Creationism and Evolution Debate

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 6:58 pm

Please restrain my next time Myles, ok?

you're asking me to do something, but the sentence makes no sense, so i cant do it. clarify what you want and i will do it.

it looks like you are asking me to restrain u next time, unfortunately the only person who can restrain u is u.

although if u do contribute more to this thread i will find another itteration of the o rly meme and post it. ceiling cat is watching

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 6:58 pm

Its so typical for US Americans...no, you are not the only nation...you only think you are the only nation since you DONT KNOW ANYTHING about the world surrounding you. In Germany e.g. there is a law/guidline that creationism and other obsure theories do not belong in public schools. Afaik many other country's public schools only teach evolution theory.

I didn't know that I believed America was the only nation. Thank you for telling me and all Americans that we share this belief.

u didnt close the quote tag so your reply got put inside the quote.

[Anonymous]

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 7:04 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on September 22nd, 2010, 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wow, I am learning things already!   Strike that comment about these debates being pointless.


Dangit Myles, I blame you.


wow, I was ninja'd...


I still blame you Myles for not doing the impossible and restraining the unrestrainable...

I can't really think of anything to post in sorts of pictures, so I"ll post a picture of my own cat.

Hes a little hungover at the moment, but I"ll let you know when he does something interesting again.

Attachments

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 7:17 pm

Are you guys actually derailing this derailment? That's skill, man....that's skill...

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 7:18 pm

derailing is a sport. at least we derail threads, instead of trains, fewer casualties.

nice cat captain zaxxon. mine is my avatar lol.

[Anonymous]

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 7:21 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on September 22nd, 2010, 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, technically it has split off from its origional thread, but I supose we are.  

Yay  I has skills(when combined with the insignificant part of Myles O'brien Wolfers )


Oh, and thanks O'brien, but don't go busting rank. >:(  It clearly says I"m a space cowboy.

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 7:24 pm

o'brien is spelt with an e

and myles is spelt with a y

do you want to be busted down to ensign zaxxon? no? then shaddap

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 7:27 pm

Thats Capitan, Ensign, Space-Cowboy to you!

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 8:16 pm

Thank you for you open-mindedness, it's refreshing.  Most of our logic trails are leading outside the realm of this debate and dying off, but I don't really mind.

Hey, if my mind was any more open my brain would fall out.  Too many drugs in the 90s.
Anyway, its still not clear to me whether we are discussing evolution, the origin of life, or the creation of the universe and M-Class planets or simply the (non)-existence of god.

As for your other points im going to need some citations for a lot of it as Drrrrrrrrrr requested.  I mean, I believe that its quite proven, so i need some links or something to help me see your side of things.

By the way, Darwin's Origin of the Species.. yes he said a lot of things that he wasn't sure of.  Sorry to screw this point for you though but the theory of evolution did not stop with Darwin.  He laid the foundations but you have to remember he was one of the pioneers... a lot of things were still a mystery to him and he couldn't explain everything.  Even today we are still refining the theory although the basics are pretty much solid.

If you take a course in logic, you will be taught that on a fundamental level, before any evidence is given, P and !P have the same logical strength.  Before evidence, the postulation "there is no god" has the exact same strength as the postulation "there is a god." 

I know my logic quite well thanks.  However, if you take this position then I will use the Flying Spaghetti Monster as my counter.  I agree, God exists, it is the FSM.  He brought us the good word of large amounts of pasta shall be bequeathed to all.  All praise the FSM and his noodly appendages.  Sorry, what's that?  The FSM was just made up and only a few years ago?  I'm sorry but you are wrong, the FSM has existed since before time, it was only recently he chose to reveal himself to humanity in all his saucy glory through his prophet Bobby Henderson.  People who do not follow the ways of pastafarianism will burn in a pastaless hell for all eternity. Now, prove me wrong.  Or prove that P=NP 

Also, the sentiment "Islam and Christianity are the same, with the same god" is an outright lie, propagated by people who have no intention of studying either. 

I'm sorry, but I have studied all major religions and several others as well.  As you may guess I'm quite a fan of the Nordic religion.  I even took the time to read the bible, old and new testaments, even read that whacky Revalations... i think St John the Divine was inspired... by a large quantity of mescaline.  And I really have to disagree with you on this one.  All three religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) worshiped the same god, with some small differences that grew over time.  Christianity itself came directly out of Judaism... Jesus was born a Jew, it doesn't get more clearer than that.  Islam accepts Jesus as a prophet, they diverge because they do not accept him as the son of Yahweh.  Islam apparently speaks well not only of the Torah, but also the Gospels (understandable if the accept Jesus as a prophet) so still showing a close link.
It is the same God... call him Yahweh, Jehova, or Allah, you simply can't wish this one away.

