Genesis and The Big Bang

[Wisp]

 

Do you really think when it was first written everyone gathered in church and discussed the symbolic importance of things? No. Would fundamentalism be so widespread until recently if it hadn't been even more widespread in the first place? No.

 

 

Just because you say no at the end of your sentences, does NOT make it so. So when trying to insult my intelligence do not assume I did not read your post. I read it, and a simple no does not justify a change in the religious story. When it was first written, I am confident they discussed the symbolic importance assuming it was meant to be taken metaphorically.

 

----

 

Too many people are reading the topic title, then replying. It's gone on too many pages to construct a continous arguement, and those that are still attempting to argue are ignoring my points and not really reading. One minded views with no room to listen to others. I am attempting to take in advice and new points I was unaware of, but anything I digest and throw back is discarded.

 

I'm out of this heated topic, I don't have the energy.

 

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, you really do come across as either not reading or not understanding my posts. I had a quick read through your posts here and most seem to have already been disputed, or lead to nowhere.

 

They were questions I answered in hopes that you would answer them, which you haven't elaborated on.

 

Why else would fundamentalism be so widespread? I would have thought it would have been squashed during the crusades like everything else the church disagreed with.

 

What is symbolic about jesus saying all prayers will be answered, but apparently only some of them are? What is symbolic about the world being created in 7 days in relation to evolution. I could ask those questions to 50 different Christians and get 50 different answers. You can take pretty much anything from it using your imagination. Why not just invent your own religion entirely?

 

You can spout elitist symbolic theories, but they aren't going to be consistent with the next Christian, and occam's razor is always going to be better.

 

 

By occam's razor, do you mean "when you have two competing theories that have the same solution, the simpler one is the better." As that is not really what occam's razor is about. It is really talking about how "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" In other words, as both of these theories are equal in scientific merit, since both are theories, the one which should be accepted is the one which demands the fewer assumptions. Since it is far easier to assume that a supernatural being whom we have no proof of created everything, rather than that matter at one time came into existence, compacted, exploded, and produced everything, and since then never comes into existence anymore, then I believe that Occam's Razor supports the Genesis account.

So your saying you don't support scientific reasoning because something came from nothing. Where did god come from?

The whole genesis story, all the tales about god and religion in various scriptures definitely make quite a few assumptions.

 

EDIT:

That is micro evolution. You can change a big dog into a little dog, but not a dog into a horse.

What's the difference?

Nothing, other than more time.

There is a huge difference between micro and macro. A big dog changing into a little dog yes, but it is still a DOG. Not a horse. There is no evidence of macro, whilst there is of micro. You used a straw man. That is like saying there is no difference between a orange and a apple but taste.

Pretty sure that's not a straw man argument.

I meant the difference in changes. Either way, I don't think anyone thinks dogs evolved into horses so that's irrelevant. What you can take is what is considered the common ancestor and trace that. Lots of micro changes add up to macro.

 

No, they don't. You see, whilst micro can be proven, macro can not. Never has a dog changed into a horse, even with alot of time. That is why we have so many dog breeds, but not half dogs-half horses. Before I debate more on this argument, look at the difference between the two. Look them up. You will see how different they are.

Way to ignore half my post. I'm not saying dogs evolved into horses.

How are you talking about proof when your proof is that some book said god chucked some animals onto the planet after making them out of clay.

 

As well, no origin theory can have more "proof". It all comes down to faith, even the Big Bang. However, other parts of the Bible are far more verifiable than any other religious book, not to mention the Bible has never been disproven, and that also stands for it.

 

Than any other religious book? Prove it.

The difference between the big bang theory and the bible is that one takes evidence, looks at everything possible, and then makes the most logical assumption from that. The bible is someone writing words on paper.

 

The fact it has never been disproven is because it can't be disproven, and means nothing. I can say that the whole world is actually in my head. Disprove it.

[Nom]

Why else would fundamentalism be so widespread? I would have thought it would have been squashed during the crusades like everything else the church disagreed with.

 

Um, what?

 

Firstly, as a general gripe, people need to stop pointing at the Crusades like they're the critical piece of evidence in a murder case. The Crusades were really nothing more than the personal campaigns of corrupt popes who thought they had a claim to Jerusalem.

