A question for religious creationists who want absolute proof of evolution

I’ve heard religious creationists say that they can’t believe in evolution because nobody has absolutely proven it.

Now let’s see . . . religious people believe in the existence of God, the devil, heaven, hell, angels, cherubim, seraphim, miracles, immaculate conception, the Pope’s infallibility, the power of prayer, life after death, the truth of every syllable in the Bible, the truth of every syllable in the Koran, the resurrection of Christ, salvation, voodoo, etc.

Not to mention people who believe in astrology, fortune tellers, psychics, black magic, white magic, superstitions, good luck, bad luck, esp, clairvoyance, telekinesis, etc.

There has never been a shred of evidence to support any of these beliefs, let alone “absolute proof.” Why does evolution require absolute proof, but not any of these other beliefs? Is anyone ever expected to provide “absolute proof” for a belief in, say, guardian angels?

Do we even have any creationists here at this point?


Yer pal,
Satan

*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Six months, two weeks, three days, 4 hours, 3 minutes and 32 seconds.
8006 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,000.84.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 6 days, 19 hours, 10 minutes.

I slept with a REPUBLICAN moderator!*

I’m playing with fire here, but,

They’d tell you that Scripture is truth, because it says so in Scripture. Evolution contradicts Scripture, which is truth. So, in order for them to throw out their old reference frame of truth (Scripture), they would need absolute proof that Scripture is not truth.

This sounds demeaning to religious people. I do not mean to be. They have perfectly legitimate reasons for accepting Scripture at face value. They see a moral and logical Way through their belief system. They can explain the world and everything in it. They can explain every event. They feel a profound connection to God. By all accounts, God gave the Scripture, and said that it is the truth, so it is. If something works for you, can explain your existence, make you feel comfortable, serve as a moral guide to every question in life, and it doesn’t hurt anyone in the process, by all means stick to it.

The problem is when it appears that the Scripture conflicts with truth. It is like a house of cards for some fundamentalists – if one wall is not solid, how can we be assured that the rest of the house will stand? That is the issue that we sometimes face around here.

Well, to me it just seems more plausable to believe that man was created by a higher being than to believe in evolution at all. For me to believe in evolution at all, I have to believe that first of all there was absolutely nothing. The nothing blew up (big bang). As a result of this big explosion, a whole bunch of planets that happen to be almost perfectly round went outward from the explosion. One of these, Earth, happened to stop at just the right spot and distance from the sun (where did it come from?)to support life. And on this planet Earth there happened to be NO life. But NO life whatsoever evolved up through the chain from fish to monkeys to, here we go, MAN.

As far as I can remember, the THEORY of evolution is just that, a theory. And to believe that man came from monkeys, to me, is just plain rediculous. If man evolved from some lower life form, why is all this process not still going on? Why did it stop with man? Is man the best that there is?

panache45 said:

Because they already believe these things. So evolution contradicts their current worldview. For some of them, it has been drummed into their heads that God is the source of all morals, and the Bible is the literal word of that God. So if it turns out that the Bible is not the literal word of God, then a lot of their understanding of the world comes crashing down. This is the reason many of them are so resistant to the idea at all when they aren’t resistant to, say, the theory of gravitation.

Satan: Looks like your question has been answered. Wall, maybe. See below.

cheezit: Before I even begin to tear apart what you said, please answer me a question: Are you serious? Or is this just a troll?

See, the problem is that what you’ve said is close enough to what real creationists say to mean you could be serious. But it’s just wacko enough in the right places (like the Big Bang sending out fully-formed planets) to indicate you’re trying to be funny.

So, which is it?

Well, I’m a creationist, though not the sort that Satan was inferring – I believe in a God who created, most likely through natural laws, including those discovered by “Daniel Schwarr” and his successors.