Did you know in ancient Spain when the Moors held it, the allowed the Jews and the Christians to remain free people (although of lesser status) while "pagans" were indentured or became slaves?  The Islamic overlords referred to the Christians and Jews as "people of the book", acknowledging that it was the same god.

It gets better, there is quite a bit of evidence to show that the god of the bible grew out of earlier desert gods and picked up a lot of its stories straight from Babylonian or Sumerian mythology.

A good read on this is the wikipedia article for Yahweh, if you scroll down a bit you can read about the early history of Yahweh, its quite fascinating.

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 8:43 pm

Okay, from a standpoint that neither confirms or denies the existence of a Creator.

On one side, you have evolutionists screaming that there is no Creator and that anything that opposes evolution is mere religion.  Evolutionists also claim that creationists are fabricating their evidence to support their theory as a last stand as science takes over.

On the other side, you have creationists screaming that there is a Creator and that evolution doesn't allow opposition and therefore is not real science.  Creationists also claim that evolutionists are fabricating their evidence to support their theory as a last stand as science disproves evolution by a land slide.

Then, you have on one side, evolutionists using what they perceive as "bad design" as evidence for evolution.  And on the other side, creationists using the same thing as "the perfect design" as evidence for creation.

That giraffe for instance, loki used it to say that a designer wouldn't have made the nerve that way.  I used the same thing to say it helps with communication between the brain and different parts of the body.  To me, it looks like a ring topology of a network.  Even though that network topology is considered out-dated, the ring topology prevents data collisions on the network and is one of the most efficient and easy topologies to set up.  Also notice my analogy to a computer network.

---

I'm going to give a few quotes from The Case for a Creator that hopefully should be convincing.  At the very least, it should make you think before saying anything.  And notice that this time, I brought backup!

Chapter 5, page 93, quote 1:

Set aside the many competing explanations of the Big Bang; something made an entire cosmos out of nothing.  It is this realization -- that something transcendent started it all -- which has hard-science types ... using terms like 'miracle.'
- Journalist Gregg Easterbrook

That just about sums it up for the beginnings of the universe.  "Miracle" is the key word here.  Nothing else describes it better!  No naturalistic explanation has answered the question or ever will answer the question of how it all got started.

On page 95, it says:

Maybe Edward Milne was right when he capped his mathematical treatise on relativity by saying:  "As to the first cause of the Universe ... that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him."

The word "Him" refers to the Creator.  You can try to explain everything away, but you'll never explain it all until you allow the Creator into the explanation.  Trying to debate a cause without a Creator could very well get you laughed off of the stage.

---

In earthquake prone areas, the fossil record may be damaged because of the crust fracturing, but that is identifiable because of the layers not lining up and working around it is easy if you know what you are doing.  In other areas that are not prone to earthquakes, there are nearly perfect layers one on top of the other.  That wouldn't happen if dust was collecting on the planet.  You won't even find evidence of animals digging up those perfect layers whether it's to bury food or to take shelter with the exception of the top-most and bottom-most layers.  In-between you've got poly-straight fossils that have been compressed by a huge force and trees that span hundreds of layers that have obvious signs of mud flowing around them.  All pointing towards a global flood.

If you google "Creation Evidence", you'll find a whole lot of information that points towards a Creator.  And, you might want to try this link.  You might also want to check out a book titled "Evolution:  The fossils STILL say NO!"  Even without the first book, it brings up very interesting points about the fossil record.

And, remember, anything that evolutionists can use to prove evolution, creationists can use to prove creation.  That argument can go both ways, but more than 95% of the evidence points towards a Creator.

---

I think that arguments like this do gain ground as long as evidence is provided.  Read "The Case for a Creator" and you'll see just how much ground Creation has over evolution.  In the long run, Creation Science IS winning.

---

You can't link the Bible to any myth as an origin for the Bible.  But you can link the origin of some myths to the Bible.  The Bible is the absolute truth.  So you can't discredit Creation through science, so you're trying to discredit it through disproving the Bible?  If you can't do it through science, you'll try to do it through religion?  Well, I can already tell you that it won't work.  The fossil record alone proves the Bible to be true.  Historical events prove that the Bible is true.  The fact that certain cultures don't even exist anymore prove the Bible is true.  Don't even think of trying to discredit absolute truth!

