I think this is the place for an Evolution vs. Creation debate. What do you think?
Certainly is.
The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw…
Omniscient; BAG
Just so long as you realize that this is also a religion vs. science debate.
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Hunter Thompson
These are not mutually exclusive concepts.
“Anything is peaceful from one thousand, three hundred and fifty-three feet.”
That’s an interesting issue in itself. I’ve found the more I look the more I see people fully able and willing to accept totally contradictory ideas at the same time. Orwell’s 1984 is a drastic example of what many of us do all the time–for example, I’ve debated this question with a number of people who said they thought the Bible to be literal and absolute truth, but when I probed further, it turned out there were quite a few rules in the old book they didn’t agree with and didn’t think were true. But this sort of debate very rarely enlightens anyone and usually just makes everyone mad at each other.
So, (depending on what you define “science” as), even if the two concepts are contradictory, I’m sure most of us would have no problem believing in both.
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I, for one, do my best to try to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
I side with El Mariachi. The evolution vs creation debate is only a debate if one insists the answer can only be one or the other. It is entirely possible that in a logical progression both are correct.
“If faced with a contradiction, check your premises. More than likely you will find one of them is wrong” - Fransisco D’Anaconia
To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
BurnMeUp said:
That depends on what is meant by “creation.”
Is it possible to believe that God created the universe (through, for example, a Big Bang) and then used evolution to move us along to where we are now? Yes, of course. Many scientists who are also believers in God feel this way.
But that isn’t usually what is meant when one is talking about “Evolution vs. Creation.” Usually, one is talking about special creation, or a young earth according to Biblical literalism (even some of those creationists who favor an old earth still fight against evolution).
So before we decide if somebody can believe “both are correct,” we have to define exactly what it is that the person is believing.
“Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.”
– Neil Peart, RUSH, “Witch Hunt”
I think that creationism and evolution are one in the same only describe from different points of view.
Darwin describe creation from scientific observation
The Bible described evolution from a point of view that the people who would be reading the bible (at the time it was written)(and yes i know it was written over a peroid of time but it was a time before the masses were educated) were mainly incapable of understanding scientific ideas and thus was written in terms that could be better understood by ignorant masses.
But if you do a quasi side by side comparison of the creation story in Genisis and the basic prinicples of evolution that are (in my mind) amazingly parallel. I dont have the bible in front of my so I’ll be paraphrasing.
The numbers being the bible the letter being evolution
-
In the beginning there was a great void of vast nothingness
A. There was nothing -
God seperated the light from the dark
B. The BIG BANG -
God created the heavens and the earth and the stars above
C. The Universe forms (and is still forming to this day) -
God seperated the waters from the land
D. Planet cooled and watervapor forms and rain starts and voilia the oceans. -
God sperates teh day from the night and “creates” the sun and moon and names teh sky and land etc
E. results of the forming of the solar system etc… -
God creates the fishies in the sea and the animals on the land
F. Now here you have to take into account that evolutionist say that life mostly likely started in the oceans and evolved from there. Although in the bible it doesnt tell of the order in which the animals were created the two theories could be one in the same if you bear in mind again the educational level of the people the bible was originally written for) -
God made the plants
G. evolution says that plants evolved as well
we assume simultanously with animals evolution. There is no time seperation in the bible just the events sequence so here again you have to suppose that in the bible god was listing in a general order to show events that were occuring at the same time. -
Then God makes us…as you’ll notice we are teh last in the list of thing…and in my opinion the last in a series of evolving. were we differ here is that i dont believe we evolved from apes although i do believe we have similar ancestry. I believe that a speicies of mamals was given divine interference in its evolution to allow it to become intelligent and thus in the image of God.
H. man evolved from apes
As much as I’d love to debate such a fun topic, I know it’d be for naught. I can’t change your mind, only you can do that. That’s a general you, not a specific you, BTW.
Instead, I just want to respond to a statement:
Good, currysteph. There’s no need for worry, since your beliefs coincide exactly with general scientific agreement.
