In the practical world, the point is, the scientific community at least has something to back up their theories.
If it simply comes down to faith in evolution versus faith in God, I guess we can call it a tie. There's no turning those who believe in one or the other.
But then there's the other playfield, that of science. In there, the evolutionists might not have full certainty, but at least they have something. Similarities in DNAs. Proof of adaption. Fossils. And other things.
And God, on that field? He has nothing.
---
The believers are demanding more scrutiny from the scientific community what comes to their theories of evolution, yet at the same time they have no interest in placing their own faith in God to go through the same hoops. No, they want science to make its stand on the field of science while they place God in the faith sector, and expect them to be comparable. It just doesn't work that way.
And if you think it does, all I'm asking is that isn't there a statue somewhere you should be sitting on?
Because it is impossible to argue against faith, it has also been impossible to cure the world of the virus that is known as religion - or 'the opium of the people' as Marx described it. Even the might of the USSR couldn't stamp out the Russian Orthodox Church.
Where does this faith spring from? If I began to hear voices I would suspect schizophrenia, rather than the presence of God. Whereas science works hard to bring forward proof, those with religious faith feel compelled to offer none. If the Bible is put forward as evidence, then it is a very unreliable source. Thoughout the centuries it has been edited and re-edited by those who controlled it. Portions of it were removed because they didn't fit in (the apocryphal texts). It's a very shaky premise upon which to build a world view.
My argument has always been that an omnipotent God could not make mistakes. Why would he create so much variety of life, and allow them to become extinct. If man was his highest creation, why would he make so many similar creatures that no longer exist?
The simple answer is that there is no god except in the minds of men. Man created the gods to explain the mysteries that he experienced. Now those mysteries are being explained, God is an obsolescent construct, useful only for the purposes of fiction.
Last edited by Montana Smith : 11-23-2009 at 01:00 PM.
Did God create the Universe in seven days as the Bible tells us?
That's the big problem with the Bible. Which bits do you take as literal and which bits do you have to gloss over? If you say that one day = a billion years or so, then what other parts of the Bible do you have to re-write in order that they remain relevant.
There is a religion or an off-shoot of a religion for every interpretation. The Church of England only exists because Henry VIII didn't like the Catholic interpretation of divorce and remarriage.
If you say that the relevant parts of the Bible are those that deal with morality and forgiveness, then that didn't seem to apply to the Popes who rode at the head of vanquishing armies, or the Crusaders who went looting in the Middle East.
That's the big problem with the Bible. Which bits do you take as literal and which bits do you have to gloss over?
Worth considering:
Genesis 1:25-27(Humans were created after the other animals.)
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image.... So God created man in his own image.
Genesis 2:18-19(Humans were created before the other animals.)
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
Which is it?
Last edited by Rocket Surgeon : 11-23-2009 at 01:08 PM.
It's all of them equally perfect, especially when you translate it from the Hebrew. For example the word for problem in Chinese translates to the word opportunity in English. Don't get hung up on the connotations a word carries today. Bible also says a day to the Lord is like a thousand years. Tilt shift of the poles 'AFTER' genesis 'splains this easily.
Thanks...advantage faith!
Ah, the Science of the Bible! Post 103 still perplexes me...
On June 25, the Arizona Senate’s Retirement and Rural Development Committee discussed the prospects for uranium mining in the state. During the hearing, State Senator Sylvia Allen (R), the vice chairman of the committee, argued in favor of mining by saying that the earth “has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with.” “We need to get the uranium here in Arizona, so this state can get the money from it,” argued Allen.
State Senator Sylvia Allen (R), the vice chairman of the committee, argued in favor of mining by saying that the earth “has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with.” “We need to get the uranium here in Arizona, so this state can get the money from it,” argued Allen.
or appx. 13000 years of 'recorded' history. Genesis account of creation = 7 thousand. Written History = another 6.
No one talks about that number. It's either 6 thousand or 600 million+.
Cave paintings date back to over 30,000 year - these were the first human recordings of the life around them.
Just taking the case of one species, modern humans (Homo Sapien), there is overwhelming evidence from all over the world that we evolved. The very last part of that evolution was when we diverged from the Homo Heidelbergensis species around 200,000 years ago. (Homo Neanderthalensis diverged from Heidelbergensis around 300,000 years ago).
The following is from notes I made whilst researching the history of the occupants of Britain:
Lower Palaeolithic
Sites such as Boxgrove in Sussex illustrate the later arrival in the archaeological record of an archaic Homo species called Homo heidelbergensis around 500,000 years ago.
