Evolution VS. Creationism: Where Do You Stand?

[ZeroOtterz]

Randomly Gone Insane

These little knights...

I have a question for you, Zen.

Why can't we have both?

Here's what I believe.
God sparked up the universe, the 'Big Bang Theory' if you will.
And then He/She stepped back, and watched.
Everything else took it's own course.

I'm sorry if I 'offend' anyone, but only the ignorant dismiss evolution as some crazy crack pot theory.
There is an abundant amount of evidence that evolution has and is happening.
What is adapting to an environment so one may survive in it if it's not evolving?

I don't think God really had a hand in any of it.
The most He/She may have done is created the first molecule (as my Biology teacher taught me) in the first little hot pool of what-not which began to birth of everything there is on the planet today.

If we did, why don't we have recorded documents from the beginning?
Why are we so 'set back' on technology?
If we were created and nothing more tan we were painfully slow learners at the beginning, and it's amazing to me we didn't die because of it.

To sum all this up, I believe in both.
Something had to create us, but we didn't start off the way we are.

...will rock your world

You have just opened up my eyes completely  

[Eternal Vengefulness]

ZenWolf65

would the fact that people have seen miracles that could provide a basis for the fact that God exists? Like say, the children of Fatima.

people have also seen Bigfot, the Loch Ness Monster, been abducted by aliens, etc.
witness testimony is extremely unreliable at best and always needs to be supported with objective, empirical evidence.
further, before it can honestly be classified as a miracle, it would need to be demonstrated that no naturalistic explanation can possibly exist to explain the phenomenon - which shouldn't be confused with no known naturalistic explanation exists.  

[Akira Miyashi]

only God knows....
hahah..

joking joking...

ahem~ I think...that we humans came to be from the evolution of apes...

but where does the ape come from? Perhaps it's from the creation of this oh-so-mighty being who probably created this universe as well..and that being is most likely what people call "God". biggrin  

[Eternal Vengefulness]

Akira Miyashi

only God knows....
hahah..

joking joking...

ahem~ I think...that we humans came to be from the evolution of apes...

but where does the ape come from? Perhaps it's from the creation of this oh-so-mighty being who probably created this universe as well..and that being is most likely what people call "God". biggrin

apes would come from proto-apes, which in turn came from other previous life forms, etc.
This video will help explain it better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MXTBGcyNuc

you're references to this being that created the universe is more along the lines of deism than creationism - and is little more than a thinly-veiled argumentum ad ignorantiam. claims made without evidence can and should be summarily dismissed with just as little evidence.  

[DJ Arctic Wolf]

Eternal Vengefulness

ZenWolf65

would the fact that people have seen miracles that could provide a basis for the fact that God exists? Like say, the children of Fatima.

people have also seen Bigfot, the Loch Ness Monster, been abducted by aliens, etc.
witness testimony is extremely unreliable at best and always needs to be supported with objective, empirical evidence.
further, before it can honestly be classified as a miracle, it would need to be demonstrated that no naturalistic explanation can possibly exist to explain the phenomenon - which shouldn't be confused with no known naturalistic explanation exists.

i feel like a terrible Catholic eh heh heh....i cant even recall the miracles revolving around the children of fatima. but Jesus will prove a basis for God (and you cant say he isnt real. he is a real person.)  

[Eternal Vengefulness]

ZenWolf65

Eternal Vengefulness

ZenWolf65

would the fact that people have seen miracles that could provide a basis for the fact that God exists? Like say, the children of Fatima.

people have also seen Bigfot, the Loch Ness Monster, been abducted by aliens, etc.
witness testimony is extremely unreliable at best and always needs to be supported with objective, empirical evidence.
further, before it can honestly be classified as a miracle, it would need to be demonstrated that no naturalistic explanation can possibly exist to explain the phenomenon - which shouldn't be confused with no known naturalistic explanation exists.

i feel like a terrible Catholic eh heh heh....i cant even recall the miracles revolving around the children of fatima. but Jesus will prove a basis for God (and you cant say he isnt real. he is a real person.)

maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. fact remains there is no validated contemporary evidence he existed, nor any physical evidence of any of his so-called miracles, nor even a documented eye-witness account of them.
but even if he did exist historically, that still in no way provides any evidence of the existence of a god, much less so for the fertility and war god YHWH.
claiming that he will prove a basis for god is a logical fallacy: argument to the future.  

[TheNoirGeek]

Eternal Vengefulness

ZenWolf65

Eternal Vengefulness

There's a few things that need to be cleared up before I actually will get into making my arguments (I'll probably do that tomorrow).
Point one, the OP is working with a false dichotomy. Biblical creationism is only one of many types of creationism there is, and it's not even the majority type.
Point two, we're not evolved 'from' primates - we are primates. Evolution is a branching tree pattern, which consequently creates a nested hierarchy. Try this pattern for yourselves, it's a mathematical consequence of such patterns to always form such hierarchies. As a result, when a new branch is formed via speciation, it is still part of each of its parent branches. Therefore it's never really a case of evolution from as it is a case of evolution into a new form of.

what's a dichotomy? anyway, i thought i'd just throw this debate out there, so if i've got anything wrong, im sorry. im not really good at debates

A dichotomy is a choice between 2 options, often as a dilemma. A false dichotomy is when a choice is created between 2 options when the reality of the situation may very well be more than 2 options.
For example:
dichotomy - theist or atheist (either you do believe in god(s) or you do not).
false dichotomy - christian or atheist (you can believe a god exists without being christian - such as muslim).

