Creationism and Evolution Debate

posted on September 26th, 2010, 12:26 pm

I have brought up bacteria and virii before in one of these discussions.  The answer I got back was 'God made them to do that, nothing else.  Everything else is exactly the way God made it in the beginning.'

I personally consider that answer to be a cheap dodge.  I have nothing against the concept that a creator deity (whatever name you want to apply to this deity) set it all in motion, and even nudged it when it was going strange.  But I find the evidence of no change, and 'young earth' to be weaker than the evidence for evolution, plate tectonics, and mass-extinction events.

Of course, I also theorize that Genesis is effectively in parable format.  Trying to explain highly complex things to people who had not yet even developed the 'science' of barbering, much less the medical knowledge to understand organism development, and the understanding of physics to comprehend the rest of the event known as creation.

Before anybody freaks out, it's a theory, not some kind of attack upon the Bible.  I've had that response before.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 12:38 pm

plural of virus is viruses not virii.

we stole virus from latin

virus was pluralised so rarely in latin that no example of it's plural remains. therefore we cannot conjecture about its plural in latin and must use normal english plural rules.

therefore we get viruses not virii, or even worse viri which means men

posted on September 26th, 2010, 1:05 pm

Before anybody freaks out, it's a theory, not some kind of attack upon the Bible.  I've had that response before.

LOL... don't worry, i'm handling the attacks on the bible.

Speaking very generally I think you can classify theists into two extreme categories.  

First off those who accept their holy book as a guide.  Parables and stories that show how you should live.  They don't take it as literal truth.  This position I can accept even if I disagree with their belief in a creator.  These believers also tend to be less outspoken and more accepting of science, probably because for them there is no real conflict.  God works in mysterious ways and if he chose evolution as the method of creating humans then that is fine by them.  Difficult to argue with this position.

On the other hand you have the fundamentalists who believe it is the literal truth.  They use amazing twists of (il)logic to convince themselves that their holy book is correct in all ways.  The convince themselves that the evil acts in that holy book are actually good acts or else that if its done for their god then its ok.  The even can manage to believe several opposing things at once.  They don't like to discuss translation errors (wonderfully parodied in Red Dwarf where Rimmer tells Lister his parents were 7th day advent hoppists, because of a misprint in the family bible). For them the book is perfect and anything that contradicts the bible is wrong.  

Of course its not so simple, you can say there is a third group as well.  You get people in between, and these can be the worst, because, at least you can respect to a certain extent the fundamentalist's position (insane as it may be).  The people in the middle pick and choose which parts they believe are accurate and then say the rest which conflicts is just parable or story.  Trying to pin these people down on what their actual beliefs can be almost impossible.  They find no problem with the concept that they are making up their own religion as they go along. If it agrees with their world view, its accepted, if not, its just a story.  They can be a real pain to debate with.

Here is a great example from Chasers War on Everything:


and this one, its not proving a point just quite funny
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8B4tMhIsPo&feature=related[/youtube]

[TChapman500]

posted on September 26th, 2010, 1:32 pm

Last edited by TChapman500 on September 26th, 2010, 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You cannot mix Creation and evolution.  And if you really want to know what's going on with Creation"ism", you'd read some books on Creation Science and you'll know what's going on.

Creation Science says that God created the universe, and all life on Earth in 6 days.  Evolution says that all life evolved over a period of time with no divine guidance.  Mixing the two is not allowed and won't be accepted by true Creationists or true evolutionists.

By the way, you might want to check this out.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 2:17 pm

Mixing? We just try to understand the evidence for both theories...yes creationism lacks real evidence. Take this creationism page you posted...they bring NOTHING but - in scientific terms - useless OPINION. No experiments, no transparent statistics, nothing. They dont even cite in an acceptable manner (e.g. Science , October 15, 1996). Who is the author? What is the title? NOTHING.

Its just rediculous what creationists do. This happens If you grant ppl in the middle of a large country too much freedom...they start developing strange theories about evolution, 911, election of Obama...everything. Recently you guys even started a political party called Tea-Party...babling even more stupid things.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 2:46 pm

Do I have to tell you every link on that website to click!?  It should be pretty obvious on how to browse that site since everything is right there!  Do I have to point out the "Scientific Evidence for Creation" link on the left sidebar!?  Do I have to tell you to scroll down past the brief summarry of what Creation Science is about!?  Do I have to tell you that you have to click on those links describing various topics!?  Nevermind!  I just did!

posted on September 26th, 2010, 4:03 pm

LOL.. but this entire thread is called Creationism and Evolution, that is what we have been debating for several pages already!