The extreme cold of the following Anglian glaciation is likely to have driven humans out of Britain altogether and the region does not appear to have been occupied again until the ice receded during the Hoxnian interglacial. This warmer time period lasted from around 300,000 until 200,000 years ago and saw the Clactonian flint tool industry develop at sites such as Barnfield Pit in Kent. The period had produced a rich and widespread distribution of sites by Palaeolithic standards.
This period saw also Levallois flint tools introduced, possibly by humans arriving from Africa. Finds from Swanscombe and Botany Pit in Purfleet support Levallois technology being a European rather than African introduction, however. The more advanced flint technology permitted more efficient hunting and therefore made Britain a more worthwhile place to remain until the following period of cooling (Wolstonian glacial, 200,000-130,000 years ago).
Middle Palaeolithic
c.180,000 - 40,000 years ago
From 180,000 to 60,000 years ago there is no evidence of human occupation in Britain. During the Ipswichian interglacial period, between around 130,000 and 110,000 years ago, meltwaters from the previous glaciation cut Britain off from the continent for the first time. Overall, there appears to have been a gradual decline in population between the Hoxnian interglacial and this time suggesting that the absence of humans in the archaeological record here was the result of gradual depopulation.
From 60,000 to 40,000 years ago Britain was grass land with giant deer and horse, with woolly mammoths, rhino and carnivores. Neanderthal man had arrived in Britain by around 40,000 years ago.
Upper Palaeolithic
c.40,000 - 10,000 years ago
Evidence of Neanderthal occupation of Britain is limited and by 30,000 BC the first signs of modern human (Homo sapiens) activity, the Aurignacian industry, are known. The most famous example from this period is the burial of the "Red Lady of Paviland" (actually now known to be a man) in modern day coastal south Wales.
A final ice age covered Britain between around 70,000 and 10,000 years ago with an extreme cold snap between 22,000 and 13,000 years ago called the Dimlington stadial (with the Last Glacial Maximum at around 20,000 years ago). This may well have driven humans south and out of Britain altogether, pushing them back across the land bridge that had resurfaced at the beginning of the glaciation, possibly to a refuge in Southern France and Iberia.
Sites such as Gough's Cave in Somerset dated at 12,000 BC provide evidence suggesting that humans returned to Britain towards the end of this ice age, in a warm period known as the Dimlington interstadial although further extremes of cold right before the final thaw may have caused them to leave again and then return repeatedly. The environment during this ice age period would have been a largely treeless tundra, eventually replaced by a gradually warmer climate, perhaps reaching 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 Fahrenheit) in summer which encouraged the expansion of birch trees as well as shrub and grasses.
The modern British people are essentially new arrivals, products only of the last influx 12,000 years ago.
___________
This is just the tip of the iceberg of human evolution and development.
Fossil evidence displays the evolution of sea creatures into land creatures, dinosaurs into birds, primitive primates into primitive humans.
By comparison the Bible is such a simple record of human history centred around the Middle East. It is limited by the scope of human knowledge of the time. To cover the areas beyond the scope of human knowledge it creates fantastic elements.
If God existed and imparted the facts to man the elements need not have been fantasy. A human several thousand years ago would know the difference between a day and a year, a year and a hundred years, a hundred years and a thousand years. So why would a God have to simplify creation down to days? The dinosaurs alone occupied millions of years, and before them was a long history of evolution.
But then, the Bible itself is a product of evolution. Its ideas undoubtedly evolved from earlier religions - most specifically from ancient Egypt, a culture which has left us so many written and pictoral records.
In more recent history, Christianity evolved into Islam (after Mohammed visited Egypt in the 7th Century and learnt from the Coptic Christians).
Evolution of species and of ideas is a fascinating subject for discussion.
Last edited by Montana Smith : 11-24-2009 at 12:52 AM.
For your further consideration, there is a rather lovely and intriguing article on evolution over at the New York Times. Slip over here to read up on snails and snakes.
Quote:
To support his revolutionary theory that all species arose naturally from ancestors, Darwin was eager to find evidence of how land snails, which he knew were easily killed by salt, contrived to reach and populate oceanic islands. At home, he was conducting all sorts of experiments with submerging snails and their eggs in seawater for weeks at a time. After some Roman snails survived his long “baths,” he suggested in “On the Origin of Species” that they might be transported to islands by adhering to the feet of birds or to driftwood.
On a related note, today is the 150th anniversary of "On the Origin of Species".
or appx. 13000 years of 'recorded' history. Genesis account of creation = 7 thousand. Written History = another 6. No one talks about that number. It's either 6 thousand or 600 million+.
The voice of reason and still No one talks about it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Saboteur
After some Roman snails survived his long “baths,” he suggested in “On the Origin of Species” that they might be transported to islands by adhering to the feet of birds or to driftwood.