Islam does not worship the same god as Christianity or Judism.  They claim it's the same god because we both only have one god.  But the god of islam isn't even close to the God of the Bible.

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 9:46 pm

Oh my... sorry TCR but that entire post was simply full of fail.  You almost started well, but then dropped the ball when you said anything opposing evolution is religion.  No, only religion is religion.  As i said earlier creation science is bad science because it developed the answer first then goes looking for the "evidence".  Hypothesis can arise that oppose evolution, but so far none have risen to the challenge... apart from creation science.

Search for "creation evidence" and you will find lots of evidence. Well of course you will!  Do a search for "flat earth evidence" you will find that as well.  Search for "debunking creationism" you will find a lot of that as well.

What you need to do (and I have done this) is read both sides and see what you believe.  If you presume god then you will probably be self biased towards creationism because it matches your world view, and if you do not believe you will favour evolution because of self bias as well.  The hard part for all humans is overcoming our internal biases and judging evidence on its own merit.

The reason I come down on the side of evolution is because creationism has to overcome not just biological evidence but also evidence from many different areas of science such as geology, paleontology, and half a dozen other -ologies.  Each pointing to evolution and earth that is approx 4500 million years old and could have occurred naturally without divine intervention.

Occam's razor says entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.  If god is not required then why add him?

Chapter 5, page 93, quote 1:That just about sums it up for the beginnings of the universe.  "Miracle" is the key word here.  Nothing else describes it better! 

So, quoting from a book called "The case for a creator" is a reliable source?  Interesting.  No bias in this book then?  So someone said that the Big Bang was a miracle?  Wow, i agree, it was one hell of a miracle, but it doesn't have to be supernatural.  Miracles happen all the time without a god, its just people's perception that determines whether they choose to attribute the event to a divine source.

No naturalistic explanation has answered the question or ever will answer the question of how it all got started.

My bold for emphasis.  You are pretty sure of yourself here.  I would say it is highly problematic for science to prove what started it as looking back to the big bang is looking back in time, and we can't see anything before the big bang.  However, maybe in the future we will find a way, or possibly find a way to make a new big bang, and this time we will be the creators.  And even if we never find an answer to the question, simply inserting "god" does not make it true.

On page 95, it says:The word "Him" refers to the Creator.  You can try to explain everything away, but you'll never explain it all until you allow the Creator into the explanation.  Trying to debate a cause without a Creator could very well get you laughed off of the stage.

I'm certainly laughing.  This is not evidence or even a supporting statement.  Things happen all the time without a creator.  Tides rise and fall (effect) because of the moon and sun (causes) exert gravitational pull on our oceans.  Where is god needed in this equation?  You think God sits there making the tides?  So,  like the before statement, we don't know what caused the big bang (assuming the big bang is the correct model) but it could be a natural cause, not a supernatural one.

Basically i'm done dealing with these sort of arguments.  Either you claim god is the answer to all life's unknowns (and then when science finds a solution you either say "ooops" or refuse the evidence) or else you say, "ok, we don't know yet, but lets wait and see".

I'll say it once more.  If all our ancestors sat back and accepted god(s) as the explanation for everything then we wouldn't even be having this discussion because there would be no internet, no computers, no weapons of mass destruction, very little technology good or bad, because most of our technology came from people saying things like "well, i know the weather god is responsible for lightning... but it seems like powerful stuff, i wonder if we can somehow harness it"

God cannot be the default answer to any of the questions of the universe until such a being is proven to exist, and even then god could say "Humans?  No, had nothing to do with them.  Have you seen their recurrent langryal nerve?  I would never have designed something so crap.  They evolved themselves from base chemicals you know... quite amusing actually".

In the long run, Creation Science IS winning.

Really, not what I see.  Creation Science is treated as a joke by most people I talk to.  I guess it depends on who you know.  A matter of perception.

You can't link the Bible to any myth as an origin for the Bible.  But you can link the origin of some myths to the Bible.  The Bible is the absolute truth.  So you can't discredit Creation through science, so you're trying to discredit it through disproving the Bible? 

What?  There is quite a lot of evidence for the older bible stories having their origins coming from earlier religions.  Abraham himself came from Ur of the Chaldeans where they worshipped El and Yahweh was one of the 70 sons of El and given responsibility over the tribe of Israel. Abraham had to leave Ur because his views on religion did not go down well with his peers.
Sorry, but are I can't attack the bible to discredit creation?  Erm, but the whole premise of creationism is based on the bible.  If the bible is a foundation for creation science (and it is... look at all those attempts to prove a global flood happened at the time of Noah) then attacking one can weaken the other. I claim valid target.  Hell, Young Earth Creationists used the bible to determine the age of the earth to be just over 6000 years old.

