are afraid of snakes too, aren't they?  Also, what of people who aren't afraid of snakes?  There are many of them.

Something else I'd like to ask you:  What makes you believe that there is no God?  Actually, scratch that, that's just an assumption I've made.  What do you believe as far as God?

Oh, and I have found, in Revelation, where it does reveal that the Serpent is indeed Satan.
Revelation 12:7-12

And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.  But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.  The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
   "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,
      and the authority of his Christ.
   For the accuser of our brothers,
      who accuses them before our God day and night,
      has been hurled down.
  They overcame him
      by the blood of the Lamb
      and by the word of their testimony;
   they did not love their lives so much
      as to shrink from death.
  Therefore rejoice, you heavens
      and you who dwell in them!
   But woe to the earth and the sea,
      because the devil has gone down to you!
   He is filled with fury,
      because he knows that his time is short."

Satan, the deceiver of nations.  Take it as a metaphor, take it word for word, take it however you like.  This is how it goes, though.  Satan deceived Man in the first days, "Did God really say you'd die if you ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?  He is merely afraid of you!  You could become just like Him if you eat the fruit of this tree!"  So we ate of the tree of knowledge.  What do we have now?  We have diseases that are highly resistant to our medicines.  We have a climate shift which many claim is due to us, and is allegedly going to destroy us.  We have enough nukes to obliterate the world 20 times over at least.  We have death.  We've been deceived into thinking knowledge would save us, when we merely destroy ourselves with it.  War is the single greatest driving factor to our "progress" as a species.  Our greatest motivation for making ourselves better is killing one another.   What beautiful things we've used this knowledge for! /sarcasm

I believe we've already signed our own death warrant, and that's what God was trying to save us from in the Garden of Eden, when He told us not to eat.  Some say God wanted to make us blind, I say God knew we either weren't ready to see, or weren't meant to.   

That's my philosophy on the matter, anyway.  And the present state of the World backs it up.  5 minutes to Midnight, last I checked.

[achtung]

I still have to question how Satan exists if god is all knowing, all powerful, etc.

[Mobius]

The dinosaurs lineages didnt die out completely, birds are modified dinosaurs and in cladistic terms are still dinosaurs today.

Yours is a generalized statement. Please note that there have been many dinosaurs and only a few of them can be considered the precursors of modern birds. The others vanished.

I still have to question how Satan exists if god is all knowing, all powerful, etc.

We need bad buys to contend with.

[perihelion]

We need bad buys to contend with.

Might I suggest eBay?

[G0atmaster]

Heh, Mobius, that's an answer to "why" not a "how" question.  Regardless, that's not what I believe on the matter:

Satan and God are not two equal, opposite forces.  The traditional story (that I have yet to read in the Bible) goes that Satan started out as an angel, Lucifer, who was the first being to develop a sense of pride.  He saw himself as being as good as God.  He spread the belief of this possibility to humanity, and we made it a part of who we are, which is why we were banished from God's presence. 

This pride is allowed for because of Free Will, which our perfect God made perfectly. 

[Edward Bradshaw]

The dinosaurs lineages didnt die out completely, birds are modified dinosaurs and in cladistic terms are still dinosaurs today.

Yours is a generalized statement. Please note that there have been many dinosaurs and only a few of them can be considered the precursors of modern birds. The others vanished.

Well sure, but that doesnt really change anything about my post.

Heh, Mobius, that's an answer to "why" not a "how" question.  Regardless, that's not what I believe on the matter:

Satan and God are not two equal, opposite forces.  The traditional story (that I have yet to read in the Bible) goes that Satan started out as an angel, Lucifer, who was the first being to develop a sense of pride.  0

Actually the "traditional" story is nothing of the kind. "Satan" means "an adversary who resists" or "the opposer". But Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub and the Snake in Eden were all originally different chararacters, it was around the time of King James where all these were eventually implied to be the same entity.