 

There was no such thing as fundamentalism to disagree with at the time of the Crusades. Rome was the center of the world, and the pope was the most powerful ruler in Europe. Whatever he said went. The Bible was available only in Latin or Greek, making interpretation limited to those who could read it, which was basically the clergy, which answered to the pope. No random peasant could read the Bible for himself and decide on a fundamentalist interpretation. He couldn't read the damn thing. That was a major point of contention in the Protestant Reformation, which began in the early 1500s, 300 years after the Crusades. Why did Martin Luther and others like him want reform? Because they disagreed with the policies of a Church that had built itself an empire and was now primarily interested staying on top. That meant keeping the common folk ignorant of the actual contents of the Bible.

 

So how much can such a secular interpretation be counted on? Martin Luther ended up leading a rebellion because the Church was selling indulgences, which I'm sure can be universally agreed upon as wrongheaded. The Church reformed itself at the Council of Trent, and much later again at Vatican II. If you want to look at it this way, it could be said that the Church is still fixing itself up from the days when popes publicly acknowledged illegitimate children and appointed them as bishops.

 

Basically I got kind of annoyed at how the Crusades are thrown around, because people seem to think they are a hell of a lot more significant that they actually are. I'm not sure if there's a real driving point behind this post other than a history upchuck, but hopefully the upchuck will add a bit more depth to the "damn Christians just kill everyone" argument. Take what you will out of the fact that no one but Church officials could read the Bible until the sixteenth century.

 

It's also worth nothing that the Church put Galileo on trial and forced him to recant his heliocentric model. Only huge amounts of scientific evidence--Copernicus, Galileo, Magellan sailing around the world--finally forced the Church to reconsider its own literal interpretation. And remember, the Church's interpretation had been somewhat muddled by the secular politics of Christendom. So whether it was valid in the first place is questionable.

 

And holy crap this thread just exploded.

[stonewall337]

There is no scientific answer, as either event is neither repeatable, (well, I guess in theory they are) nor observable. People think you are an idiot if you claim that a tornado through a junkyard created a 747 ready to fly, yet they believe that given enough time, far more, and far more advanced creatures can just "become".

Actually, according to the big bang big crunch theory, it is very feasible that these events are repeatable. I will admit, people will think you are an idiot if you said that. But people would also call you an idiot if you said God just decided to put a 747 in the middle of a junkyard too. People believe that because evolution has a very large amount of supporting facts behind it.

BTW: If a frog turns into a prince right away, that is a fairy tale. If a frog turns into a prince over millions of years, that is science.

You're right, an organism evolving over millions of years is science. And doesn't a frog turning into a prince seem much more like a bible story than something out of a science textbook?

Neither can be proven, both are based on faith. As the Bible has never been disproven, and I see no feasible proof for evolution/the big bang, I will believe that there is a God. Especially when one looks at the plethora of hoaxes which litter the evolution side of origins, such as the piltdown man, Lucy, the "human gills" and many others.

There is loads of feasible proof for evolution, just think about what Darwin said for about a minute. Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. This makes perfect sense, for example, lets take a species of insects. These insects can be white, or black. They live in an environment where the majority of their surroundings are black. And we have a species of bats that prey on these insects. Which insects will survive longer, the ones that look like white specs on a black background, or the ones that blend in? And the ones that survive longer will have more chances to reproduce, and therefore it will be more likely that the gene for a black exoskeleton will be passed on. Eventually almost all of these insects will be black. The same mechanism can be applied for every gene, and as time goes on life will evolve and change. Another piece of evidence for evolution is that the genetic coding mechanism for human DNA is the same as the genetic coding mechanism for plant DNA, or fungal DNA.

 

Therfore, seeing as there is more evidence for the Biblical side, I choose to believe the Biblical explanation.

There is far, far more evidence for evolution than there is for the Bible. In fact, I would like for you to present some evidence supporting the Bible, as I have not seen much.

 

 

In addition , to explain the whole starlight from millions of lightyears away, if the earth is young. Well, God obviously didn't create Adam and Eve as newborns, nor were all the plants or animals anything other than fully grown. The light from the sun would have already been created reaching earth, as would the light of the stars. In essence, the light was created, not just the source of the light.

I have never heard this, or read this in the bible before. I'm going to assume this is you making up an explanation that God didn't give you. I guess it makes a little sense, the problem is the light of some stars have only been seen by us rather recently, so I guess God only made the light from some of the stars.

 

Survival of the fittest is not macro evolution. Evolution is the change of a creature from one species into another. They are similar, yet highly different. Also, evolution hasn't yet been proven, it is thus even know rightly called "the Theory of Evolution." Theories may have scientific backing, yet they can not be proven. As well, I have yet to hear or see of any transition fossil. There should be many, shouldn't there? I will ask you, where are they all? Without that one key fact, the whole premise or macro evolution, even by Darwin's own admission, falls apart.