To rough-outline an answer, however, divine revelation is the ticket for absolute proof. If an omniscient deity tells you what happened, you have a degree of certitude in that that you cannot get from even the most closely reasoned and best-supported inferential inductive proof of a theory. This is why the average conservative Christian has such a hissy fit over the “theory” of evolution or whatever, misunderstanding the use of the term in science, as opposed to the Infallible Word of God.

YMMV. In fact, MMMV! But I felt it appropriate to present a somewhat sympathetic view of what the answer would be.

I’m waiting to see if this was a troll as well, but I just can’t resist comment on this point…
cheezit:

I LOVE the fact that, in the same paragraph arguing for inteligent, divine design, you use the phrase “ALMOST perfectly round.”
GOD: “Oh, crap, that one’s lumpy again…”

Oh, and of course evolution is still taking place…traditional church attendance has decreased by 3% in the last 10 years. :smiley:

Thank you, and Goodnight

First of all, I AM NOT A TROLL !!!

Second of all, yes I am a creationist. As far as evolution goes, I,** personally **, find it extremely hard to believe. That said, I can’t prove to you that creation actually happened any more than you could prove to me that man came from anywhere but from man.

But let’s just take one thing at a time here. First of all, please explain “the big bang”. If, in fact, it actually happened, then it HAD to happen before any evolution came about OR anything was created. So, how did it happen?

It’s funny you should bring that up. I’m in the middle of a rather heated debate about evolution/creationism on one of the other message boards I frequent. I usually abstain from posting here about the topic because there are plenty of people who do a much better job of defending the evolutionary POV than I could, but on that board I am apparently the only one willing or able to do it.

Anyway, one of the creationists demanded that I “prove” that scientists have created anything resembling life from non-life in the lab. I brought up the experiment conducted by Fox and Miller in the 1950’s that created amino acids and proteinoid microspheres by recreating the condition of the earth’s early atmosphere, and even gave him a link to an article I found on the web describing the experiment. He read it, and then demanded that I “prove” that scientists could recreate evolution in the lab and/or construct some “simple” aquatic lifeforms from these protocells! No doubt he won’t be convinced until someone constructs a human being from a child’s chemistry set. Even then, he’ll probably demand that I then go out and terraform a planet and seed it with my newly constructed life to see if it “evolves.” :rolleyes: That is the level of “proof” that many creationists seem to require. It is a much higher level of “proof” than they require for their own “theories”, but that’s all part of the package, I guess.

First of all, I AM NOT A TROLL !!!

Second of all, yes I am a creationist. As far as evolution goes, I,** personally **, find it extremely hard to believe. That said, I can’t prove to you that creation actually happened any more than you could prove to me that man came from anywhere but from man.

But let’s just take one thing at a time here. First of all, please explain “the big bang”. If, in fact, it actually happened, then it HAD to happen before any evolution came about OR anything was created. So, how did it happen?

EARTH: Are we there yet???
MARS: Mercury keeps hitting me! Make him stop!
PLUTO: I’m hungry!
JUPITER: So help me God I’ll turn this thing around if you don’t shut up! We’ll go right back to the center of the universe! You want to test me? Just go ahead and try…

cheezit, with all due respect, it is clear from your posts that you know almost nothing about evolutionary and Big Bang theory. You do not sound at all credible in claiming that you find evolution “extremely hard to believe” when it is obvious you know nothing about it. It would be like someone claiming they find the Bible extremely hard to belive without ever having read it. Surely you would encourage them to do so before making up their mind, nes pas?

And so, I would encourage you to do the same. Before you make up your mind about evolution, educate yourself. You will be able to defend your views much better if you know whereof you speak, regardless of what those views turn out to be.

**

To be sure, science does not say that a higher being didn’t create everything. Of course, this could have been last Thursday or a millenia ago…

**

Doesn’t Genesis start off with that premise?