Beelzebub in the New Testament is a kind of nickname given to the god Baal of the Old Testament story . The snake in Eden was originally a companion for Lilith which was Adams first wife in the Talmudic legend, and wasnt ever intended to be Satan at all. Later on the serpant was recast as Lilith herself in disguise, later still Lilith was removed and with the New Testament it would imply Satan and the snake were the same person.

Lucifer is the latin translation of "Helel ben Shahar", which means "son of the morning" or "light-bearer". Its important to understand why this is significant and how astrology played a part in forming these ancient myths. For example in Canaanite mythology, Shahar and Shalim are two of the gods of their pantheon. They are twins, "the dawn and the dusk". Baals nephew is the son of Shahar, his name is Helel, which means "the light-bearer". What they thought was a star was of course was Venus, but they didnt know that at the time. This inspired the legend in Isaiah which explains how Helel, the son of the morning, tried to usurp his fathers thrown and was cast down forever doomed to never quite get as high in the sky as the other "gods".

[G0atmaster]

This from Wikipedia:

"In mainstream Christianity, the Devil is named Satan, sometimes Lucifer. He is a fallen angel who rebelled against God, and is now roaming the Earth. He is often identified as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, whose persuasions led to original sin and the need for Jesus Christ's redemption. He is also identified as the Accuser of Job, the tempter of the Gospels, and the dragon in the Book of Revelation. Traditionally, Christians have understood the Devil to be the author of lies and promoter of evil. Many other Christians (especially liberal Protestant denominations)  however, view the devil metaphorically. Much of the popular history of the Devil is not biblical; instead, it is a post-medieval Christian reading of the scriptures influenced by medieval and pre-medieval Christian popular mythology."

Lucifer was called the "Morning Star," and Satan is seen in Job to have been in God's presence, where he was named the "Accuser."

In Revelation, he's called "The great dragon... that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray."

As for Lilith, the only biblical refrence i can find is apparently, according to Wiki, one in Isaiah, where she isn't even called by name.

[Edward Bradshaw]

This from Wikipedia:

"In mainstream Christianity, the Devil is named Satan, sometimes Lucifer. He is a fallen angel who rebelled against God, and is now roaming the Earth. He is often identified as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, whose persuasions led to original sin and the need for Jesus Christ's redemption. He is also identified as the Accuser of Job, the tempter of the Gospels, and the dragon in the Book of Revelation. Traditionally, Christians have understood the Devil to be the author of lies and promoter of evil. Many other Christians (especially liberal Protestant denominations)  however, view the devil metaphorically. Much of the popular history of the Devil is not biblical; instead, it is a post-medieval Christian reading of the scriptures influenced by medieval and pre-medieval Christian popular mythology."

That is the mainstream view today, yes. But all those characters were ORIGINALLY all different characters. 

Lucifer was called the "Morning Star," and Satan is seen in Job to have been in God's presence, where he was named the "Accuser."

Im confused why you mixed those stories as if that shows you're right. Yes, Satan is the accuser, or opposer or adversary. But Lucifer real name is Helel ben Shahar and means "son of the morning star", he is the son of Shahar "the dawn" from the Canaanite panetheon. Isaiah is reciting this legend in order to make his point. Satan and Lucifer were never originally the same character.

Since you link to Wikipedia perhaps I shall as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer

In Revelation, he's called "The great dragon... that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray."

Its true that the New Testament created this idea and the idea that Beelzebub was a just another name for Satan. But Beelzebub, which was probably a nickname or a intentional butchering of Ba'al was never meant to be Satan in the Old Testament either and may have actually existed in some respect as he is written in the Sumerian King List the oldest known syllabic text where Gilgamesh is also mentioned.

Btw regarding that section of Revelations, the New Testament also shows Jesus calling the Pharisees serpants, is he calling them all sons of the devil? Job 1:6 seems to show that god didnt know where satan came from and wasnt a "fallen angel" while Job 26:13 actually credits god with the construction of the serpent and all the evil inflicted upon Job is credited to "the LORD" rather than "Satan.

