Evolution vs. Creationism

I often get carried away and actually start debating against people on these kind of threads :bnghd:

It annoys me, I'm annoyed of myself. But I am more annoyed that people care to argue and argue in this war that leads nowhere. Although I might say that some people sometimes do convert into that other side, whatever that may be. Still, these debates are usually pointless and dominated by two persons who just cannot accept that other side has different beliefs. They usually also start insulting each other sooner rather than later, which also proves these debates between two people to be pointless.

Are there other people who are sick and tired of these threads? Not that I want to deny their right to debate, I just wish I could keep myself from actually reading those debates

reply to post by rawsom


It is interesting that in the 1950s to the 1970s, if any candidate stated they did not believe evolution was fact would be laughed off the stage and was certain to lose the election. My how things have changed, when the major candidates now try to sidestep answering if they believe evolution to be fact.

The reality is there are many problems, and ones belief system should be private. I do not give a rat's behind about whether or not a candidate believes in creationism or any other theory. I want to know what their solutions are to the problems we are facing.

BTW, I don't believe the Bible's take, and have seen many major problems with the theory of evolution go unanswered by the experts.

Evolution vs. creation seems to lead to arguing over holy book verse or not or holy book faithful debating each other over verse meaning. I think this is a big WASTE OF TIME! Some of these threads are very funny. My kid loves getting into these things on Redit.

I think until said holy books word of god authority can be FACTUALLY established, ALL agurements are a complete and utter waste of time and energy. It detracts from each of our own journeys in life.

yea, I try to avoid those myself. But I do wonder that as a human IS it my duty to my fellow humans to try to get them to think for themselves? Even if their journey does not take them down the same path as my journey? I know for me as a "faithful Christian" I was not thinking for myself. My "faith" freed me from a lot of responsibility for myself .

By the way should be in its own food group!

Originally posted by kidflash2008
reply to post by rawsom

 

It is interesting that in the 1950s to the 1970s, if any candidate stated they did not believe evolution was fact would be laughed off the stage and was certain to lose the election. My how things have changed, when the major candidates now try to sidestep answering if they believe evolution to be fact.

The reality is there are many problems, and ones belief system should be private. I do not give a rat's behind about whether or not a candidate believes in creationism or any other theory. I want to know what their solutions are to the problems we are facing.

BTW, I don't believe the Bible's take, and have seen many major problems with the theory of evolution go unanswered by the experts.

The "problems" that get "presented" for "evolutionists" by creationists are not really problems. they are wild theories that creationists come up with.

For example. creationists say we are not related to monkeys; and that they assume that "we" assume that we are basically advanced monkeys.

Thats the straw man fallacy (if you don't know then don't ask).

Evolution shows that while we sort of look like monkeys we are NOT related, however - we DO have common evolutionary ancestors. That is why there are monkeys AND humans today, and not one or the other; and it also explains how we are similar to a degree. Humans themselves have different phenotypes and species too; caucazoids, mongoloids etc each have unique characteristics that can be scientifically defined.

Evolution works like a tree, not all branches survive (extinction), and not all trees survive(variables of environment change). And we are discovering life based on other rules even now in toxic waste pools and other fun stuff.

reply to post by Davood


The scientists have found footprints to be 1.5 million years old that are quite human. Yet, all of our alleged ancestors still had monkey feet. How can do they explain the modern human foot that long ago? It is interesting how they try to state that our human feet were on the primates of the day, when all the skeletal remains show monkey feet.

That is one of the questions evolution has not answered. It can also be used by other theorists to counter evolution.

Also, the Earth went from single celled life forms in an instant to very complex life form 600 million years ago. Still no explanation for that one. Insects also appear out of nowhere, and there are no fossils showing a creature actually transforming or evolving.

I do think the Earth is billions of years old, so I am not a biblical creationist. I do not scoff at what the intelligent designers have to say, either.

All I am stating is both theories make valid points. I don't see why people need to argue this, as there are too many students who can't even read or write at a fifth grade level when they graduate from high school.

Edited to add link to footprint story:

www.livescience.com...

[edit on 3/14/2009 by kidflash2008]

Originally posted by rawsom
Are there other people who are sick and tired of these threads?

When done intelligently and respectfully, it's one heck of an interesting topic. However, when it's just the usual tit for tat in thread after thread, it gets really old, really fast.

I still like to browse the forum and keep up with the threads but very rarely participate anymore after realizing the futility, experiencing the frustration, and after coming to terms with the following prophecy:

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come...

But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

www.biblegateway.com...

I found a peace once I really let that sink in. It's just the way things are supposed to be at the moment. A creation and flood event are denied in favor of a naturalistic explanation.

Science allows for anomalies - carbon dating itself isn't a perfect science, carbon half lives aren't always the be all and end all of archeology, anthropology and other fun stuff.

