Evolution or Creation?

[Taalcon]

I don't think Genesis has anything to do with science, especially not the creation accounts. If you take it literally, then you believe the earth literally looks like this, as they did.

The Genesis creation accounts appear to be a temple liturgy, and have quite a bit more to do with man's relationship to God than how technically we got here. The creation account can be seen as a blueprint to the Mosaic Tabernacle, which in itself was an edifice symbolically designed to teach the relationship between God and Man.

An understanding of Ancient Near Eastern culture and mythology is essential to understanding the symbols of the texts. I did a series of blog entries discussing this relationship in each day of creation in the genesis account, for those who have a serious interest.

Day One: The Waters, The Warrior, and the Wind
Day Two: The Division and Divine Agent
Day Three: The Pillars of Creation
Day Four: The Luminaries
Day Five: Inhabitants of the Heights and Depths
Day Six, part 1: Beasts, Bulls, Snakes & Sheep
Day Six, part 2: The King-Priest

[Boothby]

Satya, Crazy Tom,

You two are illustrating (very well, I might add) one of the key unspoken problems with fundamentalist religion--namely, that extreme religions basically need to train their adherents that Pure Nonsense = The Truth. In order to do this, these religions need to enter into the minds of their followers and shatter all viable logic circuits, out of the fear that even the tiniest vestige of rationality might disrupt the delicate imbalance required to maintain belief in the face of massive contradictory evidence.

People who follow reformed religions typically have no such disruptions, since they are able to recognize the importance of the "middle path." Atheists and agnostics, for the most part, are also able to accept this grey area, and are therefore able to hold meaningful, rational discussions about it.

[jotabe]

What do you mean by "reformed religions"? Because fundies are particularly reformed, while the "unreformed" Catholic Church is a lot more acceptant of scientific truths than most protestant denominations (probably because of the guilt caused by the inquisition works against science).

[Eaquae Legit]

What do you mean by "reformed religions"? Because fundies are particularly reformed, while the "unreformed" Catholic Church is a lot more acceptant of scientific truths than most protestant denominations (probably because of the guilt caused by the inquisition works against science).

It's not so much the guilt, I think, as a return to our roots. The (to me) bizarre campaign against heliocentrism is a blot in a scholastic history otherwise obsessed with reason, logic, and investigation. They may not have gone about it the way we do, which is a far more effective way, but if you dropped some Darwin into the laps of Aquinas and Albert the Great, man, they would have been all over it.

[jotabe]

It could be, because Christianism after a while became imbibed of Platonism and Aristotelism, and much of their philosophy eventually rised to almost canon theology.

[Boothby]

I was thinking of reformed Judaism, a milder form of Judaism.

[jotabe]

Ah, you mean something like the Illustration.

Yeah, all religions need their time when reason, when humans, takes a prominent place in the theology.

[Locke_]

Must the presumption be that if one believes in Evolution then it is renounced that God designed the world as it evolves/evolved? Must evolution reject God along with Creation?

[jotabe]

You don't "believe" in evolution. Evolution is, to the best of our knowledge, what happened. It's our best description of what happened according to all we know.

If you want to believe in something (God) guiding evolution, you are free to do so, that's just outside of the realm of science. Some will tell you it's an unnecessary hypothesis, others will find it comforting and/or necessary. Personally, I don't believe God guided evolution... it's really unnecessary to assume that. Humans, or better, self-aware beings, are an eventuality in evolution, and maybe, taking the universe as a whole, an almost certain eventuality. A creator God would naturally notice these new intelligent creatures and probably get attached to them, to like them. And try to help them improve, get better.

So you see, there are many ways a person can believe in God, and not stubbornly reject the reality of Evolution.

[Locke_]

Semantics. Forgive me.

"An almost certain eventuality": how close do you place that to inevitability? It seems like hindsight bias to say that humans, or intelligent life (self-aware beings) would spring up from the line of evolution. Especially when, scientifically, there is no way to determine so. Evolution explains much more about beings' physical adaptation to an environment than about the inner workings of the beings' minds.