 

And yes, I prefer to believe that God chose to create the world in 6 days, instead of instantly. Why can not God have as great a pleasure in creation as a human does?

 

I prefer to believe God created everything, than to believe that there was nothing, that nothing turned into alot of matter, that matter was greatly compressed, that matter exploded, and here we all are. In other words, rock+rain=human.

[Skull]

evolution (plural evolutions)

 

1. (general) A gradual process of development, formation, or growth, esp. one leading to a more advanced or complex form.

2. (biology) The change in the genetic composition of a population over successive generations.

[Grim_]

Why else would fundamentalism be so widespread? I would have thought it would have been squashed during the crusades like everything else the church disagreed with.

 

Um, what?

 

Firstly, as a general gripe, people need to stop pointing at the Crusades like they're the critical piece of evidence in a murder case. The Crusades were really nothing more than the personal campaigns of corrupt popes who thought they had a claim to Jerusalem.

 

There was no such thing as fundamentalism to disagree with at the time of the Crusades. Rome was the center of the world, and the pope was the most powerful ruler in Europe. Whatever he said went. The Bible was available only in Latin or Greek, making interpretation limited to those who could read it, which was basically the clergy, which answered to the pope. No random peasant could read the Bible for himself and decide on a fundamentalist interpretation. He couldn't read the damn thing. That was a major point of contention in the Protestant Reformation, which began in the early 1500s, 300 years after the Crusades. Why did Martin Luther and others like him want reform? Because they disagreed with the policies of a Church that had built itself an empire and was now primarily interested staying on top. That meant keeping the common folk ignorant of the actual contents of the Bible.

 

So how much can such a secular interpretation be counted on? Martin Luther ended up leading a rebellion because the Church was selling indulgences, which I'm sure can be universally agreed upon as wrongheaded. The Church reformed itself at the Council of Trent, and much later again at Vatican II. If you want to look at it this way, it could be said that the Church is still fixing itself up from the days when popes publicly acknowledged illegitimate children and appointed them as bishops.

 

Basically I got kind of annoyed at how the Crusades are thrown around, because people seem to think they are a hell of a lot more significant that they actually are. I'm not sure if there's a real driving point behind this post other than a history upchuck, but hopefully the upchuck will add a bit more depth to the "damn Christians just kill everyone" argument. Take what you will out of the fact that no one but Church officials could read the Bible until the sixteenth century.

 

It's also worth nothing that the Church put Galileo on trial and forced him to recant his heliocentric model. Only huge amounts of scientific evidence--Copernicus, Galileo, Magellan sailing around the world--finally forced the Church to reconsider its own literal interpretation. And remember, the Church's interpretation had been somewhat muddled by the secular politics of Christendom. So whether it was valid in the first place is questionable.

 

And holy crap this thread just exploded.

Yes the crusades have been thrown around a bit to much. Though I think it was worth noting that it was the christians not the muslims who massacred prisoners so they could go quicker. I would also like to remind people about the inquisition among other things. No not the part of The History Of the World Part:I I am talking about essentially a reign of terror by the religious officials that got many decent people horribly tortured simply because the did not share a certain denomination of the abrahamic faith. Also going off topic here has anyone noticed that the christian "New" testament has a very toned down god (in comparison with the one in the torah )

[Amaranth_GTO]

Survival of the fittest is not macro evolution. Evolution is the change of a creature from one species into another. They are similar, yet highly different. Also, evolution hasn't yet been proven, it is thus even know rightly called "the Theory of Evolution." Theories may have scientific backing, yet they can not be proven. As well, I have yet to hear or see of any transition fossil. There should be many, shouldn't there? I will ask you, where are they all? Without that one key fact, the whole premise or macro evolution, even by Darwin's own admission, falls apart.

This is the problem, every time a transition fossil is found, creationists just say there's another hole. We have Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy), Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neandrathals, and Cro-Magnons. And all kinds of monkeys. There are your in-between fossils.

[stonewall337]

Why else would fundamentalism be so widespread? I would have thought it would have been squashed during the crusades like everything else the church disagreed with.

 

Um, what?

 

Firstly, as a general gripe, people need to stop pointing at the Crusades like they're the critical piece of evidence in a murder case. The Crusades were really nothing more than the personal campaigns of corrupt popes who thought they had a claim to Jerusalem.