Islam does not worship the same god as Christianity or Judism.  They claim it's the same god because we both only have one god.  But the god of islam isn't even close to the God of the Bible.

I just dealt with this bull.  The god of Islam is the same god, please, for the love of all that is holy natural, please, go and do some research on Islam, Judaism, and presumably your own religion Christianity.  Just by accepting that the first 5 books of the bible are the same you have to (theoretically) admit its the same god.  How the belief evolved later did indeed diverge and both sides claim to have the right of this, but its the same origin.

If you now claim that Yeshuah is the real God because that was revealed in the NT then I have to say, if newness comes into it then Islam beats Christianty because according to the Baha'i branch of Islam they say Mohammed was the last incarnation of Allah (their name for Yahweh) so that beats Yeshuah by several centuries in terms of newness.

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 10:17 pm

I don't quite know how to respond to you, Drrrr, so I'll simply try to clarify your points.

1. the descriptive attribute "everywhere" makes the statement "god exists" less likely to be true?

2. you want me to list evidence why the fossil record does not support evolution?  I just did that, in the last post.  It's now your job to explain why it does.

3. You want me to explain why the law, "over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential tend to balance out in an isolated physical system." is talking about a linear process?  Well, the energy starts in one point, say, the center of the earth, and it moves outward toward places with less energy, or outer space.  That's what the Second Law of Thermodynamics states, if you took a thermodynamics course and didn't learn it, you should probably ask for your money back.  Then go take an Engineering Physics course

4. You want me to cite sources that micro-evolution causes genetic loss?  Ask any animal breeder anywhere, it's not uncommon knowledge, nobody contests this.  Mongrel animals often produce traits unique to purebreds, but purebreds never produce new genetic traits, they simply have the ones they were carefully limited to.

5. So, you are telling me that I got my information out of some random guy's book.  I guess it's probably in a book somewhere, and if you chose people at random you'd eventually get the author.  What's your point? Can you tell me what "context" my arguments are SUPPOSED to be in? Would any sane person read my posts and say that they're too complex to understand? Perhaps they're only too complex for you, personally.

6. YOU want ME to bring some "evidence and hard-facts?"  So far in this debate you haven't actually opposed any evidence I've brought.  You have done nothing but ignore what I have said, then complain that I'm not saying anything worthwhile.  Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" would be more convincing.

I've been treating this thread like a formal debate, but you either don't know how to debate or, more likely, you feel yourself so superior to others that you don't WANT to debate them, you simply want to insult them.  So if this thread is a debate, then I have obviously won my point and you have lost.  Unfortunately, I'm now realizing it isn't a debate, it's me being trolled by an infant-minded person.  Which means I lose.  Dangit.  :sweatdrop:

Although the debate with loki is fun, I hope it can continue.

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 11:08 pm

When I first saw this thread, I thought that ewm90 started it .

Seriously though, did anyone here stop to consider that it could be both? What's to say it isn't?

posted on September 22nd, 2010, 11:29 pm

I wouldn't be surprised, frankly, to find out that what we think of as the universe is purely the result of someone testing their version of 'infinate monkeys with infinite typewriters'.  Or if it was random chance purely.

Of course, I'm not emotionally invested in it.  I'm just curious.  Doubt I'll live to see the answer, of course.  That's probably several millenia away for us, if we don't nuke ourselves out before then.

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 1:05 am

Loki, you have IGNORED EVERY BIT OF EVIDENCE THAT WE HAVE BROUGHT!  You have ignored reference after reference after reference saying in each case that evolution is correct without even stopping to consider the fact that evolution just might be wrong!  I have just about lost my patience with you!  And frankly, I think you are only posting to destroy this thread, which you have already done!  You have not made a single valid case at all!  If you want to debate, that's fine!  But bring something other than these suggested searches to say that everything opposing evolution is a lie!  You have not brought one shred of evidence to support evolution!  NOT ONE!

Megaman, if you are talking about theories that a Creator had an involvement in the origins of the universe, then let evolution take over, no Creationist in his/her right mind would go for it.  Creation Science is all about a Creator having full involvement in the creation of the universe and the origins of life.  Evolution is all about everything happening spontaneously without any supernatural guidance.  You can't have both.

Silent93, you just made the best point in this thread.  I knew of that analogy actually, but I forgot it.  I think it was from a show called "Expelled!  No Intelligence Allowed".