Creationish Vs Evolutionism? BE POLITE!

[Insipid Moniker]

To my satisfaction, the theory of evolution has been disproved.

YMMV

And that is perfectly OK by me.

Moving on to statistics:

A billion to one odds do not become likely even in the event that there are 10 billion opportunities - the odds remain a billion to one.

But we're not speaking of such favorable odds. We're speaking of odds that mathematically, show trillions upon trillions of opportunities (per second) spread out over billions of years, aren't possible. Not even once - and it would have to happen millions of times (in that same period of time) for evolution (Darwinism) to be factual. It is a mathematical impossibility.

That's science, not mere personal incredulity.

You say that the odds aren't possible without demonstrating why they aren't and yes, rare events become likely when opportunities for them to happen increase. You say that the odds are still a billion to one and that's true, but that's a statement meaning that if conditions are met 1 billion times it is likely this will happen only once. Therefore, with 10 billion opportunities it becomes increasingly improbable that said event will not happen. My point is you're discussing mathematical probabilities in scenarios which we can't possibly calculate how likely or unlikely it is for life to evolve. It might be nearly inevitable given the correct conditions, we just don't know. Basing belief on flawed calculations is problematic. Where are you getting your numbers from? How do you know which variables must be in place for life to form? How do you know the number of places on which those conditions will be met? We just don't know enough about the universe to state that anything like this is improbable or impossible.

 

[never too sharp]

This is a good thread, and I hope it can continue with civility. I think science and religion can co-exist peacefully if one does not try to eviscerate the other. The problem with disputing a theory or idea because of the imperfections within it is what leads us to psuedoscience. Science is self correcting, and religion is faith-based, so for one to try to explain or deny the other is futile and untrue. My wife belongs to one of the "Charismatic" churches(evangelical 2.0) which are all the rage. She brings home all manner of books and pamphlets that could only be described as propaganda. They all take a handful of points from scientific theories and "prove" why they can't be correct. They are building their house upon sand.

It is my belief, as has already been said, that the biggest problem is a literal translation of the bible. If it is looked at as allegory or parable, things make much more sense. But there are miraculous things that the authors of certain gospels claim actually happened. Things that defy conventional science. My wife's pastor said to me, "Either it's true, or Jesus was a big fat liar." I don't think that's fair. I think regarding Christianity, Paul was the liar, for he invented what we know as Christianity.

More on this later. Gotta go...

 

[mwerner]

Stephen Collins is a self-described Evangelical Christian. He is also a molecular biologist. He was a primary researcher on the Human Genome Project, so he has some scientific creds.
He says flatly, "Evolution is How God Did It". He as no truck whatever with Creationism, especially YEC. In order to buy into that, one must simply chuck the entire body of modern scientific knowledge out the window. For virtually every discipline of modern science confirms that the current model of natural history is correct.

That the universe is about 14.5 billion years old. That the Earth is about 5 billion years old. That life first appeared about 3.5 billion years ago. (we have fossil stromatolites of this age).
That over that 3.5 billion years to the present, Evolution worked it's way upon the myriad of life forms that arose and produced the enormous variety we see today, most all remarkably adapted to it's environmental niche.
(This despite most life having been wiped out by major impact events on at least two occasions.)
These observations are confirmed by most all the disciplines of contemporary science, not just one or two. Again, in order to propose that the entire universe was created by a deity a mere few thousands of years ago is not only to throw that all out the window, but also to indicate that this deity engaged in a massive and far-flung lie.
To create a universe that to all appearances was as I described it above... Yet not the case.
That fossils were created specially in rock strata specifically to deceive us.
That distant stars and galaxies were created with the light from them "already on the way" to the just-created Earth, so that by the finest calculations we can make, they would appear to be many light-years distant.

All of this, to deceive human beings which after all, had also been specifically created in a manner which would ensure that the vast majority of them would trust the deception....
All that, in favor of the folk-tale creation myth of a group of bronze-age herders.

Note as well that there are hundreds if not thousands of such creation myths. I have a big encyclopedia of mythology, and it alone lists dozens from groups of people from all over the world. Each has their own creation myth. Each is equally valid...
Why would the creation myth of the proto-Hebrew nomads be of more value than the creation myth of the Vikings, who speculated that the Frost Giants pulled the first man and woman from the ice?

