Evolution vs Creation, Youtube series

[Gulp]

Spartan Ninja, here's something from the first day of logic class.

Modus Ponens [If A then B, A therefore B]
If I have no interest in the outcome, then any answer is welcome. I don't have an interest in the outcome, therefore any answer is welcome.

Modus Tollens [If A then B, Not B therefore Not A]
If I have no interest in the outcome, then any answer is welcome. Not any answer is welcome, therefore I have an interest in the outcome. (I converted the double negative.)

There are so many reasons why your logic should be kicking in and telling you to be reasonable, but it isn't. You clearly have a horse you are rooting for in this race. You're saying the editors of Nature and Science could be biased? Who would you rather trust? When it gets to that part of the science where you just can't wrap your brain around it, and you don't have the time to get a PhD in genetics, who do you trust to have the best chance at giving you the best information? Your answer should be Nature and Science. That's the answer that everyone should give. Maybe we can go back and ask Einstein. I can assure you that Einstein believed in evolution.

So in other words, there's no such thing as an expert that can be trusted, unless of course he tells you exactly what you want to hear.

Of all the religions in the world, Christianity is true. Of all the variations of Christianity, your version is true. The scientific method AKA the "best way to examine anything, hands down" works fantastic except of course when it contradicts the Bible and then for some reason all of the anonymous scientists involved in the peer review process are biased. All the scientists are biased, except the tiny percentage that agrees with you. Brand new genetic evidence has been unveiled in recent years. Those genes don't even know that we're studying them, but somehow they're biased. Maybe it's the scientists again. So we get Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Hindu scientists in a room and we say, "Here ya go. This is your chance to disprove evolution once and for all!" And they say, "Wow, it matches our predictions perfectly!" Silly biased scientists.

SOOOOO instead of saying that God works in mysterious ways, and that maybe there's some theological way to wrap your head around the idea that maybe the world is literally 6000 years old, but God made it appear to be 13,700,000,000 years old... you say, "Everyone is wrong except me!"

You believe in mythological creatures and magic and miracles, but you can't take a tiny step and believe that maybe your interpretation of the Bible needs a slight tweaking? You don't think that maybe the people feeding you this creationism are biased? The preacher who makes a living off the Bible, he's not biased? The christian science organizations like Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum make millions of dollars off people believing the Bible is literally true, and they're not biased?

But the other non-fundamentalist religious scientists fighting for funding, teaching during the day and making a boring amount of money who has to write up his research, send it off for review, get the news that it didn't pass the anonymous peer review, and then start all over again... he's biased?

And once again for the 10th time, I don't know why I keep saying it because no one on the creationist side is listening.... you have no evidence. None. The holes you try to poke aren't holes, they're just questions that have very good answers available to you if you would listen. All you can do is attack the messenger and try to discredit the sources without providing a single bit of evidence to support your side. Still that logic alarm isn't going off?

Since evidence wasn't working because you distrust it out of hand. And experts don't work because you don't trust anyone who disagrees with you (which is everyone). And since my earlier efforts to illuminate your methodology as being completely unreliable has been disregarded. I have to resort to... you're wrong. You're definitely wrong. The wrongness of your opinion in this case is not even a shy kind of wrongness. It's the Mardi Gras, show up on COPS kind of bold wrongness where five cops are tazing the wrongness and putting a knee into the wrongness's back, but still the wrongness wants to stand and fight. It's wrongness that is so bold that it doesn't have to tell you why it's right. It just has to tell you why you're incompetent and untrustworthy, like a drunk yelling at his wife at 3 AM.

[Bannister]

Originally Posted by SpartanNinja

AWhy is it impossible to think of a "God day" if a "Mercury day" equals apprx. 176 "Earth days" and a "Jupiter day" is only 9 hrs 55 min?

It isn't impossible to think of a "God day" as one rotation of our solar system around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (200-300 million years). The problem is that a "God day" is unknowable we can assign any arbitrary number to represent it that we want.

If we assume that the universe is about 14 billion years old and that God created it in 6 "God Days" then a "God Day" will be about 2.33 billion years long.

Was the seventh rest day an "Earth Day" of rest or a "God Day" of rest? If it was a "God Day" then we can assume that a "God Day" is about 2 million years long.

Bannister

[J4Jandar]

For me, I do believe in a higher power though I have a serious distrust in the Bible. Written over a period of 900 years coupled with all the changes in power and beliefs through out that time period and not a single word was changed? If the word of god is so important then why omit whole books from the bible?

Here's my own theory.

