Evolution vs Creation-Comparing each View

[a.sub]

No no no, swords are so much more personal.

but bombs have fire

[Martin Ronne]

But with swords, the enemy can see the fire in your eyes!

[a.sub]

But with swords, the enemy can see the fire in your eyes!

1) well said!!!!
2) touche, pun intended

ok swords it is

[Artimis]

I've been putting this one off, but I see a need to get this thread back on topic.

Evolution:
I personally think this a good and valid theory with plenty of evidence to back it up from fossil records and observation data from the study of plants and animals in the wild. A good working theory however has to be able to predict future results, so the prediction is that like all the other forms of life on this planet, we'll change as well. I brought a copy of Scientific American(dated January 2009) a couple of weeks ago because they were doing an evolution special as part of the 150th Darwins evolution anniversary. I encourage everyone to read it, it sums up everything I want to say on evolution.

Intelligent Design:
If this were the case then I consider the human body a very bad design with many flaws. Walking up right puts additional strain on our hips, increasing wear and tear with the obvious reduction in range of movement experienced in old age. Our skulls are the thickness of only a few millimetres, for protecting such a sensitive and vital organ of the body such as the brain this is woefully inadequate. Especially when the heart is so much better protected by a sturdier rib cage, which itself is not entirely perfect because it doesn't extend to the abdomen. This is likely due to the fact that our ancestors(I mean our very far back in the past reptilian ancestors) found increased agility from the absence of these abdominal ribs of greater benefit than the protect they otherwise afforded. There's a whole list of flaws also mentioned in Scientific American. If life on Earth was indeed engineered as the proponents of ID assert, then it's either an abandoned experiment that's been left to run wild or very badly designed experiment where the quality control leaves a lot to be desired.

The Great Flood:
As a historical fact I find this highly open to interpretation that the entire world was drowned in a great flood of water. I'm not going into the biblical references because I don't consider them objective enough to bother with. Back then at the time of the first bible being written the span of land and sea that was considered 'the world' was much smaller to the average layman than it is today. The America's and Australia would not be discovered until many centuries later. So to the average layman, 'the world' could quite easily be an island and the sea that surrounds it, it wouldn't occur to them that beyond the horizon other lands awaited exploration. It would be plausible that an island with an indigenous human population would suddenly suffer some sort of geological catastrophe, causing it to sink into the sea. Thus this tale would be retold by the survivors of such an unpleasant event to their descendants, that's how I'd imagine the story of Noah's Ark coming into being.

An interesting side note to this, there is some speculation that Earth may well have started out as a 'Water World'. By that I mean that little to no land mass protruded through what was back then a global ocean. This is on the back of the fact that the Earths Mantle beneath the Earths Crust has cooled gradually, reducing the stretching effect that it had on the Earths Crust and allowing the relatively shallow ocean to drain away into ever increasingly deepening trenches and troughs. As you can imagine more land would become exposed to the air as the sea receded. But I consider it next to impossible that humans would have witnessed this first hand, the cooling of the Mantle has been a slow process that has occurred over billions of years.


My Opinion?
I think evolution is the most plausible explanation as to how we and all the entire spectrum of life on Earth came to be. I think the only possible outside influence on the development of life on Earth would be some asteroid/comet/other celestial body hitch-hiking microbes that landed in primordial Earths oceans and found the prevailing conditions to their liking. Thus, over 3 billion years later we're to debate about how it all started in the first place.

My Belief?
I think that given how the Earth itself formed over 4 billion years ago and that life sprang into being approximately 1 billion years after that. Given that the Universe is estimated to be about 16 billion years old, it is not inconceivable that life may have come into being in other parts of the Universe. Perhaps much earlier than life on Earth originated and much further along the evolutionary track than we are. Maybe we've already had visitors from other star systems? But it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't want much to do with us, we're still quite violent and primitive in our own way. Earth is very definitely a rare catch, we have a responsibility to ensure that it can continue to sustain life, also we have a responsibility to spread life across the Solar System, as we're the first species on Earth to develop a method for escaping the confines of this planet.

[Neoteny]

You get five points in my book for trying to stop the madness that is going on in this thread.

[Juan_Bottom]

It would be plausible that an island with an indigenous human population would suddenly suffer some sort of geological catastrophe, causing it to sink into the sea. Thus this tale would be retold by the survivors of such an unpleasant event to their descendants, that's how I'd imagine the story of Noah's Ark coming into being.