On June 25, the Arizona Senate’s Retirement and Rural Development Committee discussed the prospects for uranium mining in the state. During the hearing, State Senator Sylvia Allen (R), the vice chairman of the committee, argued in favor of mining by saying that the earth “has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with.” “We need to get the uranium here in Arizona, so this state can get the money from it,” argued Allen.
Years ago, a Jehovah's Witness came to the door and the subject of evolution was brought up. Even as a teen, I ran circles around him. Flummuxed, to say the least.
Absolutely nothing in the bible is meant to be taken literally.
'Cept maybe that one about 'Thou shalt not murder....' (unless we're talking about some Raven Members)....that one certainly seems universal in most cultures.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Montana Smith
Cave paintings date back to over 30,000 year - these were the first human recordings of the life around them. {edited for length}
___________
If God existed and imparted the facts to man the elements need not have been fantasy. A human several thousand years ago would know the difference between a day and a year, a year and a hundred years, a hundred years and a thousand years. So why would a God have to simplify creation down to days? The dinosaurs alone occupied millions of years, and before them was a long history of evolution. ..{ditto}.
Excellent post. And one I would love to discourse with you, truly and am more available in PM...But brevity, being of import when I am at work, I'll throw out two replys, in no way wanting to be contentious. Maybe someone from a certain camp can expound.
1.) How was the dating of the periods detailed above conducted?
2.) understanding the (or collectively your)definition of God helps to refine the nature of the inquisition behind...'If God existed and imparted the facts to man...'
Key words are Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Infinite....Absolutes; which our finite brains have a hard time processing. There are no absolutes in science.
Last edited by Pale Horse : 11-24-2009 at 09:34 AM.
'Cept maybe that one about 'Thou shalt not murder....' (unless we're talking about some Raven Members)....that one certainly seems universal in most cultures.
That one seems to me to be at home in both the literal and figurative camps. Figuratively as in (Not to) do physical harm to others.
Years ago, a Jehovah's Witness came to the door and the subject of evolution was brought up. Even as a teen, I ran circles around him. Flummuxed, to say the least.
I've done that, too. I kind of look forward to them knocking on the door, but they haven't been back since! For a brief moment, I even felt quite sorry for them.
I've done that, too. I kind of look forward to them knocking on the door, but they haven't been back since! For a brief moment, I even felt quite sorry for them.
One for all and all for one! I too am guilty of indulging in this, well, guilty pleasure. Like employing the art of bartending when you're giving some girl the feeling like she has a chance with you...they came back, and my old man, (not known for his patience), "released the hounds" so to say.
Excellent post. And one I would love to discourse with you, truly and am more available in PM...But brevity, being of import when I am at work, I'll throw out two replys, in no way wanting to be contentious. Maybe someone from a certain camp can expound.
1.) How was the dating of the periods detailed above conducted?
2.) understanding the (or collectively your)definition of God helps to refine the nature of the inquisition behind...'If God existed and imparted the facts to man...'
Key words are Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Infinite....Absolutes; which our finite brains have a hard time processing. There are no absolutes in science.
Pale Horse,
1.) The dating of periods is conducted by a variety of methods: carbon dating, soil layers, styles of artifact, locations, association with other factors, geological data (ice floes etc). That is, based upon physical and chemical circumstance.
2.) There is no absolute in the field of history - since history is the sum of all its witnesses, and witnesses are liable to faulty memory and willful bending of the turth for personal or political gain. Therefore, nothing written in the Bible can be taken as truth without cross reference to other sources.
There is no absolute in archaeology, but interpretation based on the factors listed in 1.).
In science there are certain absolutes: certain laws that are constant. But there are also theories which are open to discussion between scientists.
An omnipotent God, as the Bible describes the Christian/Jewish God, by definition knows everything. He knows the future. Yet, he gave man choice, according to the Bible. Man made the wrong decision and God punished him (the Flood). My point is that an omnipotent God already knows that man will fall, and as such God must have designed him to fall. God, then, becomes the absolute dictator, and quite sadistic.
In the New Testament God is re-written through Jesus, and the Christians function as an anti-Roman faction, preaching forgiveness against their overlords.
On his death bed the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Afterwards Christianity becomes a unifying factor, allowing rulers to unite dissident tribes under a single banner. Later, kings call upon their divine right to rule as absolute monarchs, recording their lineage back to God himself.
Religion becomes a powerful tool in maintaining control. Peasants are subdued through religious fears of hell. They are threatened with damnation if they revolt against their sorry lot in life. It is their God-given right to be peasants, just as it is the monarch's God-given right to rule.