[jotabe]

Well, it depends on environment, true, but think what intelligence is. Intelligence is a survival mechanism whose basis is extreme adaptability. Warm, wet, lushful environments move evolution towards specialization, while harsh and dry environments move species towards adaptability.

I wouldn't say inevitable, because the biggest incognita is the probability of a planet springing life. But the universe is a pretty big place, stars tend to cool down during their middle ages providing less heat, freezing otherwise warm planets, planets inner heat tends to slow down, stopping the carbon cycle, also making them less able to keep heat in the atmosphere... Intelligence can be the ultimate evolutive strategy for survival on such a cold an dry planet (like ours).

Btw, the working of our minds is all about evolution. Most of our traits are deeply ingrained during our evolution, even illnesses like depression and mania are just survival mechanisms that become pathological.

[Crazy Tom: C Toon]

Believing in Evolution IS renouncng the doctrine of God's Creation, or ven his influence. The Bible clearly describes a Creationist view, not an Evolutionary one. Nowhere in the Bible is anything about "God created a little ameboid, which subsequently evolved into all life today." It says he created MAN with no pre-stages.

I still have yet to hear a more plausible explanation for the actual origin of life besides "a little amoeba was created when a pond was struck with lightning." which, as I stated before, is basically impossible (that statistic of the chance of single amino acid, of which thousands and millions are needed for a single amoeba, has a 1:10^61 chance of forming randomly)

How did it start? Carl Sagan, I believe, said something about aliens planting humans here, but what do you think started it all? think the chance of Creation/intelligent design is FAR greater than the chance of evolution. (See movie Expelled with Ben Stein)

[Sonikku13]

Throwing in more fuel in the fire, in science, theory is NOT opinion. In science, a theory is a FACT until proven wrong. A theory, however, will always remain a theory, and a law will always remain a law. And theories can be proven wrong, but if there is no proof that the assumption is wrong, it is assumed to be a fact.

[Crazy Tom: C Toon]

kk. I still want my question answered.

[jotabe]

You got your questions answered several times in the thread. If they didn't convince you, i am willing to bet that not even God coming from the Heavens would. You'd think Him a work of the Devil to sway your resolute faith.

[Locke_]

Believing in Evolution IS renouncng the doctrine of God's Creation, or ven his influence. The Bible clearly describes a Creationist view, not an Evolutionary one.

The Bible describes a Creationist view... I believe on that point we would all agree lol.

But this is my point. Perhaps by your standards I'm renouncing a piece of doctrine. But by the standards of other believers you also deny pieces of doctrine. Is it not enough that we admit to be followers of the same God? Renouncing a piece of doctrine is not enough evidence to be swayed awat or toward an idea, for all Christians are then guilty of renouncing some doctrine or another. Endear your doctrine as I endear mine; don't let it be a divider among your fellow believers.

Nowhere in the Bible is anything about "God created a little ameboid, which subsequently evolved into all life today." It says he created MAN with no pre-stages.

And why would it? When Genesis was written/inspired/designed/what-have-you, the writer(s) and readers would be unable to fathom the details behind creation, would be overwhelmed, would not be able to understand. And even if at that time they could somehow see words, what images would they be able to put with them? Genesis is written in a language that people thousands of years ago could understand, and the beauty of it is it can still impact us.

I still have yet to hear a more plausible explanation for the actual origin of life besides "a little amoeba was created when a pond was struck with lightning." which, as I stated before, is basically impossible (that statistic of the chance of single amino acid, of which thousands and millions are needed for a single amoeba, has a 1:10^61 chance of forming randomly)

Plausible explanations... basic impossibilities... slimmest chances... and yet you claim to have faith in an all-powerful God.

How did it start? Carl Sagan, I believe, said something about aliens planting humans here, but what do you think started it all? think the chance of Creation/intelligent design is FAR greater than the chance of evolution. (See movie Expelled with Ben Stein)

As Jota said, you're receiving answers. But they don't seem to be to your liking and you refute them. But out opinions as well as our answers remain the same. The chance of evolution? Even if, as you suppose, Creation began in such a fashion that things are older than when they were created, then evolution still exists/existed, it was simply a process that was--so to speak--fast-forwarded.