I just like to think that 75% of the worlds human population lives near a coast or large body of water.
And in the past that was an even greater number. So tales and legends of "great floods" only make sense to me.

But not so much one's where "great fish" eat people who then live in their bellies for years before escaping.

True^
Rant>
The logistics of Noah's Flood just won't pass the smell test either really.

I mean, you're not dumb right? So, if your neighbor said "God speaks to me, I'm building a big boat to save 2 of every creature alive. The world is going to flood with water from above and below"
You would think he was crazy right?
BUT, when motherf*cking penguins, T-Rexs, Llamas, Pheasants, 11,000 species of black ants, polar bears, kangaroos, Burmese Pythons, Gorillas, ECT ECT, all walk through your yard to this big boat....
Wouldn't you be all like "F*ck, My bad Noah.... Can I get on your ship PLEASE?"
He wouldn't seem so crazy then would he? You'd be the crazy one not to get on his boat.
I think if it did happen, Noah must have left all those poor f*ckers to drown when they asked to be on his ship. I know I would have tried to get on board. Then after he let them all drown the bastard just wrote the story how he wanted it. Jerkhole. Seriously, think about it as if you were there.
And it's really too many animals anyways... even if you pack them in there. They couldn't cross all the rivers and oceans... or deal with the temperatures. And if God helped them all magically transporting them, then why even use Noah in the first place?

I got way of topic but it's staying.

[jonesthecurl]

If we apply logic to the flood story we also have to ask how the animals got home.
Look around you in the modern world to see what happens when an animal is taken out of its normal environment and introduced to one where the competition is lacking something(grey sqyirrels, Colorado Beetle, minks in the UK, various bird species in the US, rabbits in Australia, etc etc).
How come all the kangaroos and duck-billeed platypui made it back to Australia, the capybara to S America, Lemurs and Ahas to Madagascar,each individual species of finch to its appropriate galapgos island, no snakes to Ireland, no toads in Guernsey, no bunnies in Australia?

[jay_a2j]

Recently watched Expelled. Gotta believe there is a push to "expel" intelligent design from the discussion. Why? Who knows but it was a eye opener to what is happening in this country with regards to evolution and ID.

If anyone here has Netflix EXPELLED can be viewed instantly online there. (for the time being)

Worth a watch.

[Neoteny]

It was terrible. Don't bother with it.

[Gillipig]

There is a simple reason why people believe in god, And thoose who doesn't understand that are either retards or just not trying hard enough. It's because we have a primitive need for it. Beleive in gods used to be important when we lived as hunters and gatherers. We needed to have something to hold on to when our lives looked tough. We will still have this need for thousands of years to come though! Because until our dna change, we wont change!
A lot of people today don't need religion! And it's not a coincident that thoose people more often than not live in the rich parts of the world. For the first time in human history, non-believe (atheism) is the greates single life stance people have. That to me says that we have it better today then we ever had before. No suffering, No desire, No religion. They go hand in hand! If anything should be said to try to convince religious people to why they are wrong (if you would like take that conversation with them (I wouldn't)) the best argument would probably be: Everywhere in the world there are different religions, how would you know wich is right? However you bend it you can't help to come to the conclusion that the wast majority of all religious people beleive in something that is only in there heads!

Thanks for reading, use this information wisely!

[Juan_Bottom]

If we apply logic to the flood story we also have to ask how the animals got home.
Look around you in the modern world to see what happens when an animal is taken out of its normal environment and introduced to one where the competition is lacking something(grey sqyirrels, Colorado Beetle, minks in the UK, various bird species in the US, rabbits in Australia, etc etc).
How come all the kangaroos and duck-billeed platypui made it back to Australia, the capybara to S America, Lemurs and Ahas to Madagascar,each individual species of finch to its appropriate galapgos island, no snakes to Ireland, no toads in Guernsey, no bunnies in Australia?

Interesting point.

It was terrible. Don't bother with it.

It's because we have a primitive need for it.

Na... I don't have any need for it. I pretty much new as a little kid that it was all made up.

We will still have this need for thousands of years to come though!

I'll raise you a "there be religion for forever."

A lot of people today don't need religion! And it's not a coincident that thoose people more often than not live in the rich parts of the world.

We also have education here, and we started as a Christian nation. So The missionaries are going over there to talk to the uneducated....
No offence

No suffering, No desire, No religion. They go hand in hand!

