Evolution vs. Creation

[JGL57]

These two statements contradict each other. Which is it?...

No they don't. Beyond a reasonable doubt and certainty are anything but the same. If you aren't just trying to be a contrarian and really don't understand this fact, then I am going to have to insult your intelligence by questioning it.

Can you make your point without trying to insult people, please?...

You react to someone effectively questioning and criticizing your fondest wishes by thinking they are just trying to insult you?

No further comment needed here. I will let others draw their own conclusions.

Do you even read my posts? I'm not asking science to do anything. I'm not complaining that it doesn't offer "certainty," I'm pointing out that its inability to do so in all cases makes it similar to religion: both require faith, and some questions simply cannot be answered with definitive, unequivocal evidence. In terms of "reality" - science and religion offer two different versions (which are not always contradictory of each other). Just because you don't understand one doesn't mean it's any less "real." It just means you don't get it.

I hate to have to go over all this - one more time - but you seem incapable of understanding the difference between science and religion. That is sad, in a way, but if you are happy in your world, then I am happy for you.

For those of us who DO know the difference, we will continue to fight for keeping religion out of science. Sunday school is not the subjective logical equivalent of science class. Science is based on facts in evidence and the attempt to be as objective as humanly possible in understanding the facts. Religion is about emotional comfort. That is the primary reason for the "faith" in things unseen, unproved and non-provable, and outside of scientific examination.

[Redzeppelin]

No they don't. Beyond a reasonable doubt and certainty are anything but the same. If you aren't just trying to be a contrarian and really don't understand this fact, then I am going to have to insult your intelligence by questioning it.

You're right. I stand corrected.

You react to someone effectively questioning and criticizing your fondest wishes by thinking they are just trying to insult you?

I'm not "wishing" anything. And, not everybody is capable of seeing how they come across. Unfortuanate, but true.

I hate to have to go over all this - one more time - but you seem incapable of understanding the difference between science and religion. That is sad, in a way, but if you are happy in your world, then I am happy for you.

I'm quite clear on the difference. The fact that you disagree with my opinion doesn't make me wrong - it just means we disagree. I personally don't think you have the faintest idea as to what religion is about beyond the most basic, stereotypical hearsay.

For those of us who DO know the difference, we will continue to fight for keeping religion out of science. Sunday school is not the subjective logical equivalent of science class. Science is based on facts in evidence and the attempt to be as objective as humanly possible in understanding the facts. Religion is about emotional comfort. That is the primary reason for the "faith" in things unseen, unproved and non-provable, and outside of scientific examination

Who are you crusading against? I don't recall advocating doing anything to the science curriculum. Religion is far more profound than you can understand. I'm sorry you don't get it. Science is a good, useful thing - and it has much truth for the world. But it too is not without a certain degree of faith that is required of us to believe that it is true.

[JGL57]

Science is a good, useful thing - and it has much truth for the world. But it too is not without a certain degree of faith that is required of us to believe that it is true.

You keep harping on this point. I don't know what your point supposedly is. All human beings are fallible. No human ever has all the data, but must work with a finite amount of the infinitely available data. Only lunatics claim god-like knowledge of anything.

Thus - every concept will trace back to an assumption, or a conclusion based on a series of assumptions.

And on this fact you wish to equate religion with science? You wish to conflate the pragmatic naturalistic assumption of scientific reasoning with the "faith" of religion to just conclude, well, everything is just a matter of "faith"?

That's ridiculous and yet you keep pushing this like it some profound insight or something.

Scientists don't just believe stuff. Religionists just believe stuff. Scientists prove understandings to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. That is how science progresses. Religion stays stuck in the mud at step one - and stays there until and unless it is dragged kicking and screaming into a new century, one century at a time, by scientific progress.

Religion gave us demon possession. Science gave us vaccines and antibiotics. Do I need to give you a couple hundred other examples to prove my point, or will that suffice?

[Logos]

Mod note to all:

Posts have been deleted. I am not closing this topic, that happens to be one of the more successful long-standing ones in the Religious Texts area, just because people are (again) getting into the

'my faith/dogma/catma/religion/belief/argument/phrenology/philosophy/opinion/shoe-size/facts/proof etc etc is/are better/superior to/than yours'.