[Satya]

We all think we're so smart.

[Locke_]

My brains clearly describe a smart view

[jotabe]

We all think we're so smart.

That's yet another good thing about science: you don't need to be smart to understand it. You only need to be smart enough to understand how it works.
Plank was super smart for coming up with discrete solutions for the black-body radiation. But after he found the solution, anyone could understand where he was coming from.

On the other hand, in non-scientific disciplines like philosophy and theology, you really need to be smart not to get lost in the very obscure and deeply argumentative discussions that lead nowhere.
Of course, if they were really smart, they would realize the futility of those dialectic exercises, and reserve them just to amuse themselves and have good, honest fun.

[Satya]

"...in the role of one who strives to raise his mind to the contemplation of God and one who seeks to understand what he believes."

“For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this I believe - that unless I believe, I should not understand.”

St. Anselm Of Canterbury

You need to be smart regardless of what you believe regardless of how easy other people may try to make it for you to understand. In fact, the easier someone explains it to you the smarter you'd better be to truly grasp it - because you can't just take at face value someone else's assertions. Even in a majority case, where lots of really smart people all say the same thing, you have to have discernment - which is intelligence tempered by wisdom. How many fossil fakes and false transitional forms remained in textbooks for years even after their fraud became known? Too many. Piltdown man, anyone?

[jotabe]

I don't remember any pious man being who exposed those frauds. Textbook inaccuracies? well, there is plenty, for sure. Many figures remain in textbook iconography because, despite they represent a false case, they are visually a correct aid. Why do we keep seeing Rutherford's (or in best case Bohr's) atomic model drawings when representing atom structure in basic textbooks?

In any case, please, give examples of these preserved textbook frauds.

Btw, "too many" is correct, because one fraud is too many already. It's a good thing that science looks for errors and corrections in previous discoveries, that looks for mistake in taken for granted knowledge. Which religion analyzes its assumptions critically? Which ideological system looks for error in their core beliefs?
There is one Piltdown man. That was a malicious fraud. There are some others creationists like to mention, which were mistaken identification. But there are hundred of human and pre-human fossiles that do not belong to homo sapiens. If you want to call them frauds, show why.

[Satya]

Haeckel FTW

[jotabe]

As i said you don't need to be smart to be a scientist. Because of my lack of smartness, i didn't get the Hegel reference, so please, ellaborate. Because as far as i know, i didn't say anything referencing to the historical dialectics (which is about the only thing i know of him).

[Satya]

Sorry, I did it wrong. I was referring to Ernst Haeckel, not Hegel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haec ... l_drawings

[Boothby]

Quote:

I still have yet to hear a more plausible explanation for the actual origin of life besides "a little amoeba was created when a pond was struck with lightning." which, as I stated before, is basically impossible (that statistic of the chance of single amino acid, of which thousands and millions are needed for a single amoeba, has a 1:10^61 chance of forming randomly)

Plausible explanations... basic impossibilities... slimmest chances... and yet you claim to have faith in an all-powerful God.

The other thing I love is when fundamentalists talk about "eternity" as if they know what it means, and yet cannot comprehend the development of stars over billions of years, or the evolution of human life over 4-1/2 billion years. They look at the 200 years or so since Darwin, and expect the full range of evolution to have taken place over that very time period as "proof," or they reject it.

[jotabe]

Yeah, Haeckel was a Fraud, debunked by scientists. His drawings are inaccurate, specially when it comes to the time axis and his conclusions about them are specious. Most fundamentally, his idea that during the embryo development, the embryo mimmicks all the stages his species went through their evolution was completely wrong.

Actually, i am surprised that there are textbooks that use a 150 year old drawing to picture embryo development. In my biology textbooks we used actual embryo pictures, i only remember that drawing from an old encyclopedia which was actually debunking that theory.