 

[liamstrain]

Well stated, MWerner.

 

[mwerner]

Stephen Collins is a self-described Evangelical Christian. He is also a molecular biologist. He was a primary researcher on the Human Genome Project, so he has some scientific creds.
He says flatly, "Evolution is How God Did It". He as no truck whatever with Creationism, especially YEC. In order to buy into that, one must simply chuck the entire body of modern scientific knowledge out the window. For virtually every discipline of modern science confirms that the current model of natural history is correct.

That the universe is about 14.5 billion years old. That the Earth is about 5 billion years old. That life first appeared about 3.5 billion years ago. (we have fossil stromatolites of this age).
That over that 3.5 billion years to the present, Evolution worked it's way upon the myriad of life forms that arose and produced the enormous variety we see today, most all remarkably adapted to it's environmental niche.
(This despite most life having been wiped out by major impact events on at least two occasions.)
These observations are confirmed by most all the disciplines of contemporary science, not just one or two. Again, in order to propose that the entire universe was created by a deity a mere few thousands of years ago is not only to throw that all out the window, but also to indicate that this deity engaged in a massive and far-flung lie.
To create a universe that to all appearances was as I described it above... Yet not the case.
That fossils were created specially in rock strata specifically to deceive us.
That distant stars and galaxies were created with the light from them "already on the way" to the just-created Earth, so that by the finest calculations we can make, they would appear to be many light-years distant.

All of this, to deceive human beings which after all, had also been specifically created in a manner which would ensure that the vast majority of them would trust the deception....
All that, in favor of the folk-tale creation myth of a group of bronze-age herders.

Note as well that there are hundreds if not thousands of such creation myths. I have a big encyclopedia of mythology, and it alone lists dozens from groups of people from all over the world. Each has their own creation myth. Each is equally valid...
Why would the creation myth of the proto-Hebrew nomads be of more value than the creation myth of the Vikings, who speculated that the Frost Giants pulled the first man and woman from the ice?

 

[Esav Benyamin]

This is a good thread, and I hope it can continue with civility. I think science and religion can co-exist peacefully if one does not try to eviscerate the other. The problem with disputing a theory or idea because of the imperfections within it is what leads us to psuedoscience. Science is self correcting, and religion is faith-based, so for one to try to explain or deny the other is futile and untrue.

For those with time to read it, I offer a classic essay, Nonoverlapping Magisteria, by Stephen Jay Gould. I remember reading it in Natural History magazine in March 1997 and was happy to find it available online. It explores this very difficult confrontation between science and faith by pointing out why we do not need to see confrontation as conflict, or support one position by disparaging the other.

Gould's biography gives his background in science and culture, explaining some of the points in the essay.

He was one of my favorite writers. I read his column in Natural History as soon as my subscription arrived. Unfortunately, he only survived about 5 years after he wrote this. If you don't read the entire essay, you might scroll down to the postscript at the bottom, a tribute to his friend, Carl Sagan.

 

[Modifier]

If Creationism were true, then a human fetus would start out as an extremely small human and get larger. But it doesn't. It starts out as a one celled entity, becomes a multi celled entity, eventually resembles a fish complete with gills, and eventually spells out all the evolutionary steps we took to become who we are.
For me, science cannot explain how all the matter and energy in the universe came from a microscopic spec or what caused that spec to detonate, so if you need a Supreme Being, that's where to look.

This was a one century old hypothesis that's now known to be defunct.
Read this:http://www.gawaher.com/topic/740161-the-biogenetic-law-the-recapitulation-misconception/

 

[Chris Pierce]

Numbers 15:32-36
While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. 34 They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the LORD commanded Moses.

I don't believe in creationism because of passages like this. Is there a God? Nobody knows, I won't say there is NO god because we can't prove that. I'm just very anti-religion.

Check this one out. Matthew 12.

12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’[a] you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

 

[Modifier]

@ Chris Pierce

You don't need to take the bible literally, there are many issues related to copying, translating, etc, But what you need to know is: God could never tell BUT The Truth.

 

[liamstrain]

@ Chris Pierce
But what you need to know is: God could never tell BUT The Truth.

Except when he deceives us/others as in 1 Kings 22, Ezekiel 14, and 2 Thessalonians (and elsewhere). And since we say he can only tell the truth, because he told us so, I'm unconvinced (well, obviously by much more that this, just making a point). *shrug*

 

[Esav Benyamin]

... he can only tell the truth, because he told us so ...

