Evolution

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Ok, the other thread started with the movie "The Concierge" and ended up talking about evolution, so I thought I might as well put up a thread specifically about it

So what I'm interested in seeing are your views on evolution vs. creation, any proof that exists for either argument (this is the particularly interesting part), and anything else you can think of regarding the subject...

I want to borrow a quote from the FrappyDoo forum:

"Just look at the Grand Canyon...explain THAT with evolution!"




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hmm, i'm bored tonight and looking for some internet action so here i go ...

creation vs. evolution ... well, i'm worried about offending people and whatnot. hmm, and you know, religion and stuff. don't want to start preaching.

basically, i believe in God. but i also believe in science. seemingly contradictory but it works out for me. i believe the world was indeed created ... to evolve. make any sense? that, we may very well have been tadpole salamanders in the galapagos islands and eventually became the strapping beasts we are today, but we were *designed* that way. by something. it could be a great, smart perfect being or some being just as flawed as we are (and therein lies everybody's definition of "god" or "creator", which I don't want to get into, so to each his own), but something/somebody out there did *something*, on purpose or not.

maybe he/it/she spat in some mud and made claymation cinema for entertainment and maybe he/it/she dreamed us during some REM and maybe she/it/he exudes us from pores and we are tiny beings existing with whole cultures and ways of life on the bottom of it/he/she's foot. who knows. i tend to believe in "he" and that he did it on purpose and gives some sort of a d@mn (also, to each his own).

there's no law that says there can't be god and science. i guess we're just used to scientists not believing in god and therefore tearing the world apart to define its origins, but couldn't it just as well be that they are doing so to make sense of its preordained systems from the mind/great intellect/accidental amalgam that did the creating. Therefore, they developed evolution theories, but that doesn't necessarily negate god or "an omnipotent creator being" (whatever you want to go with). Even with the big bang theory ... somebody had to make the big bang. Maybe it was he/she/it farting (no offense intended) but regardless, nothing comes from nothing. it all starts from somewhere. it's the where we don't know and the path back to it that remains a mystery.

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That's more or less exactly how people should look at it, without going into the extremes of one or the other side. Pure Creationists go so far out of their way (and you wouldn't believe some of the things I've seen) to disprove any and every aspect of evolution - all the hominid fossils, bacteria DNA - basically anything you can think of, in order to disprove evolution and support the Genesis point of view.

On the other hand, pure Evolutionists do the opposite, giving their very best shot to proove that God doesn't exist, that we evolved from a primate ancestor and that the universe started with a big bang (some scientist comically described the big bang theory by saying "First there was nothing. And then it exploded" )!!

The best position to be in is somewhere in between, accepting both the facts that evolution and Darwin's natural selection exist, have been proven to exist and that we evolved eventually from a common ancestor we shared with the apes. On the other hand, one should also believe that there is some force out there that has perhaps *guided* our evolution in order for us to become what we are. After all, if God DID create the universe, that would mean that he created all the rules and laws in it (everything made of atoms, gravity and all the constants), and that therefore he had to play by his own rules (i.e. we couldn't just "pop" out of nowhere).

Maybe I'm wrong and Miriams "Big Fart" theory was the way it all began...who knows



Well, my one word (for now, at least) on this matter is that whether or not you believe in God, you have to believe something beyond our understanding and supernatural in nature came to pass when this Universe was created - be it an explosion that came out of nothing, or a Supreme Being.

That said, I believe in God...Jesus Christ, specifically.



In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
I've already talked about this plenty at Jame's site, so if you wanna know exactly how I feel just go read that. I post under the same name there.
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My problem is that I need proof. There is plenty of evidence in the science category that tells me we are here because of evolution. So far....I have not been convinced that there is a God. If I find some real proof...I will develope some faith. But for now...I just can't believe.
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That's just our human nature. We're too stupid to understand the universe we live in, so we tend to break everything down into tiny bite-sized chunks that we can understand. Unfortunately, the universe and everything else doesn't work that way So basically, because there are so many things we don't understand, a natural symptom of that is to project it to a superior being much wiser than we are. For example, our cave-men ancestors didn't know what caused lightning, wind, rain, or the sun to shine, so they were all worshipped as gods...

Of course, I do believe in God specifically, it's just that as you learn more and more about our world and everything else, it becomes very hard to accept everything at face value, so you start asking questions and looking for answers...that's my best explanation for it! Oh yeah, and I sure as hell hope that the Bible wasn't the biggest hoax in history!!



Me too.

