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USA: 60% think that "god created earth" is science

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I usually jump head-first in to debates like this, but i missed the start and can't get in to it now. Basically creationalist science builds its case on removing credibility from archaeological/Biological Anthropological evidence. Unfortunately this isn't hard to do in the case of human evololution, as evidence is often lacking, subject to contamination or found in confusing contexts. The creationalist's are now getting quite scientific too, often they omit key evidence from there findings though, but the people they are presenting it too can only absorb a few key facts and take the results as 'gospel'. If anyone wants to read some 'amusing ' creationalist science i recommend anything by Duane Gish.

Scientists tend to build a case using Occam's razor i.e given the evidence, what would be the most logical explanation?. Trust me in that the evidence is very scant, i have worked with a number of biological anthropologists over the last few years and i have seen some very smart scientists have to change theories almost monthly as various pieces of evidence were found/discredited. This is of course the nature of science. Examples of the problems of converting anthropoloical evidence into accepted fact can be seen in the long running debates over the 'out of Africa' theory and 'theories on multi regional evolution'.

Anyways what i am saying- 99% of the people in this forum would believe in human evolution- i do. Most of those that believe in god believe that s/he could have created the world by setting the events in place that made humans evolve etc i.e they are catering for the scientifc aspects of human evolution and applying a religious context to the unknown, i would doubt anyone would have a problem with such opinions. As ever the problems usually occur when 2 groups meet that arent willing to consider the other groups opinion, yet can't absolutely prove to the other group that their theories are correct.




 


<< The creationalist's are now getting quite scientific too, often they omit key evidence from there findings though, but the people they are presenting it too can only absorb a few key facts and take the results as 'gospel'. >>



Wow, that's quite an offensive and derogatory statement to be making while trying to present yourself as objective and rational.
 
Most scientists would probably admit that any presuppostion about &quot;first causes&quot; is not really scientific.

But, to me, the whole debate comes down to philosophy, not science. Each individual will tend to bring one of the following presuppositions into this debate:

Presupposition #1: &quot;Mind&quot; intitated the material process of universal development and eventually produced at least one mindful species (humanity).

Presupposition #2: &quot;Matter&quot;, by the virtually endless combinations of billions of years and almost limitless space, eventually produced mindfulness.


To me, presupposition #1 makes more sense. The classic red herring thrown out there is: &quot;Then where did this 'Original Mind&quot; come from?&quot; But I think that begs the question. If I am within one system that demonstrates no ability to generate itself and is theorized to have a specific beginning, then it seems logical to me to introduce an outside cause which did generate it. Such an outside cause is not scientific, but it is logical. . . .

. . .in fact, some have called it the Logos.

You will find yourself debating two alternatives:

&quot;In the Beginning was the Word/Logos/Mind/Reason&quot; (John 1:1)

&quot;In the Beginning was the Deed&quot; (Faust)

Neither presupposition can be proven scientifically.
 
>>&quot;In the Beginning was the Word&quot;

thats a little out of context though, it's talking about jesus christ...saying that in the beggining he was one with god and blah blah blah...

but yeah, i'm a christian, and hey, no way can i prove that it's true %100...
but you can't prove evolution %100 either...one will have just as many leaps of faith as the other...and it's not just christianity, there's many other religions of the world too...you can't really prove any of them...but i guess, if we could prove something as important as where we came from, wtf would we argue about in our spare time??? heheh
 
My reference to John 1:1 is not out of context. Read verse 3: &quot;Through him (the Word) all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made.&quot;

Jesus of Nazareth doesn't come into the picture until verse 14. &quot;The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.&quot;

A thorough study of both the Jewish and Greek concepts of &quot;the Word&quot; in the first century A.D. would inform a careful student that &quot;the Word&quot; was viewed as the uncreated &quot;Mind&quot; or &quot;Reason&quot; of God through whom the Father/ the One created all things and through whom God reveals himself to mankind. &quot;The Word&quot; is God's communication of Himself in Creation, Providence, and Redemption.

The Gospel of John emphasizes that this Word is personal, not just an abstract principle. The Word, according to historic Christian teaching, was also united in one unbreakable, personal union with the Messiah, the chosen human, Jesus of Nazareth.