Hey! I'm learning about false dichotomy in my English class for argument papers! *ahem* Sorry for geeking out atm.

As for this whole Evolution v. Creationism thing, I'm going with the former. As previously stated, there is a copious amount of evidence that evolution exists, writing it off the similarites as pure coincedence is just a tad silly. I'm an atheist first and foremost, but if I had to be tided down to a religion, I'd go with Paganism or Wicca (which despite what Christians think were the actual first two religions in existance).

There are quite a few things that bug me about Christianity, but I'll be brief and keep it short.

1. People say, "It is God's will" or "It was his time to go. God has much bigger plans for him" when a person dies. That's fine to believe that if it helps with the grieving process, but honestly, that's not what killed that person. Usually a person dies of their own stupidity or an error in judgement. Other times, it's just bad luck if a natural catastrophy takes place. But if that's not the case, then there's usually no valid reason for the person to have died.

2. There seems to be a rather huge misconception about God's personality. Some people say God loves all and forgives all, then there are those that say he is vengeful and will strike down the wicked on Judgement Day. So which is He? From stories I've heard and read in the Bible, God seems to be nothing more than a bully. "Oh Noah, since only you and your family believe me, I am going to flood the entire Earth, killing everyone but if you build an arc to hold two of every creature, your family will live". "Issac or Abraham or whoever, if you really want to prove your loyalty to me, you will sacrifice your son unto me". Look I don't care if the guy didn't go through with it, or it was "just a test" that s**t is f***ed up. That's like saying, "If you really love me, you'll cut off your own foot! HA! Just kidding"! Then there's the whole "Moses, your people are the chosen people. Because the Pharoah doesn't believe in me, I will bring death and disease to plauge his people and kill the first born son of each family until he does". I'm sorry, none of that seems like it would fall under the catagorey of "love all forgive all".

Then there's the flip side of this, there are the people that claim God loves all people and forgives all people. The word they use is "merciful". What people seem to get confused is that, loving all and forving all, encompasses every single person that lived or is living. From when we were little, we were taught that evil/bad people go to Hell to burn for all eternity. Well, this can't really happen if God is as merciful as people say he is. There should be no exception of "well He loves and forgives everyone except evil people" because you can't say 'everyone' without meaning 'everyone'. If God is as merciful as some people think, no one would go to Hell and serial killers, rapists, *****, people that cause genocide (Hitler, Idi Amin, Sadaam) would all be forgiven and they are already up in heaven. This also goes for the whole, 'only one religion is the right religion to get into Heaven' because it falls out of place with the 'love everyone' thing.

3. People that say, "God has a plan for us" or believe that God has already laid out a set path for us to follow but we have to figure out what it is. Is that really possible? Would God really decide that Jeffery Dahmer's life achievement is to be a murderer? Did God really want Hitler to try to oblieterate an entire race of people? This also goes along with the, 'what if we choose a different path' thought. What if God had already ordained someone to become a Physician but the guy deciced to become a Chef instead because he loves food? What if God had already decided a woman was to marry a man who would be her soulmate, yet the woman didn't get along with God's choice and decided to marry someone else? Sure people can say "Well the path can change" but then you can't say it's a 'set path' or 'it's God's decision you do this' because unless the sky is going to open up and a booming voice is going to tell us what will happen with our life, then there's no way we can no whether we're on God's chosen path or not.  

[Jouju]

Scarlet Ember Kitten;
I hate to reply to you in such a small post but I only wanted to comment on one thing.
Your first statement.
You said; "but honestly, that's not what killed the person."
I appreciate that you are being level headed, but there is no evidence that disproves or proves that a higher being exists and is guiding us all. So to talk about it as if you know is sort of wrong.
Also, you mention bad luck. How do we not know that luck is something completely spawned out of the human head?

Anyways, this is my first post in the guild. Yay.  

[Kane Solomon]

not bashing any one who believe in creationism, but the idea is completely stupid when people are so blind that they think the earth is only around 5000 years old... the very fact that there have been bodies found older than that put a massive hole in the creationism "theory" in fact i would not even call it a theory, it is fiction dreamed up by a fool

I have no more to say on this.  

[beaulolais]

eleanne

I believe that there is no need to draw a line between the two. God created Earth and all the things in it over a period of time- first the Earth itself, then the creatures on it- plants, then reptiles, birds, mammals, and finally humans. This corresponds with the fossil record, and who knows- God could have used evolution to help things along. God is supposed to act in the little things- and what could be smaller than tiny changes in a cell? Adam and Eve were, of course, the first humans. There's no need for anyone to pick fights over which one is right, science or the Bible, when the two agree!

i agree.
if i choose to believe in a Creator, there is no reason why that Creator could nor use evolution as a tool.
the days and so on in the Biblical account are surely figurative, or allegorical.