Crusaders looted the Middle East in the name of their God.
And all of this stems from the assertion that God exists - that one element that still cannot be proved beyond an individual's faith.
1.) The dating of periods is conducted by a variety of methods: carbon dating, soil layers, styles of artifact, locations, association with other factors, geological data (ice floes etc). That is, based upon physical and chemical circumstance.
2.) There is no absolute in the field of history - since history is the sum of all its witnesses, and witnesses are liable to faulty memory and willful bending of the turth for personal or political gain. Therefore, nothing written in the Bible can be taken as truth without cross reference to other sources.
There is no absolute in archaeology, but interpretation based on the factors listed in 1.).
In science there are certain absolutes: certain laws that are constant. But there are also theories which are open to discussion between scientists.
An omnipotent God, as the Bible describes the Christian/Jewish God, by definition knows everything. He knows the future. Yet, he gave man choice, according to the Bible. Man made the wrong decision and God punished him (the Flood). My point is that an omnipotent God already knows that man will fall, and as such God must have designed him to fall. God, then, becomes the absolute dictator, and quite sadistic.
In the New Testament God is re-written through Jesus, and the Christians function as an anti-Roman faction, preaching forgiveness against their overlords.
On his death bed the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Afterwards Christianity becomes a unifying factor, allowing rulers to unite dissident tribes under a single banner. Later, kings call upon their divine right to rule as absolute monarchs, recording their lineage back to God himself.
Religion becomes a powerful tool in maintaining control. Peasants are subdued through religious fears of hell. They are threatened with damnation if they revolt against their sorry lot in life. It is their God-given right to be peasants, just as it is the monarch's God-given right to rule.
Crusaders looted the Middle East in the name of their God.
And all of this stems from the assertion that God exists - that one element that still cannot be proved beyond an individual's faith.
God created humans with free will because He wanted man to have a choice to love Him or not to love Him. He could have made us so that we have to, but He didn't. He can see the future, so He did know about the Fall, but that doesn't change the fact that we still made the choice. He simply knew what decision we would make. He wanted to give us a choice because He knew many people would still choose Him in the end.
All of the things you mentioned come from man. Not God. There are always fanatics who try to use religion to gain power. Look at the world today. Are the majority of Christians murderers or even criminals? Of course not. More so, how many times do you hear about a Christian committing a crime in the name of Jesus? Never. These were a few people who used Christianity to gain power and had nothing to do with their belief in God.
The existence of God cannot be proved, however, neither can the existence of evolution.
God created humans with free will because He wanted man to have a choice to love Him or not to love Him. He could have made us so that we have to, but He didn't. He can see the future, so He did know about the Fall, but that doesn't change the fact that we still made the choice. He simply knew what decision we would make. He wanted to give us a choice because He knew many people would still choose Him in the end.
That's precisely the issue. He knew the choice that would be made. So he knew he would be drowning a good portion of his creations (including animals and innocent humans). Just as well it was just a story. The Deluge is a world myth - it appears in numerous religions all over the world. The Chinese also have a flood myth with their very own version of Noah. The flood was likely to be the oral tradition of the events following an ice age - when the ice melted and land was flooded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Short Round
All of the things you mentioned come from man. Not God. There are always fanatics who try to use religion to gain power. Look at the world today. Are the majority of Christians murderers or even criminals? Of course not. More so, how many times do you hear about a Christian committing a crime in the name of Jesus? Never. These were a few people who used Christianity to gain power and had nothing to do with their belief in God.
My point is that religion is the culmination of thousands of years of superstition and pre-scientific ideas about the universe. It was codified and embellished for a purpose - and that purpose is greatly to do with the ordering of people. Throughout history that ordering has found itself along battle lines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Short Round
The existence of God cannot be proved, however, neither can the existence of evolution.
Take the case of the domestic dog. They have their ancestor in the wolf. Many of the common breeds of today are the product of selective breeding by man. It hasn't taken long for man to create a huge variety of 'pedigree' animals. So, it isn't hard to see that millions of years of natural selection (without the involvement of man) could produce an even greater variety of species.
Take the case of the domestic dog. They have their ancestor in the wolf. Many of the common breeds of today are the product of selective breeding by man. It hasn't taken long for man to create a huge variety of 'pedigree' animals. So, it isn't hard to see that millions of years of natural selection (without the involvement of man) could produce an even greater variety of species.
Take the case of Mount Rushmoore. Suppose we said that over millions of years due to storms and erosion on sandstone rocks, we got our presidents faces. No one would believe that explanation, so how can life itself be created by undirected process.
And evolutionist say that the wolf is acually an ancestor of whales.
