Thank you and goodbye
Or a liar for Jesus.
Actually, there are several thories of where it came from. One of the common ones is that it didn’t come from anywhere; there is no energy to account for. Since the energy of the matter and electromagnetic radiation that we see and infer is positive and the energy of the gravitational field associated with all that is negative, it is possible that the two cancel out and the overall energy level of the Universe is zero. The measurements we have been able to make indiate that the energy level of the Universe is approximately zero, so there is no evidence which this theory does not explain.
IOW, the whole universe may be a quantum fluctuation. We see and measure quantum fluctuations (admittedly on a very much smaller scale), and some researchers are now building MEMS devices which use quantum fluctuations to produce usable work.
You ask why scientists “discount the possibility of a Creator.” The assumption implicit in your statement is that scientists must believe that there is no creator. Some do. However even atheists among scientists do not discount the possibility, they simply find that it is not a possibility which allows for examination by the scientific method. For this reason they decline to examine the phenomenon of divine creation.
Science is a method of study. It neither requires nor includes faith, or divine mechanism. That is not a denial of God. It is a recognition that man cannot determine the mind of God, only the processes by which the universe operates. It is you who deny God, you and your creationist companions. You deny that the work of God might exceed your mind’s limits. You insist that He follow your prejudices, and do what you expect. Those to whom you give your loyalty have a history of lies, and fraud more than a generation in the building. And they call these lies the word of God. As science Creation Science is just bad science. But it is far less as faith. It is worse than bad faith, it is the willful self glorification of its proponents as they speak lies in God’s name.
It wasn’t artillery, just honest reporting of the truth. You are not a soldier. You might be a dupe, or you might be a worker in the garden of evil that is called Creation Science. Wake up. Open your heart to God, and your mind to the World. The Lord of the Universe is not threatened by your knowledge and understanding of the world and how it functions, or by anyone else’s. Your enemies are not here, or in a biology lab. Your enemy is in your church, and trying to get into your heart.
God loves you. He loves Apes too. His universe exceeds your perception in every aspect.
Tris
I say they just don’t like the idea of humans being related to monkeys (lemurs, actually); the idea that man is A Very Special Being™ is a critical point of Christian religious propaganda.
Wal-Mart?
Well, R S seems to have slipped into the abyss beyond our grasps, but I’d be curious if he can produce a list of actual scientists who “rule out that a creator put it here”. I know several scientists who are aagnostic; I do not know any who have “ruled out” God. They just point to the fact that “God” does not answer the question in a physical realm, and so they continue to probe that physical universe for further explanations.
Royal Sampler:
I defy you to find an article in the scientific literature that rules out the possibility of a “creator” for the original material of the pre-Big Bang universe.
Despite what your pastor may have washed your brain into believing, scientists do not formally address the idea of a “First Cause” or “Prime Mover” that instigates the Big Bang. In fact, a great many scientists are theists, so there must be ways of reconciling the belief in a supernatural being with the obvious fact of a natural universe.
.
Curious… why did you even bother posting to a forum named Great Debates if you don’t really want a debate? Does the fact that some people refuse to accept the authority of a book of stories written 2000 years ago by sheepherders trouble you? I realize the choice to use your brain to think for yourself is hard, but in my estimation, to do otherwise is slothful and undeserving.
I am not asking for a “rebuttal” – all I’m looking for is an honest answer to a simple question. I’ll repost in the hope that you will address it, or even more unlikely, you will reconsider some of your prejudicial misconceptions. So again – "Why not say – ‘Because God created the universe, therefore we have evolution’? If God can be the creative force that allows you to accept all the other sciences, why do you exclude evolution from your way of thinking?"
But where did Wal-Mart come from?
Sam Wall.
so, was that an example of drive-by creationism, or will we have some answers to the actual questions?
I think the best you can hope for are drive-bys. The alternative is a protracted exchange of witnessing counter-posted against calls for evidence.
Creationism is not science. The people who are proponents, generally cannot handle science. The few scientists who are in the field who actually have bought into Creationism (Michael Behe) are generally too busy to come post on message boards.
Gee, Tom, you sound like you’ve seen something like that around here before . . .
I ought to tell you guys now that until fairly recently, I would have been arguing on the other side of this debate; I’m still as convinced as ever that there’s a God (I have my reasons, believe me), but I’m afraid the creationism thing (which I would have defended to the death) had to go, it’s mental slavery, nothing more, I now wonder whether the big names in ‘creation science’ really believe what they are selling, it seems unlikely.
The theory that evolution proceeds primarily via natural selection (Darwinism) predates scientific explanations for the origin of the elements and the universe itself. Before such theories existed, someone could have argued that the absence of such theories was a weakness in science (but I don’t recall hearing of any such arguments). Now there are such theories, based on copious evidence. How could that possibly be a weakness to evolution? One must suspose that evolution has started to sound so reasonable to everyone, that creation scientists have to reach back for something that they can more easily make fun of, and the cartoon version of Big Bang theories they have come up with is it.
Andy (Christian but not creation scientist).
P.S. Did anyone else notice that Royal Sampler seems to be a Simpsons fan? When Homer became the leader of the Stonecutters, he wasn’t allowed to lose at poker - thus even the lousiest hand won as a “Royal Sampler”.
Love of the Simpsons is truly universal. Of course, I could make a joke about RS’s position and his name, but I’m above that.
Good god, boy, just go ahead and admit that you’re a troll. Who are you, really?
Yeeouch! No thank you. I reject the role.
My own point was that science is limited. To say, “Christianity is limited” would be to suggest it got somewhere.
I made my point less because I wanted to take the side of the creationists than because I’m starting to worry that Reason, and its child, Science, have become a religion, and that religion is becoming as dogmatic and destructive as Christianity. I’m less worried about whether science is right – it will always be right by its logic – than whether it does us more harm than good never to question it.
I’m curious as to whether the scientific method really does improve human lives. Since all systems are true by their internal logic, this strikes me as the best criterion for accepting a system of thought. I’ll probably start a thread on this.
I think Christianity had 2000 years to prove that it doesn’t make human life better, though.
Ah, but racist theories always depend on on group getting to be the human beings, and another are the animals.
In evolution, everyone is an animal. But they are also human beings, in much the same way that a lizard is an animal, but also a lizard. And a lizard and a human being, to state the obvious, are two very different animals. I would say morality is one of the things that sets the human animal apart.
As for the theory of evolution not doing good for humanity, it all depends on what perspective you take. I am, as Royal Sampler would say, an “evolutionist,” and I see the theory of evolution as a source of spirituality.
First of all, it shows us that we’re a part of nature, not above it. That’s a good antitdote for pride. Secondly, it shows that things can and do change, and change for the better, something we tend to forget. Also, since the animals we tend to think of as the most “evolved” – humans, monkeys, dolphins, and whales – tend also to be the most social, I think that says something positive about value of morality in evolution.
Everyone stop getting on Royal Samplers case. I made the mistake of joining in a Pizza Parlour discussion on evolution, and it quickly became clear that there just were people it wasn’t worth arguing with. Given a short time on the SMDB, if I believed what Royal Sampler did, I’d quickly decide you all were hopeless as well. (I mean, come on “Walmart?”)
As for “why do creationists or fundamentalists reject evolution?”, I think there are three main reasons: 1) it’s good propiganda to say that “the government is corrupting your children” 2) the Wildest Bill hypothesis (roughly "if more people weren’t lied to by satan (evolution), more people would be christians. ) 3) many of them really LIKE the ID hypothesis – it fits well with their conversion experience mythos (“blind but now I see” “seek and ye shall find” etc )
Me’Corva