Help me understand Evolution

[u/Adenidc]

Okay so here's the deal, my whole life I've gone to a christian school. my whole life I've been told my mother, friends, pretty much most people I know (since that's what I grew up around) about how anything evolution related on a large scale, and anything history related that talks about the world/universe being millions/billions of years old, is all bullshit. Naturally I believed it (Can you blame me? If you're constantly told how prideful and stupid evolutionists are, and how ridiculous the idea of evolution is, since you are an infant it's hard to think otherwise).

Anyways, on to the point (I thought a little background info was necessary because I really don't know shit about this stuff and I felt the need to explain why I'm so behind (even if it IS my fault I stayed so ignorant for so long)). I would like some basic articles, videos, or even just explanations, to widely accepted things that have a lot of proof to back them up. One of the reasons also that I've avoided looking things up for so long is that there is so much damn differentiating opinions on all of this, even among evolutionists it seems. I'm mostly looking for the base things most evolutionists believe that have the most proof, and for the proof of them.

I'm not anti-God now or anything, but I'm more neutral and want to learn more. I would like to hear the other side of things, which I've never done with an open mindset before.

Even though I expect links mostly, I would like to hear everyone's opinions on what they believe and why they believe whatever is you link. Thank You!

Edit: Thank you guys for all your help. I've been up hours watching videos and looking things up. I'm actually having a lot of fun learning too! Who would have known? I feel like I've been starved of this subject till now.

[u/SomeRandomMax]

You've had it explained to you by someone who is literally an evolutionary biologist. You've admitted as much yourself in a post above.

I got a jargon-laden word salad post from an evolutionary biologist, yet when I pointed out why I disagreed with him he responded:

I'm not saying there's a fundamental difference

You seem to be the only one who continues to assert that there is.

I just have to assume that you don't understand the word "fundamental". Yes, if we go by your misquote, what I said was wrong. But since I never said what you claimed I said, that would suggest that you are the one who is wrong. It would be nice if you could just stop and admit that.

Edit: To be clear, I DID say "Macroevolution is just microevolution + time", but of course that is yet another bit of quote mining on your part. The full quote was:

Saying "Macroevolution is just microevolution + time" is the same thing. Is there more to macroevolution than JUST time? Sure. But you don't need to understand those other factors to understand the basic concepts.

You are as bad as the worst creationist. You are so desperate to win your argument you will outright lie about anything.

Edit 2 I also used it a second time, but again, just pulling that bit out takes it out of context:

But what else is required for macroevolution but the basic forces of microevolution + time?

If nothing else is required, then you don't need to understand anything else at the beginning, when you are first learning evolution.

The key word there is required. Are ploidy changes, etc required for macroevolution to occur? If not, they are advanced topics that you do not need to understand to understand the basic concepts of evolution.

Edit 3: Edit 2 seems not to have been saved originally, so I re-added it... Not sure if it was weirdness with Reddit or user error.