 

There was no such thing as fundamentalism to disagree with at the time of the Crusades. Rome was the center of the world, and the pope was the most powerful ruler in Europe. Whatever he said went. The Bible was available only in Latin or Greek, making interpretation limited to those who could read it, which was basically the clergy, which answered to the pope. No random peasant could read the Bible for himself and decide on a fundamentalist interpretation. He couldn't read the damn thing. That was a major point of contention in the Protestant Reformation, which began in the early 1500s, 300 years after the Crusades. Why did Martin Luther and others like him want reform? Because they disagreed with the policies of a Church that had built itself an empire and was now primarily interested staying on top. That meant keeping the common folk ignorant of the actual contents of the Bible.

 

So how much can such a secular interpretation be counted on? Martin Luther ended up leading a rebellion because the Church was selling indulgences, which I'm sure can be universally agreed upon as wrongheaded. The Church reformed itself at the Council of Trent, and much later again at Vatican II. If you want to look at it this way, it could be said that the Church is still fixing itself up from the days when popes publicly acknowledged illegitimate children and appointed them as bishops.

 

Basically I got kind of annoyed at how the Crusades are thrown around, because people seem to think they are a hell of a lot more significant that they actually are. I'm not sure if there's a real driving point behind this post other than a history upchuck, but hopefully the upchuck will add a bit more depth to the "damn Christians just kill everyone" argument. Take what you will out of the fact that no one but Church officials could read the Bible until the sixteenth century.

 

It's also worth nothing that the Church put Galileo on trial and forced him to recant his heliocentric model. Only huge amounts of scientific evidence--Copernicus, Galileo, Magellan sailing around the world--finally forced the Church to reconsider its own literal interpretation. And remember, the Church's interpretation had been somewhat muddled by the secular politics of Christendom. So whether it was valid in the first place is questionable.

 

And holy crap this thread just exploded.

Yes the crusades have been thrown around a bit to much. Though I think it was worth noting that it was the christians not the muslims who massacred prisoners so they could go quicker. I would also like to remind people about the inquisition among other things. No not the part of The History Of the World Part:I I am talking about essentially a reign of terror by the religious officials that got many decent people horribly tortured simply because the did not share a certain denomination of the abrahamic faith. Also going off topic here has anyone noticed that the christian "New" testament has a very toned down god (in comparison with the one in the torah )

 

Not only were those crusaders Catholics, and not really Christian in the intrinsic doctrine of the all men being equal and all that, but none of those arguments have any bearing on this argument, any more than for me to claim that Darwin was gay and a murder would.

[Grim_]

There is no scientific answer, as either event is neither repeatable, (well, I guess in theory they are) nor observable. People think you are an idiot if you claim that a tornado through a junkyard created a 747 ready to fly, yet they believe that given enough time, far more, and far more advanced creatures can just "become".

Actually, according to the big bang big crunch theory, it is very feasible that these events are repeatable. I will admit, people will think you are an idiot if you said that. But people would also call you an idiot if you said God just decided to put a 747 in the middle of a junkyard too. People believe that because evolution has a very large amount of supporting facts behind it.

BTW: If a frog turns into a prince right away, that is a fairy tale. If a frog turns into a prince over millions of years, that is science.

You're right, an organism evolving over millions of years is science. And doesn't a frog turning into a prince seem much more like a bible story than something out of a science textbook?

Neither can be proven, both are based on faith. As the Bible has never been disproven, and I see no feasible proof for evolution/the big bang, I will believe that there is a God. Especially when one looks at the plethora of hoaxes which litter the evolution side of origins, such as the piltdown man, Lucy, the "human gills" and many others.

There is loads of feasible proof for evolution, just think about what Darwin said for about a minute. Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. This makes perfect sense, for example, lets take a species of insects. These insects can be white, or black. They live in an environment where the majority of their surroundings are black. And we have a species of bats that prey on these insects. Which insects will survive longer, the ones that look like white specs on a black background, or the ones that blend in? And the ones that survive longer will have more chances to reproduce, and therefore it will be more likely that the gene for a black exoskeleton will be passed on. Eventually almost all of these insects will be black. The same mechanism can be applied for every gene, and as time goes on life will evolve and change. Another piece of evidence for evolution is that the genetic coding mechanism for human DNA is the same as the genetic coding mechanism for plant DNA, or fungal DNA.

 

Therfore, seeing as there is more evidence for the Biblical side, I choose to believe the Biblical explanation.

There is far, far more evidence for evolution than there is for the Bible. In fact, I would like for you to present some evidence supporting the Bible, as I have not seen much.

 

 

In addition , to explain the whole starlight from millions of lightyears away, if the earth is young. Well, God obviously didn't create Adam and Eve as newborns, nor were all the plants or animals anything other than fully grown. The light from the sun would have already been created reaching earth, as would the light of the stars. In essence, the light was created, not just the source of the light.