Who told us so, God? Or the man who wrote that God told him to tell us so? In science, in law, even in journalism, we need to go to the source. Hearsay is inadmissable.

 

[Chris Pierce]

@ Chris Pierce

You don't need to take the bible literally, there are many issues related to copying, translating, etc, But what you need to know is: God could never tell BUT The Truth.

That is another huge problem that I've been having. I keep trying to find translations that agree with each other, but when I find modern translations from ancient Greek or Hebrew then don't at all agree with what most modern Churches teach. For example, most churches teach that homosexuality is a sin. But Jesus never said a single thing about it, and the Bible never calls it a sin, but only describes it as "abnormal" or "unnatural". The same words are used in the Bible to describe God as well. Something to think about....

 

[liamstrain]

Who told us so, God? Or the man who wrote that God told him to tell us so? In science, in law, even in journalism, we need to go to the source. Hearsay is inadmissable.

That's very much my point. We don't have a source. We only have hearsay (and circular reasoning - God is good. Why? God told me so. When? In the bible. Who wrote it? God. How do you know? The bible says so. etc.).

Anytime someone says "god cannot lie" or "god's nature is good" it's based on nothing but men's assumptions about God, or what they claim god told them (and we trust was written correctly/honestly). There is no test. We cannot know. And since I see no evidence any god or gods exist at all, I find it amusing to watch people claim things about him based on books men wrote in a very small, mostly illiterate part of Bronze age mesopotamia as though it represents objective truth. Which is then even more interesting to watch them try to reconcile inconsistencies and clearly false information (or contradictory ones). Though not surprising as those are the kinds of things that we expect to see in the works of man.

 

[RetiredGuns]

While faith seems silly to some folks it does have its value. How does a child know their Mother loves them? She can tell them, kiss & hug them every day of their life and yet despise them in her heart. Is the child a fool for having faith that their Mother loves them?

 

[liamstrain]

No, but the child can see, touch, talk to, etc... the mother can be demonstrated objectively to exist, and her love can be demonstrated empirically - likewise the brain chemistry that is a big part of that trust (dopamine, oxytocin, and others) can be measured in both mother and child, if that love needed to be documented and detailed for some reason. I have yet to see such a test for a deity. The child would be considered a fool for insisting on the love of an invisible dragon that lived in the cellar, well into adulthood.

Yes, faith can be important to individuals, and its historical role cannot be ignored (both for good and ill). But neither of those are an argument for any given faith (afterall, there are many thousands) representing truth, much less for it being something of enduring value and importance.

People obviously can, and do believe a great many things. Some with more evidence than others. And I would never suggest that someone could not or should not believe something. But teaching it to our children (especially to the exclusion of other things), or basing public policy on it - one needs much more than faith behind it, before passing it on. Given what we know about the nature of faith - especially the huge role of location and family history in what ones faith is - evidence should be our guide for policy and education, not faith or religion.

 

[fishface5]

pThe very question of the poll gets to the heart of the issue/problem. "What do you believe?" Belief should not have any part in the question. "What does current evidence support?" Belief is not based on evidence it is based on desire. Belief provides comfort and community but is not dependent on evidence.

Note that people ferverently believe vastley different things - people come up with stories and some of them are best suited for their eenvironments to attract enough adherents to perpetuate themselves when competing against other belief systems. Even among the same core belief systems (Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Scientology. etc) there may arise innumerable diverse sects, schisms, etc that compete for resource dominance. Success doesn't depend on how "true" they are because none of them can demonstrate their truth, it's just a matter of how enticing they are in theory and how accomodating the circumstances are to their proponents.

In terms of what the evidence suports, it annoys me when creationists challenge the sufficiency of the evidence in support of evolution, when there is NO evidentiary supprot whatsoever for their own explanation. Gollnick referenced Ptolemy as an example of how science can be "wrong." But there is a vast difference between saying "we have found more evidence that shows that the sun does not revolve around the earth, but that evidence leads to a theory of cosmic motion that explains why it appears that way from our vantage point and therefore we can explain the observations of the former theory within the new theory" vs saying
"well all the evidence points towards life evolving as the result of genetic mutations, b'ut we still don't have every piece of the supporting fossil record, so I guess we need to reject that theory and instead adopt a theory [Christiam biblical creationism] that has (1) no evidence to support it, (2) cannot account for the evidence that we have gathered so far, and (3) is contradicted by many other creation stories across the world, which also have no evidence to support them, and which actually have more adherents than this proposed story

 

[Modifier]

pThe very question of the poll gets to the heart of the issue/problem. "What do you believe?" Belief should not have any part in the question. "What does current evidence support?" Belief is not based on evidence it is based on desire. Belief provides comfort and community but is not dependent on evidence.

