Right, so God created evolution.
The 6,000 year thing … still working on that one.
I think God simply got the universe started somehow and the earth and billions of other planets have shaped and evolved themselves with the original ingredients. I believe they will continue to do so , at some point we will peter out and another will have allready taken our place. I do believe their is a purpose but have no clue or concept as to what it is,
If Moore’s Law continues for another 50 or 60 years, no. At that point, we’d have so much knowledge about the universe that we’d be functionally immortal, disease-free, and be without poverty or hunger. Those facts would remove need-based crime. In addition, our understanding of the brain would be so complete that we would be able to remove mental illness and other mental problems as causes of crime as well.
In addition, the ignorance and overpopulation that cause wars would be firmly under control as well. People are unlikely to start religious wars when knowledge about the universe is as complete as it would be at that point. In addition, overpopulation would almost cease to be a problem in such a world as well.
- And this means that God chose to create the species in the one exact way that makes it look like he had no hand in it at all.
So you don’t think the deck was stacked in order to create humans? If so, you believe in a weak deism (perfectly reasonable) and not theistic evolution.
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Voyager**-Who made this distinction? BTW, I think He intended to also make humans.
At present humans are by far the dominant species. Who knows how far it will go before it ends. Will humans wipe themselves out and a new species evolve to be the dominant species? I believe the plan is far from reaching a conclusion.
She found the perfect mechanism, you mean.
What’s that, you say? The creator of the universe is a dude? I want some evidence for such a ridiculous assertion. Also, while you’re at it, I could use some evidence for the universe having a creator.
Who says humans are dominant? We’re outnumbered by rats & mice, certainly. What is your definition of dominant?
We are out numbered by weight by ants too…and they have complex social constructs and some also performed agriculture for millenia before we figured it out.
Theistic evolution doesn’t have to be Christian. My distinction is that if you believe that God made man in his own image (even if the process was done through evolution) you believe in theistic evolution. If you believe God just started the mechanism of the universe without caring how it comes out, then you believe in deism and evolution identical to godless evolution (to coin a phrase.)
Back in the day of the clockwork, deterministic, Newtonian universe it made sense to think that God set the initial parameters, flipped a switch, and we popped out a few billion years later. In the quantum universe I’d think God would have to invisibly interfere - causing the needed mutation, making sure the young creature with it didn’t get eaten before reproducing, etc.
Theistic evolution has a goal, nontheistic evolution does not.
And the intelligent rats will be sure that God created them in his own image.
Now that is a great premise for an sf story.
After the War (or climate change, take your pick) the last remnants of humans are fighting against the increasingly intelligent rats. One of the last survivors is a true believer, and his is convinced that praying to God alone can save humanity.
As the rats close in he builds an altar, arranges a sacrifice, and prays fervently.
“Oh heavenly father, appear before us and rescue us from our afflictions.” He throws incense on the fire, there is a crash of thunder, a cloud of smoke, and from within the fire they hear
“squeak You squeak rang? squeak”
Point of Definition – “Creationism” (correctly speaking) refers to the belief that the account of creation in the Book of Genesis is literally true, that it took place in 7 of OUR days, and that it occurred 6016 years ago (in 4004 B.C.E. to be exact – a year originally calculated by adding up all those “begats” and 500-1000 year life spans in Genesis). Therefore, you cannot believe both in creationism AND in evolution.
You CAN believe in the so-called theory of “Intelligent Design” (ID) AND believe in evolution (though I would argue that evolution is not a matter of belief but is as much a fact as the fact that the Earth is an oblate spheroid). ID is often confused with Creationism by both proponents and opponents of Creationism (especially of teaching it in the schools) but the two are NOT the same at all. ID DOES accept evolution and just posits an “Intellgent Designer” behind the process (making ID really metaphysical speculation rather than science) while Creationism (correctly speaking) does not “accept” evolution at all – rather like not “accepting” that the Earth is round…
In other words, don’t teach is science class that God is a bunch of nonsense. Just state that the purpose of this class is to test what we can observe. A person’s faith or non-faith on things that we cannot observe is outside the subject matter of this class.
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My title says it all…
–WMB
My title says it all…
–WMB
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The problem with this plan is that it isn’t scientists who are trying to diminish God in science classes, for the most part. It’s fundamentalist and evangelical Christians who are trying to push their religions on others.
Yes and no. Behe himself accepts evolution, but he appears to say so only in places like the New York Times which isn’t much read by your typical creationist.
ID has been adopted by creationists as another name for creationism in an attempt to get around the blatant religious content of true creationism - or rather to mask it. You might remember that in the Dover trial it came out that the ID textbook they were suggesting for class was identical to a creationism textbook except that ID was used instead of creationism. Behe, who was supposed to be the subject matter expert, never actually read it. (I suppose he has a weak stomach.)
So, when you hear ID in most instances you are actually hearing creationism. When you are not, you must believe in it, since there is not a shred of evidence it ever happened or any cases where ID is necessary. That it is possible is obvious, as half your food and your pooch will testify.
Cite that any teacher in the US has a lesson plan about God being nonsense?
Do you have any objection to lesson plans that mention that creationism is nonsense?
When I was in school, we learned creationism as one of those old theories, like phlogiston and spontaneous generation, which people used to believe in but which have been disproved.
There have been no attempts to force the teaching of science in churches - there have been many to try to force the teaching of religion in science classes.
Science should be taught as science, religion should be a non-issue.
I don’t think that Christians have a problem with the theory of evolution per se. If mutations didn’t happen then we would all look the same, and so would our pets. Natural Selection is just logical. Evolution is necessary to take the story of Noah’s Ark from a straight-up fairy tale to something almost plausible (if you don’t think too hard about it.)
I think that the problem that a lot of Christians have is with the conclusion drawn from archeological findings combined with evolution. So they attack the theory, the fossils, the scientists, everything wherever they think they can introduce reasonable doubt. “That’s the skull of an ape, that’s the skull of a human, that’s the skull of an ape with a bone disorder. That’s the skull of a human that God loved so much that he made his jaw bigger to accommodate his wisdom teeth. That scientist beats his wife…”
I disagree. “Creationism” is the idea that God created things, and doesn’t necessarily imply a timeframe. “Intelligent Design” is one type of creationism, “Young Earth” is another.
I love the way it drives the Discovery Institute nuts when science-people refer to it as “Intelligent Design Creationism.”
As others have noted, that doesn’t happen.
There is, however, a tendency for some people to want to say, in science class, that evolution and religion are compatible. In my opinion, this is not OK either - it’s not the role of a science teacher to tell the kids about their theology.
You have defined the particular version of Young Earth Creationism that is popular among many Christian groups in the U.S. today.
However, there is also Old Earth Creationism that inserts long periods into the reckoning to give geology and paleontology some breathing room, while still insisting that God was the specific agent in every act of creation. Such folks reckon the Earth to be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of years old and they are very definitely Creationists.
There are also Jewish, Muslim, and other Creationists who have their own sets of beliefs. (Judaism is currently celebrating year 5772, so they clearly came to a different reckoning than Bishop Ussher. In addition, various other Christians took a crack at calculating the date of creation and they have come up with a number of dates that do not match 4004 B.C.E.)