I have never heard this, or read this in the bible before. I'm going to assume this is you making up an explanation that God didn't give you. I guess it makes a little sense, the problem is the light of some stars have only been seen by us rather recently, so I guess God only made the light from some of the stars.

 

Survival of the fittest is not macro evolution. Evolution is the change of a creature from one species into another. They are similar, yet highly different. Also, evolution hasn't yet been proven, it is thus even know rightly called "the Theory of Evolution." Theories may have scientific backing, yet they can not be proven. As well, I have yet to hear or see of any transition fossil. There should be many, shouldn't there? I will ask you, where are they all? Without that one key fact, the whole premise or macro evolution, even by Darwin's own admission, falls apart.

 

And yes, I prefer to believe that God chose to create the world in 6 days, instead of instantly. Why can not God have as great a pleasure in creation as a human does?

 

I prefer to believe God created everything, than to believe that there was nothing, that nothing turned into alot of matter, that matter was greatly compressed, that matter exploded, and here we all are. In other words, rock+rain=human.

Actually after doing a bit of My own research I have found that a cycle of bang and crunch makes one heckuva lot more sense than a god created everything. That reminds me almost everything is a theory aside from certain things like newtons laws. Also I find it rather remarkable that you try to use certain hoaxes to tear down the theory of evolution while not mentioning certain things like "holy" artifacts from saints. I challenge you to give me one piece of evidence that your "god" created the universe aside from that circular logic of "because the bible tells us so"

[Skull]

Since I know this will be relevant somewhere in this evolution vs creation argument that we're currently in, I'd like to post a video relating to it. Partly because it's accurate but mostly because I like pissing people off by only copy and pasting for my arguments.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba2h9tqNYAo

[Wisp]

 

 

Survival of the fittest is not macro evolution. Evolution is the change of a creature from one species into another. They are similar, yet highly different. Also, evolution hasn't yet been proven, it is thus even know rightly called "the Theory of Evolution." Theories may have scientific backing, yet they can not be proven. As well, I have yet to hear or see of any transition fossil. There should be many, shouldn't there? I will ask you, where are they all? Without that one key fact, the whole premise or macro evolution, even by Darwin's own admission, falls apart.

 

You are apparently arguing against the scientific method. I've seen a few news articles of transition fossils, but I'm not going to go look for them. Fossils of early humans, for example, are very rare, so finding a "transition" fossil wouldn't exactly be a common thing.

 

As for macro/micro evolution, I'll draw a picture to illustrate my point.

At each stage (in real life, this would be thousands of years)a small change, and the small changes lead to a bigger change at the end. Even though they started at the same thing, small changes over time lead them to something different.

 

EDIT: Edited my post to only quote the post I was directly responding to.

[stevepole]

Can we please hide are quote chains. I was going to read through this topic but my god so many quotes upon quotes. :-|

[Nom]

Not only were those crusaders Catholics, and not really Christian in the intrinsic doctrine of the all men being equal and all that, but none of those arguments have any bearing on this argument, any more than for me to claim that Darwin was gay and a murder would.

 

The points give perspective. No, they are not strictly related to "Big Bang vs Genesis", but the mere fact that I was replying to a post someone else made links it to the general topic. And what was the Reformation all about? Interpretation of the Bible. Seems pretty huge when you're talking about whether or not Genesis should be taken literally. But since I don't really feel like getting into an argument that will go nowhere, I simply left some information that people on both sides of the argument can take into account. Which I see is working fantastically so far, as you just in effect told me I wasted my time.

[warri0r45]

No, they don't. You see, whilst micro can be proven, macro can not. Never has a dog changed into a horse, even with alot of time. That is why we have so many dog breeds, but not half dogs-half horses. Before I debate more on this argument, look at the difference between the two. Look them up. You will see how different they are.

 

As well, no origin theory can have more "proof". It all comes down to faith, even the Big Bang. However, other parts of the Bible are far more verifiable than any other religious book, not to mention the Bible has never been disproven, and that also stands for it.

 

And for theories, the reason they are theories is they don't have solid proof. If they did, they would be laws.

 

You need to understand three concepts here.

 

1) According to the theory, macroevolution occurs through the exact same mechanisms by which microevolution occurs. These mechanisms include point mutations, insertions/deletion, gene duplications, genome duplications and natural selection. There is no limit to which these mechanisms occur (biology isnt perfect, so aberrations will inevitably happen), so there is no limit to which evolution can occur (so long as there is a reproductive advantage to the whole process). Macro/micro are just prefixes to explain the extent of evolution.