As far as "human foot print from 1.5 million years ago" That sounds interesting, but it doesn't really prove anything. Using it as an example to invalidate mountains of evidence of evolution is kind of far fetched - at best it is evidence that evolution tried one solution, once, it failed, but left evidence for us to see. And then it succeeded much later.

The other fallacy of close minded creationist zealots, is that evolution is "Random"; this is not true, and it doesn't take some spagetti monster living in the clouds to direct the course.

As organisms survive and live - they slowly change and adapt to circumstance, environment, and scarcity of food, and safety concerns. The largest changes happen from generation to generation while some slight changes can happen to a specific organism while it is alive (superficial changes like callousing or hair.fur colour changes)

All the domesticated dogs and cats we have today are a result of 1000s of years of forced evolution by humans, hmm I like orange cats, ill get rid of the ones with white and black colouring and just keep the ones with orange on them.. what do you know, after doing that for 12 generations, now i have a totally orange cat !

Same is true for any domesticated animal, and many livestock.

Fish are a prime example, with the guppy hobbyists and other such ridiculousness.

Believing that we didn't develop on our own, and that we are somehow "special" is ridiculous. Granted, we are quite a few tiers more advanced than anything else on this planet, socially and through the use of tools and storing information. We aren't the most evolved creature or the
..
ill cut the sentence off there... I just realized I summarized all the points that have been rehashed over and over, I won't post again in this thread. lest it turn into a zealot vs scientist debate like all the other threads

if i do post

i will start quoting stuff from my favourite childhood books, like "come play with red rover" and "curious george goes to the zoo"

[edit on 14-3-2009 by Davood]

I have managed to get myself into some sort of belief oblivion, that I like to be in. I have no intent of changing any of it, basically all my beliefs are still firm and sound. To summarize, God doesn't change itself even if I do believe in evolution. God is about morals, ethics and that sort of stuff, not about physical evolution. More christians should realize this and go on with their lives.

You know, I do that too. I tell myself that I will not post in political or evolution/creationism threads because there is just so much biccering and arguing in them.

Somehow though, I always get sucked into those threads and can not help but post and end up in some debate that I really didnt want to get into in the first place.

I enjoy discussing both topics but I hate the potential for fights and arguments that those topics hold.....


Well, here is to one day being able to discuss all that with out having to fight and argue like children


peace and love

I know exactly what you mean. I participated on some of the recent Evolution vs Creationism threads a little but I just found people constantly having a go at each other, just too try and prove a point. I believe in God but I lean more towards the theory of evolution rather than most elements of creationism, so I constantly felt between a rock and a hard place on those types of threads.

At one point I felt like questioning everyone on the entire thread! About some of the critical issues regarding both evolution and creationism but something told me to walk away, maybe it was God.

It just seems to me that people have a hard time accepting that thing’s are not as black and white as they seem and of course everyone wants to defend their position and the choices and conclusions they have come too. If only people could humble themselves and except that there are things, we just don’t know.






- JC

The debates about evolution vs. creationism, more than any other topic, are hard to discuss. Not just because its Mr. Scientist vs. religious guy, but I've noticed that not everyone involved in the conversation has even a basic knowledge of evolution nor does everyone involved have a good understanding of religion. A religious guy will propose his ideas, which don't represent religion as a whole. A science guy will propose what the religious guy says, and it will often be wrong, ect. Each person has their own history with each side...I've seen that even words in the context of creationism vs. evolutionism can have about 5 different meanings.

Like "God" for example. What God are you talking about, just the "highest" God, or the God described in the old testament, the Hindu gods, what about more obscure religions' God/s? What is God responsible for, creating heaven and earth? Or was it created by a lesser being? Is God nature? Is God totally disconnected from the world? ect. And no one seemingly knows about that and each of those types of discernment have an impact on the discussion. I've seen people on the pro-science side that lack even an attempt to understand the different perspectives on God. You can't try to win an argument if you don't know the other side...

Some view God as basically nature....and scientists believe in nature....yet some people fighting on the science side say that nature (evolution) and God are incompatible, makes zero sense.

All these things make it a very slippery thing to discuss I find. And this isn't just a discussion between 2 people, which would still be tough, but with many many more.

[edit on 15-3-2009 by ghaleon12]

reply to post by Davood


I brought up the 1.5 million year old footprints to show that evolution does not have all the answers. If one follows the fossils of the hominids from back then, they all had monkey feet, and not human feet. The footprints are from humans, not hominids.

Also, dogs would revert to looking like wolves and coyotes if we stopped breeding them and they had to fend for themselves. Most of the dog breeds would die if out in the wild, as they are not adapted for that environment. Cats have not changed at all since domestication, as we do not see the variety like in dog breeds. Also, cats domesticated us because they like us. They do not need us and can survive without us. Kind of humbling when one looks at it like that!