Nevertheless, the drawings, while innaccurate, they are not so inaccurate that they cannot be used EXCLUSIVELY to show what the embryos of different species look like. Definitely, it's not more inaccurate than showing electrons as little green balls, protons red balls and neutrons black balls. Sometimes it looks like playing snooker, lol.
But seriously, i have no idea why would anyone want to use these drawings instead of, you know, actual pictures.

[Crazy Tom: C Toon]

The other thing I love is when fundamentalists talk about "eternity" as if they know what it means, and yet cannot comprehend the development of stars over billions of years, or the evolution of human life over 4-1/2 billion years. They look at the 200 years or so since Darwin, and expect the full range of evolution to have taken place over that very time period as "proof," or they reject it.

"Eternity" is not a measurement of time. "Eternity" refers to the "time before time" i.e. outside of time.

Also, nobody has really offered alternatives to how everything began except for "well, electricity and biochemistry improved those chances." which, as I said before, is misleading because all factros were included in that statistic except for intelligence. So. aliens? or some Nth gazillion pure chance of a lightning strike happening several thousand times in a row? or God?

[Wil]

How do you know God created life? All you have is a book. No proof. Only faith. Faith in what? That someone didn't just make up a nice story 3000 years ago? Faith that this person actually spoke to God or a God or one of the Gods? Faith that God exists? Faith is worth s*** in this argument, and it always has been.

We've continually given you scientific theories and information, slowly chipping away at what information you've read on the creationist websites that you've thrown back here, and you've given us the same spiel over and over. You say: How do we know scientists aren't just making this stuff up. I ask you: How do we know people aren't just making the Bible up? In our eyes, your argument is just as stupid as our arguments are in yours. No matter what we say, you'll continue to regurgitate the same s***. No matter what you say, we'll continue to give you the same information we've given you. Continuing to argue about this is pointless.

You aren't going to convince anyone new that God created life primarily, and we obviously aren't going to convince you that science and evolution played at least a small part in it either. I can pretty much guarantee you everyone who has read and taken part in this argument has already made up their minds one way or the other.

Lets stop beating it and bury the damn horse, it's starting to smell.

[Sonikku13]

I'm gonna go add some quotes if anyone wants to use them.

"Where there is evidence, no one speaks of 'faith'. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence." - Bertrand Russell.

"I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him." - Gandhi

"It is beyond my power to induce in you a belief in God. There are certain things which are self proved and certain which are not proved at all. The existence of God is like a geometrical axiom. It may be beyond our heart grasp. I shall not talk of an intellectual grasp. Intellectual attempts are more or less failures, as a rational explanation cannot give you the faith in a living God. For it is a thing beyond the grasp of reason. It transcends reason. There are numerous phenomena from which you can reason out the existence of God, but I shall not insult your intelligence by offering you a rational explanation of that type. I would have you brush aside all rational explanations and begin with a simple childlike faith in God. If I exist, God exists. With me it is a necessity of my being as it is with millions. They may not be able to talk about it, but from their life you can see that it is a part of their life. I am only asking you to restore the belief that has been undermined. In order to do so, you have to unlearn a lot of literature that dazzles your intelligenqe and throws you off your feet. Start with the faith which is also a token of humility and an admission that we know nothing, that we are less than atoms in this universe. We are less than atoms, I say, because the atom obeys the law of its being, whereas we in the insolence of our ignorance deny the law of nature. But I have no argument to address to those who have no faith." - Gandhi

"Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different road, so long as we reach the same goal. Wherein is the cause for quarrelling?" - Gandhi

"I feel most deeply that this whole question of Creation is too profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton! Let each man hope and believe what he can." - Charles Darwin

"I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously." - Erwin Schrodinger

[Rodaka]

Now, I notice many a person believes in Creationism and Evolutionism.

Let me show you examples that are comparative to such an idea.

Not only does gravity hold us down, but so do goblins, with giant strings!

Not only does every action create an equal and opposite reaction, but there's a unicorn that creates the opposite reaction as well!

Though, enough of that mockery, evolution has been mostly proved anyways.

Not so long ago they found the last of the "missing links". As soon as homo sapiens came to be, the rest disappeared. Why? Cause homo sapiens killed all the other species.