 

2) Dogs and horses are extant species. Extant species don't evolve into each other. Evolution is punctuated by common ancestry and speciation events such that the "family tree" of life looks, quite literally, like a tree. Extant species won't evolve to look like one another unless there is a selective advantage in doing so.

 

We can determine evolutionary relatedness (i.e. common ancestry) in a few ways, for example by common retrotransposon insertions. Retrotransposons are genetic elements, not unlike genes, with the ability to copy themselves and insert the copy randomly into the genome. The chances of two elements inserting at the same location in two species is exceedingly rare, so finding identical insertions between species is a way of determining relatedness. It so happens that many such insertions are found between humans, chimpanzees and other great apes, particularly retroviral sequences, SINEs such as Alu and LINEs, particularly L1 (you can google these terms - there's info out there about what they are).

 

So from this, we can prove beyond any reasonable doubt that we are related to chimpanzees, kind of like how we can prove relatedness in paternity/maternity tests. Not to mention that we have the exact same sequence for many proteins (e.g. cytochrome c) even though this isn't necessary - it's just indicative of recent divergence between the two species. Such relationships (based on cytochrome c sequence, or the sequence of another protein or even DNA sequences), can be worked out, and they often complement what relationships we previously hypothesised based on morphology. This isnt a coincidence if evolution werent true we wouldnt expect to see any pattern at all.

 

3) Theories don't turn into laws, ever. For example, the germ theory of disease suggests germs cause disease, but we now know this is true despite the theory tagline. Theories are systems of understanding incorporating a wide range of data in order to explain whats going on in the natural world. "Chimps and humans diverged through genetic events x, y, z" is theoretical, and it explains the fact that we are related to chimpanzees. As we continue scientific investigation, theories are refined to explain more and more data, and our understanding of nature grows.

 

Hope this helps.

[Jehosaphat]

Personally, I believe Genesis. Why? Because it's what I believe.

 

And frankly, science itself is just a bunch of beliefs. I could say that I think Marty the Invisible Noiseless Platypus is what holds us to the Earth, and that gravity is invalid. I could also say that Marty farted and thus created the universe. Scientific theories are just theories that seem to make more sense based off of evidence procured by humans. And we all know that humans screw up, even scientists.

 

By the same token, the Bible or any other religious text may be wrong due to the fact that it has been passed down through the transcription of ancient texts, and thus any errors made by one transcriber are passed down to the current version.

 

So until we invent the time machine, we're not going to really know how the universe started. We can have faith in different religions, theories, call them what you will, but we cannot know due to the possibility of other factors that may interfere with calculations. ((Like carbon-dating - how do they know that all the carbon in the material came from the radioactive substance they're measuring?))

[Rebdragon]

Personally, I believe Genesis. Why? Because it's what I believe.

 

And frankly, science itself is just a bunch of beliefs. I could say that I think Marty the Invisible Noiseless Platypus is what holds us to the Earth, and that gravity is invalid. I could also say that Marty farted and thus created the universe. Scientific theories are just theories that seem to make more sense based off of evidence procured by humans. And we all know that humans screw up, even scientists.

 

By the same token, the Bible or any other religious text may be wrong due to the fact that it has been passed down through the transcription of ancient texts, and thus any errors made by one transcriber are passed down to the current version.

 

So until we invent the time machine, we're not going to really know how the universe started. We can have faith in different religions, theories, call them what you will, but we cannot know due to the possibility of other factors that may interfere with calculations. ((Like carbon-dating - how do they know that all the carbon in the material came from the radioactive substance they're measuring?))

And here I thought the human race was getting better.

 

Damnit.

[DaN]

 

You obviously weren't trained in basic research and analysis either. And also, you don't have to be Christian to do the above. It takes a few moments and can be done at a library, school, church, hotel room, wherever.

 

 

Perhaps you can point us to an article in a peer reviewed journal that provides evidence for the existence of god.

 

 

The bible is no more credible than what you find scribbled on the lavatory wall. Who wrote it and what are their credentials?

[Stragomagus]

Personally, I believe Genesis. Why? Because it's what I believe.

 

And frankly, science itself is just a bunch of beliefs. I could say that I think Marty the Invisible Noiseless Platypus is what holds us to the Earth, and that gravity is invalid. I could also say that Marty farted and thus created the universe. Scientific theories are just theories that seem to make more sense based off of evidence procured by humans. And we all know that humans screw up, even scientists.