But none of that is my main point: Either there is a Logos behind this physical universe or there isn't. But science will never (at least not under current paradigms) answer this question. It is a philosophical, not a scientific, question. Science merely brings data to the table that will be interpreted one way or another depending on the openness of one's mind and the presuppositions one ascribes to.
 
I, Sunner created everything, I have lived for ever, worship me!

The above statement has just as much credit as a similar one with God in my place.

Oh and BTW, I think Czar or whoever it was has an interesting point.

Science has gives us most of what we have, computers, cars, electricity, most medicine, tv/radio etc.

What has religion given us?
Is there something all you religious people out there have that I dont, please let me in on it, I'd gladly considder converting to some religion if I saw the slightest reason to.
 
&quot;The same is true with human. Our ancestors like Homo-Erectus had an advantage over a similar knuckle walker species. An upright primate can better spot predators, reach food that would be otherwise in accessable, run faster, jump higher, etc.. &quot;

We have evolved from knuckle walkers to knuckle heads I see.
 
<<Most of those that believe in god believe that s/he could have created the world by setting the events in place that made humans evolve etc i.e they are catering for the scientifc aspects of human evolution and applying a religious context to the unknown, i would doubt anyone would have a problem with such opinions. >>

Most of those? You obviosly &quot;don't&quot; believe in God, so Speak for yourself...

Those who believe what the Word of God says, believe just that. What it says.

Genesis 1

26 - Then God said, &quot;Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.&quot;
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, &quot;Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.&quot;
29 Then God said, &quot;I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food.&quot; And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.

It doesn't say anything about man evolving, it says he Created man in his own image, not some form of bacteria... to evolve over millions of years. No, 1 day.

God has no limit to what he can do. That's man's worst problem... limiting God.
For me, I believe. That's all that matters to me. Whatever you believe if fine. Just don't try to tell me &quot;What is&quot;.

Evolution is a Man-Made theory, just as what you might say the bible is. Neither one has any proof whatsoever, it's all in what you believe. And before you start quoting biological garbage about proof of evolution... I'm referring to MAN evolving from anything... Sure, bacteria and other stuff can be proven to evolve into something else, but that proves nothing in claiming man evolved in the same manner.

If that's what you &quot;believe&quot;, fine by me. 😉

Also, I don't see the need to reply to any more of czar's idiotic accusations at this point. 😛
 
Whitedog

I agree, there is no point in arguing with a brick like you.

What I just cant understand is how evolutionists have given you facts like, evolving bacteria, evolving flies and lots and lots of other &quot;facts&quot; that make evolution of man 99.99% likely. You stick to your book of science called the bible, written by men, you stick to your god that you read in your bible, created by men. You stick to your theory that has absolutly no base behind it, you have not brought up a single tiny hint that its even slightly possible that god created earth.

I´m absolutely fine with beliving that that the world evolved like scientists say but that god had something to do with it, this does not stop science.
 


<< And before you start quoting biological garbage about proof of evolution... I'm referring to MAN evolving from anything... Sure, bacteria and other stuff can be proven to evolve into something else, but that proves nothing in claiming man evolved in the same manner. >>

DNA is hard evidence that cannot be refuted. You share something like 98 percent of your DNA with some other primates. If humans have nothing in common with them, then why are our genes so similar?

Furthermore, bacterial evolution is a valid analogy for evolution of other species. Bacterial evoultion shows that changes in the allele frequency of a population can occur over time. This holds for all organisms, whether they be bacteria, flies, trees, or humans. DNA is the same no matter what the organism. Natural selection works regardless of the organism. Your arguments demonstrate nothing more than your gross misunderstanding of genetic and biological concepts.
 
&quot;I'm sorry, Naughty, but that is NOT evolution. There was no evolving in that. They pre-existed. I'm not saying that they could have evolved into a diverse range of bacteria first, but that is not proof. &quot;

Ahh, but that IS proof. Ask any normal biology teacher and they will tell you that each person can easily contain 20-30 random genetic mutations. You are correct in presuming that only those who were resistant lived. But how did they become resistant? genetic mutation. and isnt that part of evolution? yes it is.

Futher more, if we suppose that we all came from Adam and Eve, then why are we all so different? why is a chinese person different from a black person after they (according to the bible) came from the same ancestor? Could it be that people EVOLVED to become different? yet another fact to suport evolution.