You can mix them on the principle that Creationism does not allow for Evolution, especially the YEC (Young Earth Creationsts/Creationism) which states the earth was created in 6 days roughly 6000 years ago.

The OECs (Old Earth Creationists) at least allow for an earth much older and some of them allow for Dinosaurs and Evolution.  Others stick to the Bible and state God created man as he is today.

So, as a true Evolutionist I say they can be mixed.  If you don't accept that, then you better tell me what we are actually debating here.

You believe all life on earth was created in 6 days?  Fine, i need to ask you some questions.

1) Did the dinosaurs exist?  Were they created by God in the 6 days?
2) If they existed, did Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, and all the rest spend their time hiding in caves hiding from bloody great lizards?  Why were they not mentioned in the bible?  It seems a little strange that f'ing huge lizards were not mentioned (yes, i know about the references to Leviathan etc, which some fundies point to, but really, one lizard reference is not thousands/millions of them roaming all over the place).
3) If they did, then why did Noah not obey Gods command to put two of every animal on the ark?  Or did he?  Bet that was one hell of a logistics problem.  Would have increased the size of the ark somewhat as well.  And who would clean up the Tyrannosaurus excrement?  If he did, what happened to them?  They all went to live in Loch Ness?
4) If dinosaurs were not created by God, the what are all those fossils?
5) How old do you believe the Earth is?
6) What about the 6 days?  Are they literal days, or like some creationists believe, each day is a God day which can be thousands or millions of years?
7) Do you believe the Bible is:
a) the literal truth
b) parables and stories
c) a little from (a) and a little from (b)

I can probably ask you quite a few more questions, but what I am trying to do now is pin down your beliefs so I know where you stand on this whole topic.  If I don't know what your beliefs are then I will have trouble understanding what your evidence that you post is trying to prove.  And of course, once I know your beliefs, i should be able to find some holes through which I could fly a 747. 

posted on September 26th, 2010, 5:41 pm

You cannot mix the theories.  Creation Scientists clearly states that this planet is roughly 6,000 years old.  Give-or-take a century.

To answer your questions:

1.  Dinosaurs did exist at the same time as people and were created within the first week of Earth's existence.

2.  Up until the point of Noah's flood, the only thing that any animal ate were mostly plants.  Some beetle residue was found on the bones of dinosaurs that had died.  They left pretty good markings on the bones though.  There are no direct mentions of dinosaurs in the Bible, but there are descriptions of creatures that match the description of dinosaurs.  Most of the Dinosaurs died out in the flood.  Some baby dinosaurs were on the ark and probably some of the smaller ones, which some of them survived.  They can be found alive today if you know where to look.  But after the flood, Earth underwent a huge physical change and a lot of the surviving dinosaur species died out as a result.

3.  As I said above, most of the dinosaurs that were on the ark were either baby dinosaurs or the types that didn't grow very large.  Some species didn't need to go onto the ark because they were always swimming.  After the flood, the animals scattered to different places and then the Earth.  Some have been found in remote areas of South America, but the rest is still a mystery.

4.  The dinosaurs were created by God.  When the flood started, the waters came in so fast that most of the smaller dinosaurs weren't able to escape to higher ground and were compressed by enormous mud-slides.  Others were able to escape to higher ground to a point, but were also overtaken quickly.  Some have been preserved in some unexpected positions.  Some still have flesh on parts of them that are still elastic.  There are also some trees that have been preserved upright or upside down.  Most of them uprooted by the waters though.

5.  Most Creation Scientists, including myself, believe that the Earth is around 6,000 years old.  Give or take about a century.

6.  The six days that God took are literal days.  The Bible is very clear on that.  When it says that to God, 1000 years is like a day and a day is like 1000 years, it's trying to describe how God sees time.  Kind of like the way we perceive hours when it's only been a few minutes or perceive only a few minutes when it's been hours, but on a much larger scale.

7.  The Bible is absolute truth.  It has parables as examples of what we should do in certain situations or what would happen in certain situations.  Those parables are to make a point.  Like the parable of seeds falling on thorns being choked out, but if they fall on good soil, they flourish.