Not to mess with you or anything, But I'm in the lower middle class. As a tot I was in the lower lower class and we worked our way up. For me suffering didn't enter into, it was my early love of books that did it for me. I used to read stories like 'the Iliad,' Beowulf, and 'Jason and the Argonauts' when I was very young. We're talking first grade I can remember tackling all sorts of classics. One day in church it hit me, how do I know that the Christian God, my God, is real but the other Gods are fake? The fake ones did/do as much visable stuff as my God does? If I say "Thor punch me in the face!" Or "Satan punch me in the face!" the results are the same. So how do I know? After that it just took some time to grow up and get the nerve to challenge adults on it. I knew even then...
I explained this for you so you would see the link>

If anything should be said to try to convince religious people to why they are wrong (if you would like take that conversation with them (I wouldn't)) the best argument would probably be: Everywhere in the world there are different religions, how would you know wich is right? However you bend it you can't help to come to the conclusion that the wast majority of all religious people beleive in something that is only in there heads!

See above, lol.^
And no, this arguement doesn't work. Religion is a matter of faith, not logic. They are not linked in any way.

[Martin Ronne]

So if they don't punch you in the face they don't exist? Hmmm, I'm gonna have to try that some time. There's a lot of people I wish didn't exist, so I guess I should go around telling people to punch me in the face, might get rid of half my enemy's, either that or be hospitalized.

The meaning of the word faith is to believe with out actually seeing. If God were to start punching people in the face when ever they asked, you can bet people would start believing. However, if God is indeed a just God, (which he is ) then he would not want to rule by fear, he would want man to use his free will and come to him without provocation. Christianity, disregarding the denominations, is the simplest religion, partly because it's not a religion, it's a faith, as with Judaism as well. You either believe or you don't believe.

[MeDeFe]

I believe in a thing called love?

[Martin Ronne]

Just listen to the rhythm of my hart!

[MeDeFe]

There's a chance we could make it now

[Martin Ronne]

We'll be rocking till the sun goes down!

[MeDeFe]

I believe in a thing called love

[Martin Ronne]

OOOOO OOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Guitar!!!!!!!

[a.sub]

[Neoteny]

Ok that was probably necessary. All threads could benefit from that.

[Snorri1234]

You gotta be kidding me !!

Do people actually debate this? Didn't religion/god has hidden behind faith to never come to light again?

hahahaha !! hahahahahahaha !!!

Save me Tom Cruise !!!

Then if you don't believe in creation (which is perfectly fine and your choice), why do you believe in evolution? The answer cannot be "because creation is wrong". The answer needs to be "because evolution is true". Then I ask you to show me why you believe.

-Big Bang- There was nothing and then there was something (not logical. 1st law prevents naturalistic creation or destruction of matter. No explanation. And you cannot just use quantum physics becaue there is still no proof of that. it is just a mathematical formula to try and justify something from nothing.)
-Formation of stars and planets-Planets and moons are made of completely different materials and move in completely different orbits or rotations. How? Why? Only theories that cannot hold water as to how these things happened. (So the moon and earth crashed into each other. The earth was spun out of the sun, The sun slowly collapsed from gas. Again all theories and not observed or proven. Just speculation and not science.
-Formation of life from nonlife- How? Where? When? This theory, with years of labor and intelligent of man looking over it in laboratories with TONS of equipment and all scientific tools to use, and nothing. We can't create life. We can't even properly create the things that create life without intelligent manipulation of the outcome (Miller-Urey_experiment does not prove anything if you actually look at the facts)
-The degradation of all systems based on the 2nd law of thermodynamics - This applies to information, structures and energy. All of which we see following these laws. Genetic information is getting more disrupted. Mutations hurts MUCH MUCH more than they help the overall system. All of the stars are losing useful energy to the universe and space. The energy is in turn used up by less that 100% efficient plants and animals. The useful energy of the universe is going away. This is consistent with the 2nd law. But for some reason in the past, teh 2nd law did not apply and things actually got more ordered from chaos and randomness (again not logical) . The only reason life, for a short period of time, does get more complex and organized is that there is a set of instructions (DNA) that explain how that happened.
-DNA- Where did this come from? Where did a HUGE set of orderly plans for life come from? How is the code interpreted. You cannot have a language and the code to decode it arise at the same time by chance and have it be explainable. It makes no sense? Does it.
-Macro evolution- The thought that little changes over a million years results in new creatures or species have never been seen. Evolutionists will say because it takes so long. Well if it takes so long how can you be sure it happens. The answer will be because we are here it must have happened.. But that uses the assumption that we DID evolve. It does not look at the facts and ask "can this really happen"?