Although the phrase “humans evolved from apes” is a common phrase used even in scientific discourse, it is a misnomer; it is just a shorthand way of saying the more accurate, “humans and apes both evolved from a common ancestor.”
So, regardless of your beliefs on god and creation, know that no serious person is asking you to believe that homo sapiens came directly from apes.
~ Complacency is far more dangerous than outrage ~
Humans ARE apes.
Really smart, really bitchen apes. But apes.
Stoidela
Actually organically we’re much more similar to pigs.
Which raises the question to those of you who don’t eat pork, but we’ll just leave that one alone 
To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
currysteph:
You got the order of things a bit mixed up:
The Biblical order of creation has the plants before the sun and moon, i.e., between 4 and 5, not at 7.
Also, the Bible does claim a time separation of “it was evening, it was morning, day n”. Of course, if one wishes, he or she could consider “day” to be allegorical, especially since our definition of day is dependent on Earth’s rotation, which couldn’t have been the basis prior to the fourth “day” according to the Biblical description of creation.
Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@schicktech.com
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
Who says that science and religion cannot coexist? Evolution has been proven to a certain degree (i.e. humans are apes etc.)but the story of creation isn’t meant to be taken literally in the first place. Besides, a step-by-step account of evolution in the bible would take FOREVER!!
Jack thinks we have common ancestors with apes. Jill thinks the world was created in a few days right as the Bible says. here’s the difference: Jack, if he’s come to his belief through the scientific method, will change his mind if he finds enough verifiable evidence to the contrary. Jill, assuming she’s religious, has faith, therefore her worldview is not so flexible (weak?) as Jack’s–she can ignore new evidence, look for ways to twist some of it to her beliefs, or even think two contradictory things to be true at the same time–but she is never required to change. Jack must, if he’s to be a scientist.
That’s why I have a problem with just saying, “which one do you believe in, creation or evolution?” Putting aside the fact that creation can have many different forms, “believeing” is like apples to oranges.
If God himself came down tomorrow and started demonstarting his clay-to-person approach, real scientists would have to investigate and eventually change their models. No matter how many fossils we dig up or genes we trace, someone with religious faith is by definition stuck.
Personally, I prefer the scientific way. Is it wishy-washy? A bit, but it requires a great deal more work to “proove” something than a religious proof. But there still is room for faith–science is good at saing what, but not why. That’s where I see god.
But I could be wrong.
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Existence itself is inherently illogical. Human logic fails at the boundaries. What was before the Universe? What is after death? How can something not exist, then exist, then not exist? What forces of nature govern this? This is the unknowable.
I believe in science. I also believe in God. Together they mesh to answer all my questions. And, ahhh…, some questions I have given up trying to know.
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Burned says: << Actually organically we’re much more similar to pigs.
Which raises the question to those of you who don’t eat pork, but we’ll just leave that one alone >>
Well, actually, I’d say it raises the question to those who DO eat pork… question about cannibobblism.
There are some really strange things in biology.For instance the clotting factors in blood. It’s such a comlicated system (like 10 or so factors) that it’s hard to see how it evolved.
Not everything will ever have an explanation. But it doesn’t need to. You be the jury and decide what evidence to accept.
I don’t believe in creationism, it answers too many questions.
An interesting irony of evolution is that there is no “smoking gun”. Scientists haven’t found the missing link, which means that to believe in evolution, it takes a bit of a leap of faith.
There is really no proof of macroevolution, only micro. After all, when they caught the coelacanth, it hadn’t changed in 100 million years.
(these ideas are paraphrase from Lloyd Pye)
There is really no proof of macroevolution, only micro.
I’ve always loved this arguement.
Let’s apply it to a different concept:
I say that walking’s impossible.
‘Nonsense!’ you say. And take a step.
That’s only a ‘step’ also called ‘micro-walking’. It doesn’t prove that ‘macro-walking’ is possible.
‘Bull!’ you say. You wak across the floor.
That’s not walking. That’s just a series of ‘steps’.
Using it as an arguement against evolution falls down the same way.
‘They couldn’t hit an Elephant from this dist…!’
Last words of General John Sedgwick