Please stick to the topic and do not discuss each other or resort to hyperbole, ad hominem, or inflammatory posts, or Religious Texts forum time-outs will be issued.

[Pendragon]

A Creationist and an Evolutionist discovered the bones of an ancient humanoid in a cave. They began a long argument over how old the bones were, how far along the evolutionary chart this being might be, and how it came to be in the first place. The argument became rather heated as each man warmed to his topic. Suddenly, there was a macabre interruption. A skeletal hand fell upon the shoulder of each man. "Come on, guys!" The dead man said. "Give a man a proper burial, won't you? It's too noisy up here!"

Maybe this will ease the tension...

[Redzeppelin]

I sure do appreciate your posts, Pen.

I see part of the problem this way: the discussion about creationism vs. evolution is really a discussion as to whether or not God exists. I'm quite OK with the fact that - when all is said and done - I might discover that I was terribly wrong in my choice to interpret Genesis literally and that the "day=age" theory was correct, or that God set evolution into motion. Neither of those really changes the core of my belief system. Whether the world was created in 6 days or 6 millenium isn't a "deal breaking" belief of mine. The fact that I defend the biblical narrative is based more on my belief as to who God is than whether or not we should interpret Genesis 1 & 2 literally or figuratively.

I think evolution overall has lots of holes in it - BUT that science has (since Darwin's time) made some amazing discoveries that do clearly appear to put the biblical narrative into question. I get that. I can easily concede that point. What seems to get lost in the shuffle is the idea that Christians believe in God as the creator - and that if He is who He says He is, then it is perfectly possible that the Genesis narrative is literal. When atheists scoff at this idea, they are not really trying to understand; I can't seem to get across the idea that if the non-believer tried to imagine - just for a minute - that such a being could exist, that it would follow that a belief in the biblical narrative is not as insane as it seems to appear. The numerous facts and evidence put forth to support evolution are certainly impressive, but they cannot shake my faith in God. They may shake my faith in a literal 6 day creation, but not God.

Think of it this way: I don't know your wife/husband - I have no relationship with them. Let's assume that you have a close, intimate relationship with him/her. How much of my questioning of your partner's integrity would you give credence to? Yes, I've got some hearsay and some circumstancial evidence, but no pictures, no eyewitnesses, no "smoking gun." Again: how quickly would you doubt that person? And what if that person was unquestionably honest and faithful. How serious would you take my attempts to bring your belief into doubt? Because my example is a human relationship, I know it can be attacked, but the principle behind it is what I'm appealing to. Because the Christian sees the Bible as an authority, we take seriously the description of who God is - as such, we tend to give credence to things that non-believers may simply scoff at as blindness.

[JGL57]

In creation vs. evolution we have

Creationism: the naked or unsubstantiated belief in an invisible and immaterial magical person who is infinitely complex, who was not created him or herself and has existed forever, and about 6,000 years ago started speaking complex entities into existence out of nothing, e.g., the earth, the moon, the sun, a human being, a frog, a whale, a kangaroo, etc., as in "Let there be light, let there be fish, let there be crawling things," etc.

This magical person created day and night on the first day, and the sun on the fourth day (think about that for a while and see if your head explodes). The first man was created fully grown, with no previous history (did he have a navel?) out of dirt and hot air. The first woman was created fully adult too, with no previous history (did she have a navel?) out of a bone taken from the guy's side while he was in a coma. They, as were all animals (even ants and anteaters?) were immortal at first, but a talking snake gave them a bum steer, so death came into the world.

Also, these Neanderthals or Australopithicuses or whatever they were suddenly realized that they were naked and the monkeys and whatnot could see their "areas" so they put on leaf dresses. Then they had two sons, then one killed the other, then there was a huge amount of incest, since there was no one to date except your sister, so then the world was populated. But the invisible person in the sky got crabby again and drowned them all except for eight people who escaped in a boatload of very stinky unhappy animals, then the world started over again from scratch - about 4,500 years ago. There followed a lot of first cousin sex - no one else to date again.

