Evolution or God, part I

[MEBuckner]

*Originally posted by JubilationTCornpone *

*Originally posted by ozonebaby *
I believe that we evolved from apes. I believe this because I can see solid evidence that we did in such discoverys as Lucy and the Turkana Boy.

I don’t care much for evolution debates, but to be honest… I don’t find the “Lucy” evidence to be very compelling. We don’t even know that these bones came from the same type of organism, much less the same individual.
The knee bones were discovered about 2-3 kilometers away, for example, and a year before the other partial skeletal remains. (See http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0714_Lucy_fails_test.html.)

Mind you, I’m not arguing against evolution here. However, I do think that the Lucy case isn’t exactly compelling.

A knee joint, of what has been judged to be the same species as “Lucy” (Australopithecus afarensis) was indeed found at a different location from the fossilized skeletal remains of the specimen known as “Lucy”. However, biologists have never claimed that this other knee was part of Lucy herself, only that it is another A. afarensis fossil. All of the bones which have been pieced together to form the 40%-complete female A. afarensis skeleton dubbed “Lucy” were in fact found at the same location. This particular claim has been widely repeated by creationists; they are–I will say they are, ahem, “mistaken” in this claim. (At least some of them have admitted it was a mistake and retracted the claim.)

See Talk.Origins’ Lucy’s Knee Joint: A Case Study in Creationists’ Willingness to Admit their Errors for details.
Incidentally, the Forerunner site where this bogus tale has cropped up this time around is on the fringes of Christian fundamentalist extremism. See, for example, this interview, in which leading Christian Reconstructionist the Rev. Andrew Sandlin first insists “[Christian Reconstructionists] certainly do not want an Ayatollah fundamentalist regime…Our goal is not to harm any particular group or any minority”, then goes on to say that “the public worship of a false god is forbidden…the Bible does seem to forbid public worship that is contrary to Christian worship…We certainly cannot permit the public proselytizing of religions that are going to undermine our religious faith and also the state itself…in certain cases there will be some intolerance”. Sandlin blithely compares his proposed abolition of freedom of religion to the current banning of manger scenes in front of public buildings as examples of the inevitable “intolerance” of any legal system.

Personally, if the Forerunner said the sky was blue, I’d be sure to carry my umbrella. But that’s just me.

[erislover]

*Originally posted by capacitor *
The OP suffers from the fallacy of the excluded middle.

I wasn’t aware the law of the excluded middle was a fallacy.

[MonkeyMensch]

*Originally posted by B. Gardner *
… A relatively tiny majority of christians who feel that their entire faith …[

Uhhh. So that would be like a really big minority?

[ozonebaby]

*Originally posted by Revtim *
**The evolution vs creationism debate is the most unnecessary and most-easily resolved debate on Earth.

1. Evolution only contradicts the bible if the bible is taken 100 percent literally.

2. A document that contradicts itself cannot be taken 100 percent literally.

3. The bible is full of self-contradictions.

4. Therefore, the bible cannot to be taken 100 percent literally. **

Obviously you haven’t met the people at my school, which is probably a good thing. They’re a bunch of religous nuts who are hicks as well, not a very pleasent combination.

[jovan]

Highly trivial nitpick:

*Originally posted by B. Gardner *
There are no buddist, hindu, muslim, shinto, or taoist creationists.

Hinduism and Islam have been addressed.

Shinto creationism has been a big issue in Japanese education since WWII. Although I doubt any significant portion of the population takes the Shinto genesis legends as facts anymore, whether to teach them or not in school is still an emotional debate.

[andros]

*Originally posted by erislover *
**

*Originally posted by capacitor *
The OP suffers from the fallacy of the excluded middle.

I wasn’t aware the law of the excluded middle was a fallacy. **

right back atcha, erl. I wasn’t aware the fallacy of the excluded middle was a law in any sense . . .

[Revtim]

*Originally posted by capacitor *
**

*Originally posted by Revtim *
**The evolution vs creationism debate is the most unnecessary and most-easily resolved debate on Earth.

1. Evolution only contradicts the bible if the bible is taken 100 percent literally.

2. A document that contradicts itself cannot be taken 100 percent literally.

3. The bible is full of self-contradictions.

4. Therefore, the bible cannot to be taken 100 percent literally. **

I would like a much less biased source than infidels.org, Revtim. **

Simply crack open a bible yourself, and look at what’s refenced at the web site. It gives very specific chapter/verse references.

Some of the contradictions are quite a stretch, in my opinion, but some seem pretty blatent. All it takes is one, though, right?

[Revtim]

Ok capacitor, if it makes you feel better here’s a contradiction, right from the King James Bible.

Genesis Ch 1

25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “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,[2] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Sounds like the animals were created before man.

But wait!

Genesis Ch 2

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Now it says the animals were created after man… Sounds like a pretty blatant contradiction to me.

[Mangetout]

Revtim: I’m not about to insist that there aren’t any contradictions in the bible, but are you sure that’s a genuine one you have there in Genesis?; seems to me that:

19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

could be interpreted as being ‘had already’ formed out of the ground…
(Although I’m no Hebrew scholar, and picking over a translation can be misleading)

[MEBuckner]

In either the King James Version or the New International Version, Genesis 1:20-23 clearly places the creation of birds on the fifth day, and Genesis 1:26-31 places the creation of man on the sixth day (KJV, NIV). These passages are from the first, “six days of creation” account. In the KJV, Genesis 2:19, from the second, “Garden of Eden” account, certainly sounds as if the birds of the air, as well as the beasts of the field (apparently created on the same day as man, but earlier in the day, in the first creation account) are here created after Adam:

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.

The NIV translation of that verse, however, reads:

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

This could be interpreted to mean that God brought the already created beasts from earlier in day six and the birds from day five to the man (created later on day six) to be named by him. (Apparently sea creatures were not named.) Of other translations, the New American Standard Bible and the Revised Standard Version follow the KJV’s verb tense. Young’s Literal Translation also seems to agree with the KJV rather than the NIV. The Darby Translation does seem to agree with the NIV. That said, have no knowledge of Hebrew at all, and can’t really say how the verb tense ought to be translated. Looking at the totality of the second creation account, it seems most natural to read it as God forming the beasts and birds right there on the spot, after Adam’s creation, which doesn’t fit with the chronology of the first creation account.

The account of the creation of humanity in 1:26-31 would clearly put the creation of not only man (a male human) but also woman on the sixth day, and really implies they were simultaneously created. At the very least, the second account, in order to jibe at all, must suppose that God, having formed the birds the day before, and the land animals earlier that day, formed a man–a male human being–sometime on the sixth day. During the course of the sixth day, God decides the man needs a helper, so God (following the NIV’s verb tenses) brings each kind of bird or beast to the man to be named and rejected as said helper. Finally, still on the sixth day, God gets around to forming a woman. I have to say, Adam must have been the taxonomic equivalent of an auctioneer (“Aardvarkalbatrossalligatorantelope…”), even allowing for the usual Biblical literalist/creationist hocus-pocus about “kinds” rather than species.

Sticking exclusively with the NIV, Genesis 2:4-7 states:

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens–and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground–the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

This clearly states that the first man came before plant life. Yet Genesis 1:11-13, still using the NIV translation, puts the creation of plants on the third day, before the sixth-day creation of man and woman.

[Revtim]

*Originally posted by Mangetout *
**seems to me that:

19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

could be interpreted as being ‘had already’ formed out of the ground…
(Although I’m no Hebrew scholar, and picking over a translation can be misleading) **

I think technically it could be interpreted that way, yes. My feel for the text, though, is that is saying the beasts and birds were created after man.