Early civilization just ran about wild. If man was to progress then a standardized set of rules were to be followed. The problem is how to get people to follow. Scare the living bajesus out of them! Something so omnipotent and omnipresent that no matter how clever or sneaky you were it would get you and punish you for your transgressions in life. The only way to satisfy a humans ego is to assure him his being in some form will live on past the availability of his mortal shell. For that prize one must pledge their undying love and devotion to this controller of existence.

Bingo! Primitive man, knowing nothing of the world, ready to believe anything. Now too much time has passed to substantiate for certain either way.

I do believe though I am very skeptical.

I don't want to follow any old devil who lays a path down in front of me, you know.

[Agent Minivann]

I think that it is important to look at exactly what the Bible does say on the matter of the creation. It can really be summed up in two sentences. God made the Earth. Adam was the first man. The specifics are vague. It doesn't really cover how it was done. The whole day=24 hours thing is really a western way of thinking. There is so much symbolism and imagery in the Bible that I think reading it literally is foolish. I think the whole use of the term "day" is a teaching tool to "Keep the Sabbath Day Holy" more so than it is a designation of a 24 hour period. Much more can be gained from reading the first chapters of Genesis by looking for the deeper meanings of the symbols used than as a literal account.

[jschild]

Especially since most Christians celebrate the Sabbath on the first day of the week, and not the last. Never really understood that much when I was growing up.

[MegaSilver]

Hearing this Evoluton Vs. Creation often is just annoying to me. (I have read very little of this thread, fyi.)

People are always saying either evolution or creation is correct, that only one can be.

Why cannot both be right? Could it not be that evolution is how God runs the world? He created the universe, and evoution is how he lets it run itself?

Who would like to control every single thing all of the time, constantly monitering it all? It's simpler to let it run its course.

Take for example how people get annoyed when scientists say that our emotions are run by chemicals. They think that our emtions are just a reaction of chemicals, and our true selves are just a bunch of machinery stuff. (Sorry if it is not clear, I can't think of how to explain it.)

The soul has to have a way to communicate to the body, right? The simplest way is to have the soul send a chemical message (as our body is full of them), and the body interprets it as a so-and-so reaction. Such as what our nervous system does. Doesn't that make sense?

The same thing is with evolution as part of creation. God has to have a way to run the universe. The hard way for him to do it would to do so directly -- which is what he saves for special circumstances. The simplier way to to make a signal to the universe, that it interprets (the laws of nature found by scientists) as a action. It makes sense, right?

I will talk about this more later, when I get the time to.

MegaSilver, who believes both work together.

[Bannister]

Megasilver,

I personally agree with you. There is no reason you can't be a Christian and still accept scientific ideas like evolution and the big bang.

Bannister

[jschild]

Megasilver, it isn't Evolution vs. God, it is Evolution vs. Creationism whose central tenet is the biblical Genesis story is literally true.

I know many Christians who believe Evolution is the toolset by which God set everything in motion in terms of life, much as physics is how he set the universe in motion.

This goes back to how at one time, Christian scientists truly wanted to know HOW God did things. And that was one of the gifts of intelligence in that God gave us the means to understand how his wonders were wrought. It sadly has turned from that (IMO), towards denial of evidence that contradicts a literal interpretation of the entire Bible.

[jotun7]

This isn't Evolution vs. God, but, it is a need to have God in this.
If He's the head of Creation, then He needs to be brought up in the Creation vs. Evolution debate.

God didn't use Evolution to create the world (if you think He did), it says it came to be, it didn't slowly form.

[jschild]

jotun7, your interpretation only applies if you believe everything in the Bible is literally true.

However, there is not evidence for many historical accounts, and some are outright contradicted by other historical accounts. Also, there are tons of differences in the Bible, depending on what version you choose to look at. If you think the Kings James Version is the most accurate, you would be very, very wrong.

One of my favorite stories from the Bible (Let he who is without sin cast the first stone) doesn't even appear in any version of the Bible until 2nd or 3rd century AD.

[Bannister]

Originally Posted by jotun7

God didn't use Evolution to create the world (if you think He did), it says it came to be, it didn't slowly form.

Who says God used evolution to create the world?


Bannister

[jotun7]

Originally Posted by jschild

jotun7, your interpretation only applies if you believe everything in the Bible is literally true.

However, there is not evidence for many historical accounts, and some are outright contradicted by other historical accounts. Also, there are tons of differences in the Bible, depending on what version you choose to look at. If you think the Kings James Version is the most accurate, you would be very, very wrong.

One of my favorite stories from the Bible (Let he who is without sin cast the first stone) doesn't even appear in any version of the Bible until 2nd or 3rd century AD.

Who says God used evolution to create the world?


Bannister[/quote]

First, I believe EVERYTHING the Bible says. Second, the Bible passes the Internal, External, and Bibliographic tests more than any-other document in history. Third, Jschild did.