Note that people ferverently believe vastley different things - people come up with stories and some of them are best suited for their eenvironments to attract enough adherents to perpetuate themselves when competing against other belief systems. Even among the same core belief systems (Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Scientology. etc) there may arise innumerable diverse sects, schisms, etc that compete for resource dominance. Success doesn't depend on how "true" they are because none of them can demonstrate their truth, it's just a matter of how enticing they are in theory and how accomodating the circumstances are to their proponents.

In terms of what the evidence suports, it annoys me when creationists challenge the sufficiency of the evidence in support of evolution, when there is NO evidentiary supprot whatsoever for their own explanation. Gollnick referenced Ptolemy as an example of how science can be "wrong." But there is a vast difference between saying "we have found more evidence that shows that the sun does not revolve around the earth, but that evidence leads to a theory of cosmic motion that explains why it appears that way from our vantage point and therefore we can explain the observations of the former theory within the new theory" vs saying
"well all the evidence points towards life evolving as the result of genetic mutations, b'ut we still don't have every piece of the supporting fossil record, so I guess we need to reject that theory and instead adopt a theory [Christiam biblical creationism] that has (1) no evidence to support it, (2) cannot account for the evidence that we have gathered so far, and (3) is contradicted by many other creation stories across the world, which also have no evidence to support them, and which actually have more adherents than this proposed story

I agree on the bolded part completely and want to know what is the evidence for darwinism that convince you ?

 

[Modifier]

That is another huge problem that I've been having. I keep trying to find translations that agree with each other, but when I find modern translations from ancient Greek or Hebrew then don't at all agree with what most modern Churches teach. For example, most churches teach that homosexuality is a sin. But Jesus never said a single thing about it, and the Bible never calls it a sin, but only describes it as "abnormal" or "unnatural". The same words are used in the Bible to describe God as well. Something to think about....

I know this is offtopic,like the few posts above, but as an Advice from a muslim: Never try to please creature by denying Part from the truth. Just Please the creator and You don't need to "apologize" For God.

 

[Chris Pierce]

Very good points Fish Face. There is no reason to reject an idea because of the lack of evidence in favor of it. We should be looking for evidence to NOT believe things. I always enjoy it when a Creationist says that evolution is bunk because there isn't enough scientific evidence to prove it. It just goes to show that they do not understand how actual science works. For the most part science is not trying to explain "why" but "how" Think of the laws of physics, they do not explain why things interact with each other, but HOW they interact. Physicists are trying to right the rules for the game while watching it being played.

I firmly believe that when some one starts looking for proof of an idea that they already believe, it is then that they cease to be productive/functional. But I also believe that it is part of the "human condition" "sin nature" whatever you'd like to call it, that we look for 'facts' that reinforce our world view or belief system. Or we try and fit the facts into our world view. It would be better if we fit our world view around the facts.
Personally I strive to believe things that make sense to me, they have to fit into my world view, or I have to fit my world view around the ideas. Whether it be a scientific theory or hypothesis, or when Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Science or Philosophy, it's got to fit.

When I found Christ I was not looking for him. But he came down and tapped me on the shoulder so to speak, and I was actually pretty pissed off about it but I can't deny it. So now I've begun the life long work of trying to fit him into my world view or fit my world view around him. To make sense of my experience so to speak.
YMMV


Earlier someone (maybe a couple of people) mentioned that Evolutionism vs Creationism is not a fair comparison. And yes, that is correct. Creationists are looking for evidence to support their Biblical views. But evolutionists (if they want to call them themselves Scientists) should be looking to interpret data and make conclusions based upon it. Fitting the facts into your world view vs fitting your world view around the facts.

 

[Chris Pierce]

Also, I wanted to say a big Thank You! to everyone. You all are awesome I am really enjoying the polite discussion that we are having.