 

By the same token, the Bible or any other religious text may be wrong due to the fact that it has been passed down through the transcription of ancient texts, and thus any errors made by one transcriber are passed down to the current version.

 

So until we invent the time machine, we're not going to really know how the universe started. We can have faith in different religions, theories, call them what you will, but we cannot know due to the possibility of other factors that may interfere with calculations. ((Like carbon-dating - how do they know that all the carbon in the material came from the radioactive substance they're measuring?))

 

 

http://www.dictionary.net/belief

 

Science acts upon a system that is based entirely upon things that can be observed and experimented upon, which requires no belief. You too can test everything that is in a science textbook.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating

 

If you don't trust the wikipedia article you can check the "references"

 

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Survival of the fittest is not macro evolution. Evolution is the change of a creature from one species into another. They are similar, yet highly different. Also, evolution hasn't yet been proven, it is thus even know rightly called "the Theory of Evolution." Theories may have scientific backing, yet they can not be proven. As well, I have yet to hear or see of any transition fossil. There should be many, shouldn't there? I will ask you, where are they all? Without that one key fact, the whole premise or macro evolution, even by Darwin's own admission, falls apart.

And yes, I prefer to believe that God chose to create the world in 6 days, instead of instantly. Why can not God have as great a pleasure in creation as a human does?

 

I prefer to believe God created everything, than to believe that there was nothing, that nothing turned into alot of matter, that matter was greatly compressed, that matter exploded, and here we all are. In other words, rock+rain=human.

 

That first bolded part pisses me off, so here are some videos from youtube that denote quite a few transitional fossils as well as a wikipedia artile, you can check the references, but I don't think you'll doubt the Smithsonian will you. Now refute it if you can.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_evolution_fossils

 

[hide]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiTMJFdMlcQ

 

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I'll restate once again. The Big Bang Theory in no way states that something came from nothing, but instead says that there was once a singularity that contained all of the energy/matter/whatever and then at some point became unstable and began to expand.

[Iamdan]

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, you really do come across as either not reading or not understanding my posts. I had a quick read through your posts here and most seem to have already been disputed, or lead to nowhere.

 

They were questions I answered in hopes that you would answer them, which you haven't elaborated on.

 

Why else would fundamentalism be so widespread? I would have thought it would have been squashed during the crusades like everything else the church disagreed with.

 

What is symbolic about jesus saying all prayers will be answered, but apparently only some of them are? What is symbolic about the world being created in 7 days in relation to evolution. I could ask those questions to 50 different Christians and get 50 different answers. You can take pretty much anything from it using your imagination. Why not just invent your own religion entirely?

 

You can spout elitist symbolic theories, but they aren't going to be consistent with the next Christian, and occam's razor is always going to be better.

 

 

By occam's razor, do you mean "when you have two competing theories that have the same solution, the simpler one is the better." As that is not really what occam's razor is about. It is really talking about how "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" In other words, as both of these theories are equal in scientific merit, since both are theories, the one which should be accepted is the one which demands the fewer assumptions. Since it is far easier to assume that a supernatural being whom we have no proof of created everything, rather than that matter at one time came into existence, compacted, exploded, and produced everything, and since then never comes into existence anymore, then I believe that Occam's Razor supports the Genesis account.

 

What? :huh:

 

My post was about symbolism vs fundamentalism, not genesis vs big bang. I do know what occam's razor means, and it supports my point.

 

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Why else would fundamentalism be so widespread? I would have thought it would have been squashed during the crusades like everything else the church disagreed with.

 

Um, what?

 

Firstly, as a general gripe, people need to stop pointing at the Crusades like they're the critical piece of evidence in a murder case. The Crusades were really nothing more than the personal campaigns of corrupt popes who thought they had a claim to Jerusalem.

 

There was no such thing as fundamentalism to disagree with at the time of the Crusades. Rome was the center of the world, and the pope was the most powerful ruler in Europe. Whatever he said went. The Bible was available only in Latin or Greek, making interpretation limited to those who could read it, which was basically the clergy, which answered to the pope. No random peasant could read the Bible for himself and decide on a fundamentalist interpretation. He couldn't read the damn thing. That was a major point of contention in the Protestant Reformation, which began in the early 1500s, 300 years after the Crusades. Why did Martin Luther and others like him want reform? Because they disagreed with the policies of a Church that had built itself an empire and was now primarily interested staying on top. That meant keeping the common folk ignorant of the actual contents of the Bible.