So then Ham looked at his naked father and laughed and the Negroes were cursed to be slaves, then the Jews started committing genocide on all their neighbors, etc., etc. (The really crazy stuff didn't start until god knocked up a human female and wound up sacrificing himself to himself, but that's another story - see the N.T.).

vs.

Evolution: a singularity of unimaginative small dimensions and incomprehensible density exploded - the so-called Big Bang. (Put aside the fact that space and time started at that point, there may be an infinite number of such Big Bangs, etc.) Skip ahead about 10 billion years. The solar system evolved, then singular-celled life evolved on earth around 3.8 billion years ago.

Skip ahead about 3 billion years after enough waste oxygen builds up, then other life evolves that breathes the oxygen (grossing out the anaerobic bacteria, but screw them - they're losers). Skip ahead to only a few hundred million years ago and some plant (a trifid?) crawled up on land, followed by an animal (a monkey-fish-squirrel?), then larger animals, finally some apes got kicked out of the trees for not sharing their bananas, walked out from the forest to the savanna, and eventually evolved into humans over 10 or so million years.

Cave drawings dating back 100,00 years revealed humans had already invented religion by then (animism and shamanism, foreshadowing the far more sexy monotheism) because they had evolved egos and egos MUST be fed. Present day "evolution scientists" have found several hundred million fossils of various species of life forms, 99 per cent of which are extinct and have been extinct for a time many orders of magnitude longer than that of human existence ("creation scientists" believe Adam an Eve rode dinosaurs to church, and god planted the other fake fossils in the proper strata to make Richard Dawkins and his ilk look stupid, become unbelievers and eventually go to hell - because god is a Calvinist xxx.
----

Now, granted, these are rather truncated versions of our two choices and, also granted, I took a lot of poetic license in delineating some of the details, but I think everyone can see what each side has to offer, regarding objectivity, disinterested examination of the evidence, following many different lines of evidence to a logical conclusion, and so forth.

For further information, in order to understand the issues in more depth, I recommend

1. reading the KJV bible for understanding the creationism theory (you'll have the basic idea down after reading the first book, Genesis, but do read at least the entire OT - after reading how often the Jews committed genocide on their neighbors, you may no longer wonder where Hitler got the idea.

and

2. reading the seven or so books explaining evolution written by Richard Dawkins - the best one in my opinion is "The Ancestor’s Tale". Also, for the overachiever, I think the 15 or so books on evolution by Stephen J. Gould are very good - my favorite of his is "Full House".

[hyperborean]

This is one long thread filled with strong ideas.

Well for starters, "adam and eve" is a false bible story. This has been admitted by the church. It's supposed to be a typical life lesson story dealing with how one should never disobey the divine. If you want to get technical, the apple in the story symbolically represents knowledge (a good course in theology or philosophy will clear that one up).

My question is, why deny science and place one's beliefs in a made up bible story? Do you honestly think God used his finger to zap Adam and Eve onto the earth? How would one explain fossils left by prehistoric creatures?

This link I'm about to post is another reason behind the downfall of western culture: http://www.godsaidmansaid.com/home.asp

[Pendragon]

So then Ham looked at his naked father and laughed and the Negroes were cursed to be slaves

Mon ami, there is nothing in the Bible that states this. This was a doctrine brought about by highly prejudiced master race people who wished to make what they were doing Biblically correct, so they claimed that the "Mark of Cain" was that God made him a black man. Nothing in the Bible supports this at all, and slavery is a horrible thing, which is why there was a time when anyone could walk free or reclaim property freely. It was called the year of Jubilee. You had to chose it, not say, "Oh, I'm OK, here, The Master treats me fine." Because then you were a slave by choice.

[JGL57]

...there is nothing in the Bible that states this. This was a doctrine brought about by highly prejudiced master race people who wished to make what they were doing Biblically correct, so they claimed that the "Mark of Cain" was that God made him a black man. Nothing in the Bible supports this at all, and slavery is a horrible thing...

No argument from me that slavery was (and is in present day Africa) a horrible thing that should be condemned outright by all who claim to have any moral sensitivity whatsoever.

