My point, however, was not that supermegaman was lying; on the contrary, I think he’s sincere about his beliefs and he’s just repeating lies that he heard from someone else, believing them to be true.
My question is more fundamental than that. It was how he figures out which things are worth believing in and which aren’t. Because there’s no way that a person can actually care about believing true things and spew the crap he did in the OP.
Supermegaman, before you are armed well enough to discuss this matter, a visit to talkorigins.org would be a good idea. In the FAQ, you will find such Q & A that directly addresses some of your questions:
It may look fascinating to you, but that’s because you haven’t taken as many spins around the sun as some of us have, and you haven’t investigated the literature as thoroughly. You are also taking a religious site’s word for what evolution is, and they don’t even define it correctly. They are often arguing against positions that science never took, and never will. What sense does that make?
Did you know that some of the claims on that “fascinating” site have been around since at least the 1930’s? I have a book, published by the Moody Bible Institute, which includes many, all of which have long been refuted. This hasn’t stopped the ignorant, true believers and the wishful thinkers from trumpeting them again and again, but it doesn’t make them any more true, either.
Chacoguy: If it did not, you could not pick your nose. 
The fact that the life exists where it could is not proof of an omnipotent being. Evidence of life existing where it can’t, that would be.
okay, here’s a quick drive-by posting. Please enlighten me on where my ignorance is misguiding me on the “theory” of evolution. I have erred in my thinking and world view obviously and would like a quick, one paragraph explanation, of how life is thought to have formed.
there was a big bang and then…
you see, my version of the ‘big bang’ is a little different than yours. God said, let there be light, and BOOM, it was! it spread out continually, and is still going, and then he continued with creation. That was the first day.
although the one “christian” who tried to chime in is lost on a few things. God didn’t create through evolution. 6 LITERAL days, not billions of years while he just chilled, waiting for that dang monkey to drop it’s tail.
i’ve heard a lot of, “oh you simpleton, you just don’t understand.” but i’ve yet to hear actual knowledge.
(I also like the part where the mod chastised ME on being obnoxious. THAT’S rich, coming from all the vitriol spewed in my direction here!)
“Evolution” doesn’t tell you anything about how life came about. Evolution tells you about the changes in lifeforms due to adaptive radiation moderated by natural and sexual selection. It doesn’t tell you how life started in the first place. That’s a whole different ball of wax. Or something.
Evolution has nothing at all to do with how life first formed.
Ignorance fought.
That’s not part of the formation of life per se, although it was a precursor to it.
There was a big bang and then matter and energy interacted in accordance with the laws of physics to form the universe as we know it, including stars and planets.
(Just to check that we’re on the same page, you’re on board with generally accepted scientific views on the laws of physics, right? I mean, you accept the heliocentric theory of the solar system where the earth and other planets go around the sun, and radiation from the sun warms the earth, and so on?)
Once the earth had formed, then…
and I’ll let one of the other posters more knowledgeable about abiogenesis hypotheses take over from here.
Like a few people have already said and probably several more will say before I hit “Submit Reply,” the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with evolution. Lots of people accept both theories since they’re supported by a wealth of scientific evidence, but they are not actually connected. Darwin’s theory of development and speciation doesn’t require a Big Bang, and the Big Bang doesn’t say anything about what happens to eventual life afterward.
There’s already been some basic scientific information posted in this thread, but I think people are going to be reluctant to spend a lot of time if you continue to flaunt your lack of interest. You’ll learn if you listen. Want to give it a shot?
And what is your evidence for that version? Geology? Astronomy? Physics?
You don’t seem to be particularly receptive, as you’re now using scare quotes around the word “theory”. Evolution is a fact, by the way. There are various theories as to the precise mechanisms of speciation, and such, but evolution is as much a fact as gravity or mass. Further, cosmogenesis and abiogenesis are not part of evolutionary biology. Even if we were to assume that the universe sprang, fully formed, from the brow of Zeus, evolution would still describe and predict the mechanisms behind shifts in allelic frequency within and between populations.
Then you haven’t been listening. You might want to read my posts over again, for example. If you’re particularly interested in abiogenesis, yet again, google proteinaceous microspheres, quite probably the first replicating units in any ecosystem that is protein based. For the Big Bang, there’s more than enough information on the 'net. As we can calculate information about it down to time that’s measured in Planck Seconds, your claim that a divine being just did everything, and that it took a literal six days, is an absurdity akin to believing that thunder is the result of Thor having a drinking binge.
I think I know the answer to this one. 
Seriously, I think if supermegaman is interested in scientific evidence for various hypotheses about the formation of the universe and of life, as his thread title suggests, we should discuss the scientific evidence.
I don’t think anybody disagrees that there’s no known direct scientific evidence of the existence of a deity or supernatural being. The question here is, is there scientific evidence that known phenomena like the existence of matter or the existence of life could not have occurred without the existence of a deity or supernatural being? Or that they can be more efficiently and rationally explained by postulating the existence of a deity or supernatural being?
Speaking as one Christian to another – why do you believe that? It’s contrary to all the evidence in the world that God has given us. Genesis, and the Bible as a whole, can be true without being treated as a science and history textbook. You don’t have to reject science to keep your faith in God.
There is the tradition of the Sabbath to consider. If they weren’t literal days, then shouldn’t the Sabbath last several billion years?
Feh. A nice idea, maybe, but who has time?
For that matter, why does a god have to rest?
By your average churchgoer - sure. But I’m considering the people who wrote this stuff. People like Philip Johnson and Dembski certainly know better. If they had real refutations of evolution, not the pap we find in these web sites, they would use them.
Multiple pieces of evidence - the age of rocks, as measured by radiation, the size of the universe as measured by optical and radio astronomy, and the expansion of the universe all tell us that the universe is very old - and a lot older than our sun. Further, the Big Ban theory makes specific predictions, such as the existence of background radiation from the original universe - and this has been found.
Your hypothesis makes predictions also. We should find no animals older than 6,000 years old. The bones of men should be intermixed with all types of animals. I assume you believe in the Flood. We should find the bodies of all kinds of animals jumbled together. Instead, we find fossils in layers that match those predicted by evolution and geology. Now we can compare the DNA of various species, and see how widely separated they are - and this also supports evolution and a common ancestor. Don’t you think the fact that none of the things creationism predicts are found should make you think twice about it? And who put the fossils in the ground? Wasn’t it God? Why do you believe a book written by people over God’s direct message to us.
Here is evolution described simply - notice it does not involve how life began.
Every animal has children, and those children vary in a number of ways. Children with characteristics that make them more likely to survive to have more children will with greater probability than those with characteristics that make them less likely to survive. Thus, characteristics for survival start to appear with greater frequency. New characteristics get introduced because the replication of DNA is not perfect. Lots of the imperfections will kill the animal, most are neutral, but some will help.
If you separate populations, they will each evolve independently. Before you know it the changes that each undergo will make them incapable of cross-breeding. That is speciation, and once it happens the species will not be able to interbreed even if they get back together.
I raise guide dogs. The very best of a generation get picked to breed. Our last dog did. They get selected for health, willingness to obey orders, and docility. Our god, and her children and her grand-children, would no sooner bite someone than she would fly to the moon. That’s an example of unnatural selection. As for speciation, we have kept dogs as one species, but if we disappeared big dogs would not mate with little dogs for obvious reasons, and before you know it there would be several different dog species which would evolve.
See, it is all very simple, at the highest level. There are all sorts of complications, of course.
What do you think evolution says?
Is that like Godwin’s Law?