---

You might have some questions about the geologic changes that I mentioned.  The Creation model states that the pre-flood earth was about 10% smaller in size, producing more gravity at sea level, had a heavier atmospheric pressure as a result of the increased gravity (about 2 atm) and had a magnetic field strength of about 5 Gauss.  About 10 times what it is today.  Although, personally, I think it was about 8 Gauss.  Today it's 0.5 Gauss.  Regardless, the stronger magnetic field allowed a lot of plants and animals to grow bigger than they are today.  Especially the ones that kept growing their whole lives.

There have been experiments based on this model that have come up with very interesting results.  Well, we can't really simulate the gravity, but the pressure and magnetic field strength can be simulated.  We've even been able to make coal, and crude-oil.

Click Here for an article about the magnetic field.
Click Here for an article about the coal I mentioned.
Click Here for an article about carbon dating.
Click Here for another article about carbon dating.
Click Here for an article about mammoths.
Click Here for a brief article about genetic mutations.
Click Here for an article about Earth's unique characteristics.
Click Here for an article of 10 brief explanations on various items.
Click Here to view the links to all of those articles plus many more.  Don't forget to check out other areas of the site to see what's there.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 6:01 pm

Uff ....


  If I had a dinosaur as a pet I would have called it "Boggzilla!!!"  (Since Godzilla is internationally copyrighted)


  [align=center][/align]

posted on September 26th, 2010, 6:03 pm

i'd call mine mozilla.. o wait nm

posted on September 26th, 2010, 6:03 pm

I'd probably call it Steve.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 6:10 pm

Seriously ...
 
  I avoided taking part in this for this reason:  Creationism in my opinion is the result of Faith-based opinions for some reason feeling the need to try and logically rationalize FAITH.  They don't need to do that.  In fact they SHOULDN'T do that.

  The strongest argument that any religion will have for their own explanation of the world's / species' origin is one that is FAITH.  Not science.  Faith.  Creationists seem to have forgotten that very crucial aspect and seek to somehow PROVE what exists only as a matter of faith.  TERRIBLE idea if I were to be asked.


  Evolution is not a theory.  It's an observable phenomenon.  The notion that somehow the origin of the Universe can be explained by evolution is not a common one.  It's one that people like Creationists use to attempt to debunk an observable phenomenon (evolution). 

  Evolution is the reason you get the Flu ever year.  Don't believe in it and you'll still get the flu
  Evolution is the reason penicillin has managed to cure so many ailments.
  Evolution is the reason pigeons have adapted to life in cities.
  Evolution is not something you can say does not exist. 

  It is an observable phenomenon like rain coming from water-saturated clouds, static-electricity building up from walking along a carpet, or that a child who touches a hot stove will know not to do it again. 

  Good luck

posted on September 26th, 2010, 6:23 pm

Oh, and one more thing:

  The reason the dinosaurs stopped chasing Cain and Abel around was beause at one point Adam touched himself at night.

  BOOM.  Dropped like flies.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 6:32 pm

Though I don't have time to respond entirely(sorry loki, i was busy over the weekend and forgot about this thread. ) There is a major difference between microevoluion(something we can observe which does happen in real life.) or macroevolution.(the evolution from man's origin, ect.  Something you can'not observe while it happens/ if it happens.  If you could observe it happening, it would micro- not macro-)  

I believe microevolution is what Boggz is referring to, and as I said, I entirely believe it is real.  It is the phenomenon which darwin himself observed.  If Macro-evolution is something you can observe, there is no way the tarth is 40million years old, or whatever your experance tells you.  I have herd/read at least 10 different 'expert'opinions on the earths age, and I am not sure what the current consensus is.

Oh, and one more thing:

  The reason the dinosaurs stopped chasing Cain and Abel around was beause at one point Adam touched himself at night.

  BOOM.  Dropped like flies.

I'm not even sure what that means.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 6:50 pm

"Microevolution", which PRESERVES a species, IS real.  It does NOT change a species into another species.  "Macroevolution" is NOT real.  Any genetic changes what change the species into another species WILL be fatal.  Did you even look at those links I posted?  If so, then you obviously ignored all of them or you would at least be considering that Creation could be a valid theory.  Plus, you didn't bring ANY evidence that supports evolution.