Can’t resist a challenge…
I believe that the world was created by God.
In 4,600,000,000 BC.
In approximately .00000000000000000001 nanoseconds.
And that all species came into existence by His will.
Through evolution from already extant species.
There…THAT ought to get somebody arguing!
Tom:
You’ve got that right! I’ve read more creationist literature than most creation believers have!
Which reminds me… I occasionally, and used to frequently, listen to Christian radio. I also do the same with right-wing radio, even though I am neither a Christian, nor right wing. Why? So I can get an accurate picture of what “the enemy” so to speak, has to say. I don’t want my information filtered through the eyes of people who disagree, I want it stright from the source. Then I know exactly what it is I’m disagreeing with. It’s only fair.
Stoid
I am #1. Everyone else is #2 or lower.
Stoidela, you say you listen to Christian radio to find out what the enemy is up to.
Do you really consider Chistians your enemy?
What about Jews & Buddists, are they your enemy too?
Keep in mind not all Christians are intolerent or insecure as you appear to believe.
For the Record, I have read Stephen Gould, Carl Sagan,and all of James Randi’s books! ;)I believe in creation by Faith.
From Stoid’s post:
See the quotation marks, kknick34? See the words, so to speak? Those things signify that the word “enemy” is not being used literally, but rather in a humorous or flippant manner.
(Some people need an explanation for everything. Sheesh!)
Yes, and most of us recognize that that day was a hundred and forty years ago.
Mike King:
Please don’t think that Christian = creationist. I consider myself Christian, but not creationist in the literal sense. I tend to follow Pollycarp’s way of thinking. I will ignore all attempts to sway my belief one way or the other.
To clarify, I should’ve put the last sentence in my post in a separate paragraph.
Polycarp wrote:
Okay, I’m with ya so far.
Whoa, there! As far as I know, all the evidence points to an Earth that took hundreds of millions of years to form, from the first few dust grains coalescing together at what would later be its center of mass to the point when the planetessimal bombardments had slowed enough to let the surface cool.
Oh, and some time during this process, the sun lit up.
I’m not flying fast, just orbiting low.
Yeah, tracer, I’m with you on that one. I left the nanosecond thing alone because I wasn’t exactly sure what Polycarp was refering to.
Sorry, folks. 10^-43 nanoseconds = creation of Universe X million years = creation of (planet) Earth.
However, the instructions on how long to cook, say, non-instant pudding do not include the cooling time. You going to hold God (or the forces of Nature) to something that you don’t expect of Betty Crocker?? 
Dramatic environmental events cause some organisms to die and some to continue to live based on the characteristics that distinguish them from other organisms. This is the basis for how evolutionary changes occur.
Is there a consciousness who (or more traditionally, Who) decides when these dramatic events are to occur? Did this consciousness decide my windshield would crack yesterday? Did it decide to slip a geological fault around Turkey a few weeks ago?
Is there purposefulness behind its decisions?
Hey, aren’t you supposed to be at work?
I asked this in another post,but I’ll try again. Apes and man are different genetically by roughly 2%. In what ways? Are there any other species which cannot intermate,which are also that close alike? Thank you.
vanillaice, I can’t specifically answer your question, but here’s something for you to consider. (I discovered this wonderful example in Richard Dawkins’ book, “Climbing Mount Improbable.”)
In fruit flies, there is a gene which controls the development of the eyes. If this gene is “turned off,” the fly will not develop eyes. Just for kicks, scientists took the “eye” gene and spliced it into the sequence elsewhere. Sure enough, eyes developed on the fruit fly other than in the normal places. Legs, backs, whatever. (I don’t recall if they were functioning eyes, but I doubt it.)
It so happens that scientists have also located the gene that controls the development of the eye in mice. The took the mouse eye gene and spliced it into the fruit fly gene sequence. Know what? Same result–eyes in various places. Know what else? They were fruit fly eyes, not mouse eyes.
This is a pretty good testament to a basic level of genetic similarity among all creatures that have DNA. The fruit fly instructions can come across a gene from a completely different kind of creature, recognize what the gene does, and use its own material to still build the proper kind of eye. Pretty amazing.
This reminds me of something I’ve thought about recently re: separate creation.
If God were to create all the animals separately, why wouldn’t he just create each in a manner perfect for itself? Meaning, for instance, snakes. Snakes have 2 of everything most of us have 2 of: lungs, gonads, kidneys. However, in snakes, only one is normal sized and fully functional. The other is smooshed and nearly useless (as far as I understand it. Seems to me pretty obvious that this is an adaptation from an earlier form, and if they were separately created they would simply have special snake-organs, perfectly made for the body of a snake. No fuss, no muss, no extras.
Naked mole rats: why have eyes if you’re blind?
Flightless birds: why have wings, why have feathers? Those two things are meaningless unless you fly.
The list goes on…
I am #1. Everyone else is #2 or lower.
FTR, I am an atheist. Keep that in mind when perusing the following.
First of all, why all the vitriol? There seems to be somewhat of a trend on this message board to jump all over anyone who expresses a “Christian” viewpoint with very little provocation. I think it should be kept in mind that an individual’s beliefs are benign - it is only the action which is taken pursuant to these beliefs which impacts on others. If I choose to believe that the moon is made of green cheese despite all scientific evidence to the contrary, and can not be persuaded otherwise, who am I hurting? Why should anyone care that I continue to hold this irrational belief despite having the evidence which disproves it presented to me? If this belief somehow comforts me, why should anyone interfere?