If you choose to be an ignorant prick like Whitedog, that is your choice, just dont try to tell me you are right.

Whitedog, you wanna asnwer my question above? if we all came form two people, and we did not evolve, then why are we so different? (ie, black people, asian people, white people, inuit people and so on). Are you gonna try and tell us black people and asian people dont exist? That they are something 'evolutioninsts' created to debunk creation?
 
One more question for creationists. Many other religions with their own versions of creation were established before christianity. Therefore, what makes you think that they christian version of creation is correct and the others are garbage? after all, it is stated in the bible that there is only one god.
 
IMO, genetic similarity is not &quot;ironclad proof&quot; that man evolved from a lower species. If God made men, and God made monkeys, why wouldn't he make them out of the same stuff?
 


<< You stick to your book of science called the bible, written by men, you stick to your god that you read in your bible, created by men >>



I stick to the Bible because I believe that the words inside of it were written by God through men. I think that this statement also answers Pyro's question.

Just because you don't agree with the views of others here doesn't mean that any of you need to resort to calling others ignorant, bricks, etc. That goes both ways. There is no reason for anyone to feel threatened by the other side's viewpoints and lash out.
 
Preyhunter

I´m only questioning theories, when other people cant handle that and start to attack me personaly then I attack back. I have never stated that someone on this board is stupid or something else unless he has attacked me by calling me stupid or something else. No need to judge me personaly for this.
 
Pyro and interested others:

There are lots of reasons for giving the biblical creation account more than a passing glance. Here are two:

Reason #1) Other ancient Near Eastern Creation accounts, if boiled down to scientific terminology, teach the eternality of matter. The gods are by-products of some type of primeval chaos. In the Hebrew account of Genesis, the universe is taught to be finite in age. Furthermore, the universe itself, in the biblical accounts, is taught to be running down and &quot;wearing out as a garment.&quot; Though the Bible is not a scientific textbook, these &quot;mythic&quot; statements are in line with current scientific theory. Other creation accounts contradict science in these areas.

Even Sir Fred Hoyle, an atheist, recognized that this departure of the Hebrews from the standard (and false) cosmology of the Ancient Near East was remarkable. He says:

<< . . . the general concept of gods of gods located fairly and squarely within the Universe was common in ancient times throughout the Near East. The Hebrew departure from this position was evidently very great. >>



George Smoot of Lawrence Berkely Laboratories says,

<< There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the Big Bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing. >>

Smoot also says:

<< Until the late 1910's, humans were as ignorant of cosmic origins as they had ever been. Those who didn't take Genesis literally had no reason to believe that there had been a beginning >>



Reason #2) The Bible and geology both describe Earth first as formless and empty, then as covered by a primitive universal ocean. This in turn was followed by the appearance of dry land.

Both agree that darkness covered the Earth in its earliest history. Science requires this darkness because of the virtually universal scientific acceptance of early opaque debris clouds in theories of planet formation.

Both agree that animal life first inhabited the sea.

Both agree that plant life preceded land animals.

Both agree that birds preceded mammals.

Although this point is more debated, it appears that both agree that new life forms appeared abruptly, with no transitional forms.

Both testify that mammals, and finally humans, were the last to appear.


The major point of dispute involves the use of the word &quot;day.&quot; But Philo, Josephus, Irenaeus, Origen, Basil, Jerome, Augustine, and many other ancient Jewish and Christian thinkers viewed the the &quot;days&quot; in genesis as non-literal, even though they had no &quot;scientific pressure&quot; to contend with.

My point is this: how did the Genesis account rise so far above the traditions of its day? How did it, in poetic form, have so much correspondence with modern science? Where did an account written at least 2600 years ago get such insight?

Curiosity alone ought to demand respect for the Genesis account. No other ancient creation account even comes close.
 


<< Science is based on observation and we can't observe the past >>


What are you talking about? We are at this very moment prepairing a satelite that will mesure slight differences in the background radiation, which will tell us a great deal about what happened right after the big bang.
In fact, we have already sent up a baloon which has explaned a great deal already. The satelite will just make a much more acurate map.

And what happenes if something 'adapts' so much, we can no longer tell what it was before? Would you still call that adaptation?
 