**

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/html/big_bang.html

Here is something in laymans terms which shows the evidence for this, including:

[quote]
[ul][li]the observed expansion of the universe,[/li][li]the observed abundances of helium, deuterium and lithium, three elements thought to be synthesized primarily in the first three minutes of the universe,[/li][li]the thermal spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation[/li][li]the cosmic microwave background radiation appears hotter in distant clouds of gas. Since light travels at a finite speed, we see these distant clouds at an early time in the history of the universe, when it was more dense and thus hotter.[/ul][/li][/quote]

**

That’s not what the Big Bang theory says. Who told you this?

**

What you describe is neither part of the Big Bang, nor evolution. You describe abiogenesis. And while the Big Bang itself has not been observed (though evidence of it has, if you check the links above), scientists HAVE been able to see cases of abiogenesis and evolution in labs.

**

You have no idea what a Scientific Theory is, do you. Here’s a hint: It’s not a hypothesis.

**

Evolution says no such thing about the origins of man. So you know so much about this subject as to declare all of mainstream science wrong, yet you don’t know the simplest things about this and spout falsehoods filled with buzzwords? And you wonder why people accussed you of trolling or kidding?

**

It is. We see it. You want I should link you to some observations that have been made in labs and nature of this?

How do you know it didn’t stop with man? You been to all of the other planets in the galaxy and see there is no life on any of them?

As for the best there is, human animals are no better or worse than any other animals. We’re just different.


Yer pal,
Satan

*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Six months, two weeks, three days, 12 hours, 27 minutes and 25 seconds.
8020 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,002.59.
Extra life with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 20 minutes.

I slept with a REPUBLICAN moderator!*

I know, I know…but I think it’s wrong not to try.

cheezit:

I’ll let the cosmologists / astrophysicists handle this one, but be careful you don’t lock yourself into/out of a clockwork universe model before you’re ready, cheezit.

I’m assuming you meant to question mutually divergent primate evolution…”man” didn’t exactly “come from” “monkeys” as Satan cleared up earlier. This, I can handle, but we’ll need to clear up a few other things first. What do you consider proof? Do you accept the fossil record? What dates in the fossil record would be acceptable to you? I’d be happy to provide dates and cites for early hominid fossils, but am I wasting time? (does the 5-Y mandibular molar indicate proto-primate to you?) Please, just let me know what specifically you’d consider acceptable. australiopithicus! Sorry, I lost control.
Thank you, and Goodnight.

I usually try to avoid these debates, but it was still small so I popped my head in to seek ‘enlightenment’… Still seeking… however I did notice that Polycarp wrote:

Who is Daniel Schwarr and what ‘natural’ laws did he discover?

Sorry, Joey…it’s a semi-private joke among some of us in GD. “Daniel Schwarr” is an acronym for Charles Darwin – and is also the pseudonym David B. uses when visiting Christian websites. And, knowing you, I don’t have to explain what Charles Darwin discovered. Sorry about that!

Doh! And I love anagrams… can’t believe I missed it…

First of all, cheezit, I’m sorry for you, but it’s obvious from your post that you have very little understanding of current scientific theory. If you get shot down by others in this thread, it is primarily because most of your statements about “evolution” misstate the facts.

I note that your arguments, like those of many creationists, are based on an inability or unwillingness to consider the long time frames involved, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what scientific theory and “evolution” mean.

OK so far, more or less. This has nothing to do with the Darwin’s theory of evolution, which concerns changes in organisms, but let’s let that slide for the moment.

Here’s how it works: We have a good idea of the speed of light. We are able to observe celestial objects and estimate their sizes, distances and relative velocities, using the known speed of light as a guide. The evidence is clear that 1) the universe is very old; 2) that major structural elements of the universe, such as galaxies, are moving at extremely high speed relative to each other; 3) This movement appears to have occurred from a more or less central point 4) there is a residual background radiation, measured in all directions, that indicates that the universe once existed in an almost imaginably high state of temperature and density.