Explain anything about humanity? The crusades anyone?

[Eaquae Legit]

Also, nobody has really offered alternatives to how everything began except for "well, electricity and biochemistry improved those chances." which, as I said before, is misleading because all factros were included in that statistic except for intelligence. So. aliens? or some Nth gazillion pure chance of a lightning strike happening several thousand times in a row? or God?

I believe that several of us have suggested that God and evolution could go together, with evolution being the means God used to create human beings. Evolution =/= ZOMG Godless propaganda! Or at least, it doesn't have to.

[Mich]

I still have yet to hear a more plausible explanation for the actual origin of life besides "a little amoeba was created when a pond was struck with lightning." which, as I stated before, is basically impossible (that statistic of the chance of single amino acid, of which thousands and millions are needed for a single amoeba, has a 1:10^61 chance of forming randomly)

This is something that has been bugging me, and excuse me if someone has pointed this out, but I don't recall them having done so:

Numbers. Delicious, delicious numbers. You (CT) have continually stated that the chances of amino acids arising from an atmosphere consisting of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon and some electricity to be 1:10^61, a "nearly impossible" probability. "More than every particle in the universe," I believe was the wording used. This is an interesting point to bring up.

How big is the universe, also known as God's creation? Infinite, supposedly, or at least nearly so? And how long has the universe been in the approximate state it currently is in, also known as since the Big Bang? Approximately 13 billion years, supposedly. Now, chop off a few millions years for life to form and evolve to its current state, that leaves you a little less for that probability to occur. In an infinite universe with billions of stars and trillions of planets with lots of tasty atmospheres for these elements to molder in, several of the atmospheres with electricity.

The probability of it happening is really difficult for you to comprehend, let alone me (le gasp). No one has a real right to say if something is probable or not, once it's calculated out (Hitchhiker's Guide notwithstanding).

To sum up, telling an atheist (or Intelligent Design-ist, or, um, Mich-ist) that something is extremely improbable while you insist on believing in something so improbable there aren't even numbers for it is about as effective as waving a spoon at them and calling it a good argument.

[Boothby]

"Eternity" is not a measurement of time. "Eternity" refers to the "time before time" i.e. outside of time.

Also, nobody has really offered alternatives to how everything began except for "well, electricity and biochemistry improved those chances." which, as I said before, is misleading because all factros were included in that statistic except for intelligence. So. aliens? or some Nth gazillion pure chance of a lightning strike happening several thousand times in a row? or God?

Oh, yes..of course! The "time before time"!! No, wait, I don't really understand. Oh! Now I get it! "Outside of time"!


Do you even know what you are talking about? Or do you just throw words together, like you're the "Sphynx"?

Let's face it, we really don't have to offer much in the way of "alternates" if all you're going to say is "the time before time!"

[Satya]

Wasn't the pre-Bang "time" before "time?" Wouldn't the pre-Bang... whatever it was have existed outside of our conceptualization of time?

[jotabe]

Our perception of time is so deeply hardwired into our brains that it's difficult for us to grasp what this really means, but there is no "before" big-bang, because time starts existing in the big-bang, same as space. We need to be deeply aware how time and space are actually the same thing. They just scale differently, and they are perceived differently by ourselves but mathematically they are the same thing.

We are heavily out of our intuitive notions, so we need to forfeit them and rely only on mathematics to understand what we are talking about.

There is a discontinuity, a singularity, at the precise time of the big bang. The causality gets completely severed at that point. It doesn't matter if there was, imagine, a universe that collapsed into a geometrical point, or if there is a kind of super-time dimension exterior to our own universe. The rules of our universe are such that causality works in the past->future direction of the time arrow, and that assymetry breaks at the big bang. There is no causality for it.

The most intuitive comparison is the north pole. You are in any place of the planet, and move north. Once you reach the pole, that's the northernmost place you can reach. There is no "more to the north than the north pole". And even despite our solar system and our galaxy have "north poles", they have no bearing for the north-south assymetry on the surface of our planet.

I think i am explaining very badly, but i hope i could convey the meaning, somehow.