These are just a few things that need to be looked at. You need to ask yourself if these make sense. Can these things happen in the natural world all by themselves? Throw away your bias and really look a the science behind it. All of these issues above are either explained away by theories that contradict current know laws of nature or just accepted even though there is no proof just because a persons' bias is considered fact.

One cannot look at a particular area and say "creation/evolution must be true beucase I see....."
A person needs to look at each area and say "what do I see"?
Then that observation needs to be compared to other ares of science together to form an overall model of what has taken place. Do not use theories or science to twist and bend your bias. Make sure they all agree with each other.

Know why you believe and really understand you point of view and be able to explain it all to anyone who comes calling.
And don't fit the "facts" to suit your opinion.
Look at the FACTS and see where they lead you.

WM

[Juan_Bottom]

Win^?

So if they don't punch you in the face they don't exist? Hmmm, I'm gonna have to try that some time. There's a lot of people I wish didn't exist, so I guess I should go around telling people to punch me in the face, might get rid of half my enemy's, either that or be hospitalized.

As a kid, it did.
And your arguement is terrible. You actually can see those people. Whereas GOD is 100% intangable. Which in a way was my original point from when I was a tot.

However, if God is indeed a just God, (which he is )

C'mon.

[Snorri1234]

Win^?

Well I believe I got a bingo.

[Bavarian Raven]

so if they don't punch you in the face they don't exist?

did god punch u in the face?

[AAFitz]

The different theories of science are certainly just that. And many will change over the years, as new things are learned without a doubt. Hell the mult-verse theory, and membrane theory, though possibly proven in a math equation, take perhaps more a leap of faith, than any belief in a deity.

Even einstien's theory of gravity, that massive objects bend space and time, and the subsequent space pushes the object, which counters newton's explanation of gravity works mathematically, but still takes a leap of faith...and isnt fully proven, beyond the fact that the equations to work.

The difference between most scientists, and most religious believers however, is that the scientists regard the theories as just that. Most know they are just theories based on the information available, and all know that new information could change the theory, as most often happens. With religious believers however, new information is typically ignored, and most still use the information that was made available thousands of years ago.

What puzzles me, is the fact that religious fanatics can not accept new scientific theories because they counter what was written thousands of years ago, with many variations and translations. Im amazed that someone, who believes in an all powerful god, cannot accept that not only could the scientific theories be possible, especially the most likely ones...but that they dont believe that God, could have created such a universe with such complexity, including a big bang, other universes, perhaps even other worlds, including evolution...and still exist.

Similarly, scientists who argue that there is no possiblility of a God, simply because so many things can be proven scientifically, are also discounting a possible theory. Certainly any all powerful God could have created everything as it is, evolution included, and still exist.

Not believing in either scientific theories, or supernatural forces is of course fine, but discounting the possibility of either is actually far too close minded in my opinion.

As far as your examples of science being extremely complicated, and therefore needing a god to have created it...well, is not much of an actual argument really. Certainly its just as likely that a God created everything, as it is that It just happened from scratch out of the blue...which, by the way isnt exactly what big bang theory is. There are many plausible possibilities of where the matter of the universe came from, and though wildly speculative, and in no way proven...are at least as plausible as a God creating it in the first place. Just one theory, is that all the matter was here in another universe, and simply collapsed back into itself, and exploded again. It cant be proven today, but that doesnt mean it wasnt possible. 2000 years ago, no one knew that the sun was made of hydrogen, and as its gravity squashed it, helium was made, which creates the energy and light we see every day. If someone suggested that 2000 years ago, they'd have been seen as insane, because it was far too complex for anyone at the time to grasp given their knowledge. The egyptians called the sun RA, because they had no idea what the friggin thing in the sky was...Now we know its just a "large firey ball at the center of our solar system". Not even the most ridiculous educated religious person will question that its a big ball of hydrogen converting hydrogen to helium in nuclear fusion. However...as time goes on, and more is learned and studied, people will be able to understand more about the universe, its origins etc. The theories that we, including scientists find outlandish today, will be held as ordinary common knowledge in the future. History has numerous examples of this.

My point here is this. By all means believe in whatever you want to believe in..god, santa, membrane theory or evolution...but never close your mind to other possibilities, because the odds of all of your beliefs being correct at any given time, are extremely unlikely... and though it may be scary not to know where everything and everyone came from, closing your mind to the possibilities, and discouraging those possibilities in others, is perhaps the most dangerous thing the human race can do. And above all else, dont give up searching for the answers, just because they seem too difficult to discover.