# Evolution vs Biblical Creationism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 14, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620 "2008-02-14T17:29:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/21 "2008-02-14T23:18:59Z")
[QUOTE=prleone] God wrote the bible? MEN wrote the bible. Men who’ve been dead for 10,000 years. That’s why it’s not or should never be considered a resource. Happy St. Valentine’s! [/QUOTE] So, did you even _read_ the OP? ---
**Author:** ![prleone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@prleone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prleone)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/22 "2008-02-14T23:43:06Z")
[QUOTE=Diomedes] 10,000 years, eh? Am I whooshed, or are you just daft? [/QUOTE] Oh, 10,000, 2,000, Adam, Eve, yadda yadda. Pick your favorite number-- at least one that corresponds with the age of the Earth and the age of the human race. \*So, did you even read the OP? \* Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/23 "2008-02-14T23:46:28Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] 1. God is a trickster, adjusting reality to look the way it does to enable belief in the bible to be a measure of faith, rather than the obvious thing to do. [/QUOTE] I would like to have this option removed. It is only as our understanding of the universe grows that the bible appears less and less congruent with reality. During the last days of the Roman empire, the Bible didn’t conflict with observable reality nearly as much as it does today. Why would God want to trick increasingly advanced versions of humanity in gradually more thorough ways, instead of tricking us all at once with some declarations that conflict with what the Romans could see for themselves? ---
**Author:** ![prleone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@prleone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prleone)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/24 "2008-02-14T23:47:30Z")
I think any ten commandments queries are not for us, not for Dawkins, but from someone we can all relate to. The perfect Ten Commandments explanation: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iydbDQ4s9k) You probably already know who it is… ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/25 "2008-02-15T00:10:55Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] I would like to have this option removed. It is only as our understanding of the universe grows that the bible appears less and less congruent with reality. During the last days of the Roman empire, the Bible didn’t conflict with observable reality nearly as much as it does today. Why would God want to trick increasingly advanced versions of humanity in gradually more thorough ways, instead of tricking us all at once with some declarations that conflict with what the Romans could see for themselves? [/QUOTE] Not at all - the bible has always conflicted with observable reality. If the romans were too lazy to dig for dinosaur bones, that’s not God’s problem. Also, the premise of option 2 is that the bible is accurate and the reality (or our perception of it) has been merely distorted to give false evidence about the universe, leading us to the beliefs supported by science today. (It’s the “reality is wrong” option, to mirror the “the bible is wrong” option 3.) So, because the bible was still being _written_ in roman times, it seems reasonable to deduce that at the time, the world actually _was_ as the bible describes (created 6000 years ago, no evolution whatsoever, flat earth, etc), and that the ‘reality shift’ occured some time more recently. It need not have been prior to the advent of science either; the reality shift could include all records and memories that might hint at the underlying, young flat created earth reality. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/26 "2008-02-15T01:03:50Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] Work “just as well”? [Are you kidding?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_geometry) [/QUOTE] Why would he be? The conventional view in physics is that our universe _is_ non-Euclidean, with mass corresponding to curvature according to general relativity. The surface of the Earth is non-Euclidean too, but it certainly looks Euclidean at a first glance, given the insignificant difference between the two on small scale measurements. The Pythagorean theorem may not be strictly true on the Earth’s surface, but it gives fantastic approximations for most purposes. That sorta thing. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/27 "2008-02-15T01:06:19Z")
[QUOTE=prleone] Oh, 10,000, 2,000, Adam, Eve, yadda yadda. Pick your favorite number-- at least one that corresponds with the age of the Earth and the age of the human race. \*So, did you even read the OP? \* Yes. [/QUOTE] That’s not even right in Biblical terms. Moses was supposed to have written his four books, which was way after Adam and Eve. They were really written much later. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/28 "2008-02-15T01:23:14Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] Why would he be? The conventional view in physics is that our universe _is_ non-Euclidean, with mass corresponding to curvature according to general relativity. The surface of the Earth is non-Euclidean too, but it certainly looks Euclidean at a first glance, given the insignificant difference between the two on small scale measurements. The Pythagorean theorem may not be strictly true on the Earth’s surface, but it gives fantastic approximations for most purposes. That sorta thing. [/QUOTE] Sure, sure. But the way I read it, he was saying that if you couldn’t make _precise_ measurements, it _didn’t matter_ what system of geometry you were using. Which is the same thing as saying that geometry can’t be applied to the real world at all, given that it’s not too hard to think up some pretty odd geometries. Now, I admit I might be misunderstanding him, but I still think an astonished response was in order. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/29 "2008-02-15T01:25:21Z")
Ah. Yeah, I can see where he could’ve worded his post more clearly, but I think he was just noting that all the usually considered non-Euclidean geometries are still “Euclidean in the small limit”. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/30 "2008-02-15T12:45:20Z")
[QUOTE=Enola Straight] Premise: God exists and is responsible for the creation of the universe. God Created The Ten Comandments…AND the perfect, unbreakable laws of chemistry, based upon perfect, unbreakable laws of physics, based upon perfect, unbreakable laws of mathematics. One one side, we are presented with Truth written in a Book, on the other side, we are presented with Truth written into the very substance of Creation itself. How can one be wrong? [/QUOTE] What you call truth written in a book is the writings and idea of some human. Moses is not even regarded as a historical person so we can doubt that he spoke to a God. One can only go on faith that a God exists. Strange but nowdays if some one says God spoke to him or her we consider them a bit balmy! There are things in the Bible that can be proven to not be true. Monavis ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/31 "2008-02-15T18:07:32Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] Not at all - the bible has always conflicted with observable reality. If the romans were too lazy to dig for dinosaur bones, that’s not God’s problem. Also, the premise of option 2 is that the bible is accurate and the reality (or our perception of it) has been merely distorted to give false evidence about the universe, leading us to the beliefs supported by science today. (It’s the “reality is wrong” option, to mirror the “the bible is wrong” option 3.) So, because the bible was still being _written_ in roman times, it seems reasonable to deduce that at the time, the world actually _was_ as the bible describes (created 6000 years ago, no evolution whatsoever, flat earth, etc), and that the ‘reality shift’ occured some time more recently. It need not have been prior to the advent of science either; the reality shift could include all records and memories that might hint at the underlying, young flat created earth reality. [/QUOTE] Where does it say in the bible that the earth is flat, or where the earth is 6000 years old? I didn’t see it. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620/32 "2008-02-18T03:57:55Z")
[QUOTE=the raindog] Where does it say in the bible that the earth is flat, or where the earth is 6000 years old? I didn’t see it. [/QUOTE] Well good, but there are [some](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth#In_the_Early_Christian_Church) who see the former and [plenty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology) who see the latter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-vs-biblical-creationism/437620.md?page=1)