I like to think of myself as a pretty logical person by nature - but sometimes I just can't see all around me created by chaos. Too many things work in such precision, and sometimes, so artistically, to be random.

I also see signs of intelligent design around. Part of it, inevitably, is emotional. Can't *all* be explained.



In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
Originally posted by Zephyrus
For example, our cave-men ancestors didn't know what caused lightning, wind, rain, or the sun to shine, so they were all worshipped as gods...
My point exactly! To me, god is just an easy way of explaining what you can't explain.



To me, saying God doesn't exist is an easy way of making up for sin. That's not meant as an insult, but I think it can work both ways - the human mind has a reason to make God up, or pretend He does not exist.



In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
I don't think its an easy way for making up for sin at all. If I do sin, I will be punished either way, by the law or by god(if he is real). So its not really making up for anything in my opinion.



It's really clear actually:

With a God in my life, I have to repent every night (I do so anyway, even though not forced)...I am responsible for all things that break God's law, not just human law.

Without a God, I don't have to worry about these things, and don't have to feel as guilty for my sins. Seems easier to me.



In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
I get where your coming from. I didn't mean to make it sound like I don't sin. I know I do. Every day. Every hour probably. And I do feel guilty for it. Which I guess is a disadvantge to being agnostic rather than practicing a religon. What I ment to say is that although I don't repent my sins with prayer right now, if god is real I will have to face the consequences in the end. Or not. Sorry if that sounds confusing. When I read it to myself it doesn't sound like its explaining much, I guess it just makes sense in my head.



I sort of get it - I just mean that, being a Christian, I have to spend some of my short time during life on things like guilt and reptenence.

Anyway, that's enough out of me.



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Some people actually believe in God with a "Why Not" philosophy i.e. if they believe in God and he does exist, then at the end of it all they'll get the rewards...if not, then no harm done anyway!

One of the favoured arguments of Creationists is that the universe is too ordered to be random (not intended to offend anyone)...and I realise that this might be the case. But what they sometimes fail to realise is the actual size of the universe, and by this alone, every random event has a small probability of happening, which in a universe of this size can become significant.

But in the end there must be some sort of organized intelligence behind the whole thing, whether it's what we call "God" or an advanced alien race that's tinkering with the whole thing or whatever...it's not too hard to imagine!



Yes, something is bound to happen somewhere - but here? What are the odds that we're once of the very few planets out there this lucky?

Also, keep in mind, that if you believe in evolution, you have to believe in either billions upon billions of other humanoid races on other planets who have died out, or you have to believe in this earth being nearly TRILLIONS of years old, and that millions upon billions of other human-type figures, mutated and different from us, tried to survive, but didn't.

I just find that hard to believe.



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Hmm, that's a very interesting point of view! Like I mentioned previously, I'm sort of in between the two, I believe in both evolution and creation (sort of), that they have some sort of connection.

But if you want, I'll give you some of the facts that support the evolutionist's point of view (this again is not meant to insult anyone).

Ok, here goes. Scientists estimate that the age of the universe is roughly 15 billion years. Our own Milky Way galaxy is about 7. In our galaxy there are between 200 and 300 billion stars, and in our known universe there are an estimated 300 billion galaxies of similar *average* size (this comes from the Hubble Space Telescope's Deep Field images). I'm sure you've heard on the news that there are new planets being discovered constantly (with present methods they can only find large Jupiter-like planets), and the professors at my university were the first to discover a whole solar system (consisting of three detectable planets)outside our own. In total there are about 50 known planets in the nearby stars (with nearby I mean within a 1000 light-year radius)

Of course, there are a lot of conditions that are required for there to be life: size, age and type of sun, distance of planet from the sun, a suitable cosmic location (i.e. not close to exploding supernovae, black holes etc.), axial tilt, stable eliptical or circular orbit...just to name a few. Based on these figures, NASA concluded that there are roughly 10^11 (that's 10 to the power of 11) suitable planets *in the whole universe*. Now, whether these planets harbour what we define as *intelligent life* (one that is capable of constructing a radio telescope) is a different concept alltogether. The chances are that they would be nowhere near hominid looking (as I discussed in my other thread). So, if you look at it, the chances of such "coincidences" happening *somewhere* in the universe are not 0, since we are here (although, even if superintelligent beings existed in the nearest galaxy, let alone some distant one, it would still take them another hundred thousand years to even discover us!

Also, if you're interested, I can explain how life formed on Earth roughly 3.5 billion years ago, but I won't now because I've gotten too long winded

Cheers!