Czar,

I'm not singling you out, that is why I said &quot;both ways.&quot; There is no reason, no matter what side of the discussion you are on, to lash out due to frustration or anything else. I understand how easily people can get fired up due to the subject topic. I have tried to not let this happen to me as well and hope that I have come across as being courteous and stating my views as I see them. Please, don't take my comment as a judgment against you personally, that is not how it was meant to be taken.

Athanasius, good points.
 
OK, you guys have been saying that our God is man made, as well as the Bible. THEN WTF IS EVOLUTION MADE FROM?! DO WE HAVE ANY PROOF? WELL? DO WE? NO!!!! WE DON'T!!! Oh, and Werk...I have an idea....why don't you pull your head out of your @$$(SHHHHHK-POP!), shut your flapping mouth, and I will give you the finger. (o0oo) There, childish enough for you? Show me rock solid proof that we evolved, show me REAL evidence that I came from a lice-picking, butt-scratching, toe-sucking monkey, and I will tell you...well, let me see your evidence first. You say there is no evidence for God? Well, for someone such as you, there is probably none. So, I will not try and push it into you. But I want to see evidence for &quot;evolution&quot;.
 
Preyhunter, yes I definitely could have worded that better. There are a lot of very intelligent creatonalists out there. However having a debate with fundamentalists of any kind can be difficult (including scientists that refuse to believe that their theory can be wrong). Have you ever had religious people come knocking at your door, perhaps trying to sell you some literature? Sometimes if you debate with them they will start quoting phrases at you verbatim from the bible. When you debate the validity of their claims, they simple quote them louder of take off. Speaking at creationalist churches can be like this. I have had people tell me that evolutionary theory is a crock and that they have seen video proof. When I asked what it was, it was a documentary that the Piltdown man was a fake.


Engine
Scientists don?t just base evolutionary theories on ?how similar; we are to other species. What is more important is tracing a linear progression. We share an extraordinary similarity to chimpanzees, but there is no way we could have evolved from them. Using fossils we have evidence that would appear to show an evolution of traits of time, DNA testing such as looking as looking at mitochondrial data look at actual DNA data rather than just similarities.

Sorry I can?t put down better explanations, I am at work L
 
&quot;...fwiw people in countries other than the US believe in creationism....lots of people are religious everywhere I'd venture to say.&quot;&quot;

Ah Soybomb ActualIy, no

've yet to meet a European or Australian christian who didn't beleive in evolution. I would say that 99.9% (or something like that) of self aknowledged christians outside of the US believe that creationism is nonsense.

Actually the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne wouldnt let an American priest that moved to Australia get a job because he believe in that &quot;creationism nonsense&quot;

Even the pope &amp; the Catholic church says that evolution could very well have been gods way of creating &amp; that the 6 days story is just the bibles way of simplifying evolution in days gone past so that the uneducated masses of antiquity could understand. Mind you they say that in a vague unofficial way, so they don't upset all those American Catholics who do take creationism seriously.

Sure there are many American christians who do believe in evolution, but it does seem that christians who beleive in creationism are definitly not uncommon in the US, whereas in Europe &amp; Australia, etc, they are a extreme rarity.

I think the reason why creationism has got such a toehold in the US (yet is dismissed by virtually all christians in other countries) is because of the influence of the Southern Baptists &amp; other such sects, as they just don't exist outside the US (well there may be a couple in Queensland).
 
Czar:
>>I have never stated that someone on this board is stupid or something else unless he has attacked me by calling me stupid >>or something else

I don't think that's true, actually. I suppose you could call your first post &quot;questioning a theory&quot;, that's true. However, as someone already pointed out you couldn't resist putting a jab in there at the US, as well.
 
Engine: DNA similarities and differences between different species do support the theory of evolution. They agree with the fossils and other paleological evidence that we have. You can say that anything could be the work of a god, because you can offer no evidence to either support or deny it.

Lord Maul: Your childish insults may be appropriate on the #warez channel in IRC, but here they are unwelcome. When you learn to discuss things like a rational adult, I will take the time to converse with you. Until then, I'm just going to ignore you. And by the way, you share the vast majority of your DNA, your physiology, and your biochemical processes with other primates. Deal with it.
 
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