Where did you get this idea? It is highly likely that a considerable time passed before even discrete particles such as electrons or protons formed, much less planets. The matter that makes up planets almost certainly was created in the fusion furnaces of stars, as this is the only plausible explanation for the existence of elements more complex than hydrogen. Not only was the earth not present at the creation of the universe, but the composition of the solar system, including the sun, only makes sense if multiple generations of stars, recycling matter, existed before it.

Scientific theory means that a hypothesis is made; experimentation is then carried in an effort to support or disprove the hypothesis. No absolute proof can exist for a given theory; acceptance or rejection of a given theory is derived from the weight of the evidence for or against that theory. It’s a bit like civil court in that way.

Here is an example: Scientific theory states that there is a particle, more or less fundamental, called the “electron”. Vast numbers of experiments have been performed to determine whether such a particle exists, and its properties. Further experiments have been carried out to learn how to do useful things with that particle. Do you believe in electrons? If not, how do you explain electricity? How do you explain the (relatively) predictable operation of a light bulb?

The evidence is very clear that at one time in the earth’s history, only very simple organisms existed. Over time, according to a well-documented geologic record, other, more elaborate organisms have periodically appeared. Some have disappeared again; ever heard of trilobites? Many of the least elaborate organisms appear to have existed throughout the bulk of earth’s history; some of the most elaborate organisms appear to have existed only recently.

The fossil geologic record exists in sedimentary rocks. I have worked on oil rigs where we drilled through more than 20,000 feet of sediments. How long, would you say, would it take for 20,000 feet of sediment to accumulate in a given location?

Evolution, as a process, appears to take place in relatively large leaps over relatively short periods (geologically speaking). OTOH, these leaps apparently occur infrequently, in very small, localized populations, and over an extremely long time. This makes it difficult to find the point in the geologic record where a given step occurred, but the evidence of the record is clear: organisms have changed greatly over time.

There is no evidence that man evolved directly from monkeys. There is strong circumstantial evidence that man and apes are very closely related; it has been estimated that 95% of the DNA of chimpanzees varies no more than about 5% from that of man. Chimpanzees, BTW, are apes, not monkeys. Hell, even dog DNA is not enormously different from that of man.

It is. You just have trouble seeing it because you have a very short lifespan, and because you haven’t studied the evidence.

BTW, what is a “lower” life form? Bacteria are highly successful; they can exist under conditions far outside the ranges tolerable for man, and exist in enormous numbers compared to man. They have apparently existed far longer than man. Which is better?

Who says it has?

Don’t know. Let’s wait and see.

I’m not a scientist and I don’t even have a university degree, but I have taken the time to read up on these subjects; if I am grossly wrong on any of the above you will surely here about it from other posters. You are welcome to believe what you wish, but if you want to make pronouncements on evolution, try to bone up a bit first. Darwin’s “Origin of Species” would be a good start. If you think that would be too heavy going, try something by Steven Jay Gould.

I have the sinking feeling that most GD threads are just preaching to the choir.

…of course, one or two posters who object can make quite a big difference.

Cheezit, just one more quick thing to note, since a lot of it has already been covered by other posters.

First of all, nothing in space stops. Ever. Everything’s speed is always relative to all other objects.

Secondly, how in the world did Earth happen to be the exact right distance away from the sun with the exact right chemical composition to create an atmosphere and keep it heated at just the right temperature to get life to thrive?

Absolutely pure 100% complete chance. But notice luck wasn’t one of the words I used.

If it hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be here to debate it. It might have happened somewhere else. It might just be happening somewhere else already or it might have already happened to millions of planets across this vast universe.

Take a deck of cards. What are your odds of picking the Ace of spades? 1 in 52. Not the greatest odds in the world. But if you get enough players, and you deal out enough cards, the chances that SOMEONE gets the ace of spades approaches 100%.

It wasn’t luck that it happened. The universe is a billion card deck and our planet happened to be dealt the ace of spades.