 

So how much can such a secular interpretation be counted on? Martin Luther ended up leading a rebellion because the Church was selling indulgences, which I'm sure can be universally agreed upon as wrongheaded. The Church reformed itself at the Council of Trent, and much later again at Vatican II. If you want to look at it this way, it could be said that the Church is still fixing itself up from the days when popes publicly acknowledged illegitimate children and appointed them as bishops.

 

Basically I got kind of annoyed at how the Crusades are thrown around, because people seem to think they are a hell of a lot more significant that they actually are. I'm not sure if there's a real driving point behind this post other than a history upchuck, but hopefully the upchuck will add a bit more depth to the "damn Christians just kill everyone" argument. Take what you will out of the fact that no one but Church officials could read the Bible until the sixteenth century.

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I was having a panic attack at the time and didn't express some of my thoughts very well.

 

What I mean is, basically anyone who disagreed with the church was killed, so what they said went, including the interpretation of the bible. This interpretation was a fundamentalist view.

 

I do think the crusades are pretty significant however, because if it wasn't for the big religion wars then it's likely a different religion would dominate the western world.

[____]

Since I know this will be relevant somewhere in this evolution vs creation argument that we're currently in, I'd like to post a video relating to it. Partly because it's accurate but mostly because I like pissing people off by only copy and pasting for my arguments.

 

46 minutes well spent :) If people haven't watched it yet, I strongly suggest that you do.

[Faux]

Evolution? More like evololtion

[Zamorakshadow]

I think what i will say might have been said already, but, whatever...

 

 

 

Macro evolution DOES exist.

Macro evolution has been observed in the fossil record, macro evolution has been observed ( Culex Pipens - Culex Molestus), and Macro evolution IS micro evolution piling up after milhons of years.

A dog won't turn to a horse, but it will turn into a different species with time, just like wolves turned to dogs and homo neanderthalensis turned to homo sapiens, just give it a few milhons of years.

Scientists don't use the words Micro and Macro evolution for decades because they know that Micro will eventually lead to Macro, this is proven for a looong loooong time.

 

There are tons of evidence for both Evolution and the Big Bang. Anyone who denies them either doesn't know anything about them or just refuse to accept them.

Evolution is called "The unifying theory of Biology" for a reason, you know.

[dusqi]

I think that OT should have an official "these are the facts of evolution" page, and so whenever someone comes along who does not think that evolution occurs we can just link them there rather than be sidetracked. It would stop us having to write the same posts over and over to try and explain the real world to the religious fundamentalist trolls. A similar page could be written for "these are the facts of the Big Bang".

[Stragomagus]

I think that OT should have an official "these are the facts of evolution" page, and so whenever someone comes along who does not think that evolution occurs we can just link them there rather than be sidetracked. It would stop us having to write the same posts over and over to try and explain the real world to the religious fundamentalist trolls. A similar page could be written for "these are the facts of the Big Bang".

 

A highly agree with this statement as it would force them to either research what they are arguing against or prove that they are ignorant by their own choice.

[____]

I think that OT should have an official "these are the facts of evolution" page, and so whenever someone comes along who does not think that evolution occurs we can just link them there rather than be sidetracked. It would stop us having to write the same posts over and over to try and explain the real world to the religious fundamentalist trolls. A similar page could be written for "these are the facts of the Big Bang".

Counter productive as they still wouldn't read it. May as well post it over and over, at least that way there is still a chance of it being read.

[DaN]

I think that OT should have an official "these are the facts of evolution" page, and so whenever someone comes along who does not think that evolution occurs we can just link them there rather than be sidetracked. It would stop us having to write the same posts over and over to try and explain the real world to the religious fundamentalist trolls. A similar page could be written for "these are the facts of the Big Bang".

 

 

There are thousands of academic journals countless and documented evidence and yet people are still brainwashed by religion. All the evidence that will ever be needed to combat religion already exists. The problem is trying to communicate that evidence to less intelligent and/or less educated people.

 

 

It's the 21st century but people still beleive in primative fairly tales. The best we can do is continue expanding the human knowledge, some of us will remain in the dark ages but for many religion gradually give way to reason, The "Athiest Revolution" is well underway as human knowledge continues to expend.

 

One thing I have learned is that you cannot force education onto an adult, they have to want to learn. For this reason all we can do is present the facts, arguments and resources then it is upto them to pick up that knowledge and learn on their own. Children are diffrent their minds can be impressed with certain beleifs at a young age which is why "Faith Schools" exist. I personally beleive Faith Schools should be banned as it seems very hypocritical to call yourself a school and then teach medevil myths.