That being said, does the bible condone slavery? That’s a question that I suppose could be debated forever. There are fundamentalist christians who believe the bible does indeed record the fact that god condemned blacks to servitude because of the "sin" of their common ancestor, Ham. Many other christians, I suppose the majority these days, argue that is not true, as you do.

Obviously the whole idea of god cursing an entire race is an absurd idea. I can only report that many christians in the past, and many still today believe this to be true. You can argue with other christians regarding this issue. I don't have a dog in that fight. (As I said I took a bit of poetic license in describing both the religious creation notion and scientific theory of evolution.)

[kilted exile]

Contradictory Calvinist

I think there's a bit of that in every Scotsman actually

[Redzeppelin]

Evolution: a singularity of unimaginative small dimensions and incomprehensible density exploded - the so-called Big Bang. (Put aside the fact that space and time started at that point, there may be an infinite number of such Big Bangs, etc.) Skip ahead about 10 billion years. The solar system evolved, then singular-celled life evolved on earth around 3.8 billion years ago.

Skip ahead about 3 billion years after enough waste oxygen builds up, then other life evolves that breathes the oxygen (grossing out the anaerobic bacteria, but screw them - they're losers). Skip ahead to only a few hundred million years ago and some plant (a trifid?) crawled up on land, followed by an animal (a monkey-fish-squirrel?), then larger animals, finally some apes got kicked out of the trees for not sharing their bananas, walked out from the forest to the savanna, and eventually evolved into humans over 10 or so million years.

This story strikes me as just as fantastic as the highly simplified and biased rendition of Creation originally given above it. As far as I'm concerned, this rendition is just as fantastic as the one I believe in - except this one was fabricated by a human (so that makes it more credible, I guess).

Ultimately, none of what is printed above is provable. Just like Creation. Neither is provable.

[hyperborean]

Hey, but at least the fundamentals of creation theories are based off empirical evidence, and not on what some imaginary construct had to say.

[Pendragon]

Indulge my meddling again for a moment. This term keeps coming up: empirical evidence . This is evidence that can be proven by experiments.

Now, I think it was my amigo, Robin, who pointed out, that given infinity, chance had to be the starting point behind creation. I will not argue with this point. The math would be something like this:

If x = chance, and y = ∞, then xy = The Big Bang.

The problem would be gaining empirical evidence . There exists no way to run an infinite experiment to see if this is indeed, true. What we have is an accepted fact . Something that we know, but can’t prove.

Now, the same goes for a person who believes, as I do, in God; in Intelligent Design. Given infinity as possibilities, God has to exist.

If x = God, and y = ∞, then xy = God Exists.

Can I prove it to the skeptic? Not a chance.

So with Science we take the best shot at it we can give, it comes down to “This is what we believe happened, based on the fragmentary evidence that we have.” Best guess. Most likely. Not empirical evidence .

With God we come down to a matter of Faith, what one believes.

Hebrews chapter 11. 1-3

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For by it the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

Faith believes it. It cannot provide empirical evidence .

So why do we argue so vehemently? Take the two, put them together, and you may have a clearer picture of what took place at the dawn of time. But it will still lack empirical evidence . We would still be taking our best shot at the target. God bless.

[Redzeppelin]

Well said my friend.

Hey, but at least the fundamentals of creation theories are based off empirical evidence, and not on what some imaginary construct had to say.

Here's what I find interesting. In my posts, I never suggest that evolution is silly, imaginary, absurd or even untrue: I simply try to do some "equalizing" by suggesting that a certain amount of faith, assumption and speculation exists in the evolutionistic explanation as to how the universe and life on earth originated. I'm willing to accept that some parts of evolution theory may have some credence; what's fascinating is that some/many atheists will often not bother to at least allow that our view is possible in the least. Pen's post nicely articulates that anything - given infinity - can be possible. The fact that life exists at all (against odds calculated by scientists that are pretty astounding from what I recall) is just as miraculous as the idea that a Supreme Being was behind the beginning of Life.

My point? Hyperboren (like others who argue similarly) immediately tries to refute our position by invoking the "imaginary" nature of the basis of our argument (God) - but as far as I see, the astronomical numbers and coincedences required to believe in evolution are so unreal as to seem almost equally imaginary.