Even taking action to propogate my belief is not, in itself, problematic. Anyone who does not hold this belief is free to present evidence disputing it. I like to believe (and my lurking on this board tends to confirm) that most people are rational, intelligent, and capable of coming to sensible conclusions based upon the facts available to them.
I do have a problem with individuals or groups who disseminate their own beliefs while suppressing evidence contrary to these beliefs, which seems to be a potential result of the recent Kansas school board decision. However, barring this, I see no reason to get so angry at people who, in a forum such as this, profess a belief which may or may not have a basis in fact or science. Feel free to state and support your position, and leave it at that.
Another question might be, why do so many atheists care that someone chooses to “shut their eyes”, so to speak, and hang onto a belief which makes their life a little bit easier or more comfortable?
Live and let live.
Katmandu, one of the reasons is that they clog up the message board with questions they don’t wish to hear the answers to. This is a deception I can’t abide, and thus attack. If we do not openly and fervently respond, others new to the board may think that another viewpoint exists. They have too many unchallanged forums as it is; this will not be another if I can help it.
Couple of points on that last series of posts:
> Most Christians who are regulars on this board are at least willing to listen to the other side, even if they disagree. Case in point is Adam (ARG220). I bring a quasi-scientific viewpoint to my dealings with the world: I believe in God based on (subjective) evidence sufficient to me. At present I have more evidence for the existence of God than for that of the Sombrero Galaxy. I am aware that my subjective evidence is not sufficient to convince someone else of the point, and I’m not trying to do so. I am not interested in denying the evidence of nature on the basis of my interpretation of a Book that matters to me but may not to most everyone else. I am interested in integrating what I learn of nature and humanity into a world-view that does include God (and the Sombrero Galaxy).
A Christian feels compelled to “lead others to the Lord” for several reasons: (1) he has made a commitment to accept as Lord someone who gave instructions to all his followers to do so. (I realize how close that comes to “I was just following orders” but I’m not done yet.) (2) he has found a satisfaction and joy in his Christian life that he out of common humanity wants to have others have opportunity to feel as well. (3) On the view of most Christians, those who deny God are metaphorically walking towards a cliff that they cannot see or have blinded themselves not to see, and they feel compelled to at least warn the others that there is indeed a cliff there, and here is the Way down it safely.
Now, total disclosure: I do not think I have all the answers about this. The God I believe I know would not have dreamed up ichneumon wasps and their fun way of reproducing, nor would he have let Jeffrey Dahmer do his thing. I feel it is my job to be a good Christian before you as a way of witnessing to what a Christian can be. I do not believe that any Bible-pounding or assertions of what God demands you do are going to do the slightest bit of good. But if my lucidly (I hope) presenting my world view punctures a rationalization that bolsters your atheism, then I’ve done some good towards what I’m expected to do. (Comment from a wise Christian: “Agnosticism is reasonable. Atheism is an act of faith.”)
At the same time, when I see Christians behaving unchristianly towards others, it’s also my task to call them up short, and if possible mediate. And while I’m at it, I’m also a fan of trivia generally and the stuff the Straight Dope deals with in particular, and I’m having a great time exchanging ideas with like-minded people (like-minded=trivia freaks).
I do not care to “troll” except when I’m really interested in hearing both sides of a question (as I did in posting the Second Coming and forgiveness of sins questions on this board). I learned a lot about the Jewish view from the latter…shalom, Akiva!
If I am in any way in violation of what you expect me to be, given these conditions, then let me know. I know the difference between a fact, a theory, a hypothesis, an opinion, and a belief, and I try to express each as what it is.
Stoidela:
I haven’t bothered to respond to this thread, because it seemed like an open call for religion-bashing rather than a question intended to start a debate. However, the “vestigial organs” bit doesn’t prove anything. Just to take two of your three examples (I don’t know much about naked mole rats):
The Bible does seem to acknowledge that snakes are not in an ideal form. It says (or at least implies) that the snake originally had legs and that it was made to crawl on its belly as a punishment for tempting Eve and Adam to sin; presumably all other non-ideal organs in a snake follow from that.
Feathers (or fur) are necessary for insulation in warm-blooded creatures; upper appendages are necessary for balance in bipeds, and in penguins, their flipper-like wings make them excellent swimmers.
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
CM:
But aren’t these adaptations of forms intended for other uses? And just how warm does an ostrich need to be on the veldt? (I love that word).
And I wasn’t calling for religion-bashing, I merely wanted to point out the underlying and obvious weakness of the creation argument. As I have stated over and over and over again: it does not require an abandonment of faith in God’s creation to accept that He used the mechanism of evolution to do it with. Go ahead and believe with all your heart, I shan’t judge or deride you. Just don’t let your belief make you blind or ignorant. There is nothing in this world to disprove the existance of God (setting aside the fact that it is impossible to prove that anything does NOT exist, only that it DOES.) and for myself, no reason to try. But the whole creation/evolution thing has heated up lately because of the Kansas decision, which to me and to most reasonable people, is a real shame, in the truest sense of the word. It is a matter of shame that in 1999, an American state can shun truth and science in the service of (insecure) religious pressure. It’s a shame and it’s shocking. And frankly, it pisses me off.
Stoid
I am #1. Everyone else is #2 or lower.