As for Lilith, the only biblical refrence i can find is apparently, according to Wiki, one in Isaiah, where she isn't even called by name.

You need to look into the deeper into the origins of the Bible. Enuma Elish, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Code of hammurabi. Noah and the flood isnt originally from the Bible neither is the 10 commandments. In fact we even have the Code of Hammurabi unlike the Biblical legend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith

[NGTM-1R]

Lilth is more a figure in Jewish tradition then Christian. Since they share a lot of books it's not uncommon to confuse them, but you need to understand, they're not the same thing even in the books they share. The Bible never had much mention of her at all from when it was first assembled.

So no, it's not the original translations Edward, perhaps the original source material, but so far as the Biblical record is concerned, Lilth isn't out there.

[Edward Bradshaw]

Lilth is more a figure in Jewish tradition then Christian. Since they share a lot of books it's not uncommon to confuse them, but you need to understand, they're not the same thing even in the books they share. The Bible never had much mention of her at all from when it was first assembled.

So no, it's not the original translations Edward, perhaps the original source material, but so far as the Biblical record is concerned, Lilth isn't out there.

While the Bible doesnt mention Shahar and Shalim either, the origin of Lucifers name (Helel ben Shahar) shows where this story really came from. But even then the story doesnt imply this Lucifer was meant to be Satan.

My main point was that all these characters were all originally different people, not all the different names for the "the devil". The serpant was never meant to be Satan and nothing implies it was. Yes if you look into the origins of the myth the serpant is indeed Lilith taken from another earlier legend. But even in the OT the snake and Satan are always referred to as different until the New Testmant where we can see this change I was talking about where beelzebub (ba`al zebub) also receives the treatment of this blurring together the concept of Satan as all these names being just different names for the same character.

Historically the belief that the serpant was Satan rather than Lilith hadent been so firmly established in popular culture as we can see from a lot of medieval art. Its even depicted on the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Sistine Chapel Ceiling as the serpant having the body of a woman.

http://www.lilithgallery.com/library/lilith/images/ChristianLilith-03.jpg
http://www.lilithgallery.com/library/lilith/images/ChristianLilith-01.jpg
http://www.lilithgallery.com/library/lilith/images/ChristianLilith-04.jpg
http://www.lilithgallery.com/library/lilith/images/ChristianLilith-08.jpg
http://www.lilithgallery.com/library/lilith/images/ChristianLilith-06.jpg
http://www.lilithgallery.com/library/lilith/images/ChristianLilith-07.jpg

[MP-Ryan]

I've never seen any other primate species besides humans interact with snakes, so I wouldn't know.  That much might be genetic.  Mice are afraid of snakes too, aren't they?  Also, what of people who aren't afraid of snakes?  There are many of them.

It's a fear that has gradually been reduced alongside the reduction of threat over time (which is more evidence for an evolutionary connection).

All I'm pointing out here is that Biblical (and its precursor) legends did not emerge in a vacuum or spontaneously in the written testaments of this new religion called Christianity, but rather come from a long line of historical reasonings, most of which can be traced to a biological root, much as Ed has been pointing out in some recent posts.

Christianity didn't actually invent anything new when it came along roughly 2000 years ago; rather, it cobbled together pagan, Roman, Greek, Near Eastern (including Mesopotamian), Jewish, Egyptian, Minoan, Mycenaean, and Etruscan legend, architecture, art, tradition, celebrations, and general history into a whole intentionally designed to pull supporters from these faiths.  Literally ALL of the Christian holidays are derived from other religious traditions (Christmas is merely the most obvious and frequently cited).  The image of Christ himself is stolen too; the original depictions of Christ were literal copies of the Greek God Apollo, and the East-West axis of Churches faces the rising son because Christ is associated with the light of day unto the world, a stolen quality of Apollo.  The Good Shepherd image is stolen from the Near East where it was a sacrifice-bearer.

So yeah... careful what you read in the Bible as absolute truth.  Most of it comes from much older traditions.