March 13, 2012
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Creationism vs Evolution
As some of you know, one of my classes this semester is Human Origins. It’s an anthropological class in which we’re learning about the evolution of the human species. I’ve always believed in evolution, but now I know that there’s a lot of evidence that backs that up. I’m wondering, with all this evidence of evolution, how there can be so many creationists out there.
First, let me begin by briefly touching on the subject of fossils. Fossils are quite rare. It takes a lot for bones to become fossils, and they actually turn to stone given enough time. Fossils are rare because of scavengers and climate elements. So finding complete skeletal remains would be so improbable as to be compared to finding a needle in a haystack.
So anthropologists find these fossil remains, mostly of craniums and skulls. Through finding and analyzing them, we can see how the shape of hominins have gone from more apelike to how homo sapiens look today. The classic model we usually think of in terms of evolution of humans is wrong, it didn’t happen that way, with humans crouching less and less as time went on to stand fully upright. In fact, the opposite happened. We started standing on two feet long before our primate features became more human looking. We can tell this by looking at the skulls. On a skull, we can see where the spinal cord attaches based on where the hole in the skull is. In humans, the spinal cord attaches at the base of the skull, indicating that in order to see what’s around you, you have to be standing on two feet only. Primates who walk on all fours have the spinal cord attaching more towards the top of the skull so that they can see as they’re walking.
Above is a photo of the first commonly accepted hominin species of Australopithecus anamensis, which is when we started diverging from other primates. As you can see, our facial features were still very apelike, although this is when we started walking on 2 feet. There have been other bones found that correlate the finding that they are bipeds. The A. anamensis lived from 4.2 through 3.9 million years ago.
Another feature worth mentioning of our evolution is that the brain capacity keeps growing larger as time goes on. A modern human of homo sapien has a brain capacity of 1,000-2,000cc. The A. afarensis, a decedent of A. anamensis, has a cranial capacity of 380-500cc. This keeps increasing the closer we get to homo sapiens.
(Australopithecus afarensis, lived 3.9-2.9 million years ago)There are several species of hominins that are shown to have lived in overlapping times as evolution occurred.
(Australopithecus africanus, lived 3.3-2.4 million years ago, during the same time as A. afarensis)I’m going to skip some species of Australopithecus and go into Paranthropus.
Above is Paranthropus boisei. This hominin lived from 2.7-2.5 million years ago, and had a cranial capacity of 500-550cc. These early hominins developed bigger brains quite slowly, but you can see how the features are changing. The face gets progressively flatter instead of a jutting jaw.
Now we get to the genius of homo, and more towards modern humans (sapiens).
(Homo habilis, lived 2.3-1.44 million years ago)It seems that as we leave early hominins and get into the genius of homo, cranial capacity gets even larger. The largest cranial capacity had been 800cc, a bit short of modern human. As we get past Homo ergaster, and into erectus, the cranial capacity is at that of modern humans of 1,000cc+.
(Homo ergaster, lived 1.78-1.6 million years ago, cranial capacity of 880cc)
(Homo erectus, lived 1.8 million years ago thru about 500,000 years ago)
Pictured above is a skull of our direct ancestor, Homo neanderthalensis, or Neanderthals. As you can see, they are distinctly more human than where we first started. Homo sapiens are very young in history, and have only been around for about 300,000 years. If modern humans live for 1 million years, we aren’t even at the halfway point yet.
If you want an example of non-human evolution that’s occurred before our very eyes, consider a species of finch from the Galapagos Islands. There was one year of a terrible drought. As with human height, there was a slight variation in beak size of this finch. Only the finches that had slightly longer beaks survived because they were able to eat things that the finches with smaller beaks couldn’t. About 95% of the population died. The birds that survived copulated, and the resulting chicks all had the slightly longer beaks to survive. Evolution is a species changing to adjust to situations. The ideal model survives while the others die off. There was only one year of drought, but further copulations of the finches resulted in the shorter beaks and many with longer ones. It took several generations, but most of the generation once again had shorter beaks, and the finches with longer beaks were once again an anomaly.
Anyway, there’s obviously more to human evolution than the photos I’ve posted, but it’s too much for one simple post. Once you actually start studying the subject, it’s amazing to me that creationists continue to ignore all the evidence. Let me ask you this:
In what other context would you ignore all the evidence and decide the opposite based on no evidence?
Let’s say that you are on a jury of a murder trial. The evidence is as follows: there was skin and DNA of the accused found under the victim’s fingernails; there was hair and clothing fibers found at the scene that match the accused; his fingerprints are all over the scene and the murder weapon; he had no alibi; he was, in fact, seen in the area of the crime near the time of death. Now, would you insist that this man is innocent even though all evidence points to the contrary?
You can use hundreds of examples, but in no other context is this true. Faith is blind. It’s nice to believe in something, yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to take the Bible literally and believe in this creationism.
Noteworthy
*I am by no means dismissing or dissing religion. My *only* argument here is creationism and it’s fallacies. Creationists have no evidence to support their claims that God created the world in His image is reality.
*I am not an atheist. I’m simply not a Christian, and I obviously don’t believe what the Bible says, and this is just one of the reasons I don’t agree with Christianity.
Comments (125)
This post gives me fond memories of my days in physical anthropology classes in college. I got to handle replicas of a lot of the skulls, and also a lot of femurs. My boyfriend and I were just discussing this whole phenomenon yesterday, and he was under the impression that there really aren’t very many people who don’t accept evolution, and who take the Bible absolutely literally. I said that, based on my observations, I think the amount of people who think that way is probably higher than he expects. What are your thoughts on that? Do you encounter a lot of people who reject evolution or who feel that the Bible must be taken literally. I would also pose that question to anyone else reading this comment. I guess I’m just trying to get a feel for how wide-spread this type of belief is.
I’m going to touch on your first question, and please take this the way that I mean it, and not look at it as me trying to start a “fight” okay? XD
The reason that there can be so many of us is because many of us have also searched for evidence to prove the things that we believe, and while yes, we don’t have all of the answers the same way that SCIENCE does not, we beleive that there’s enough to support what the bible says in most cases.
I did the science thing for a while – the thing was, after a time, I decided to find some extremely smart CHRISTIAN men and see what THEIR explainations were about these things. The reality? I sort of went back and forth. Believe it or not, some science actually PROVES the bible, other science actually “lines up” with the bible. Just as some “fact” does (As I know that some people will say that certain findings are not science, just fact)
There are different camps. Some Christians actually believe that God used evolution to further the earth. Some people would look at the skulls you posted above and say, “While I believe that there are similarities, and that there might actually be similar DNA, etc, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we had similar ancestors as apes. It might just mean that there were creatures that looked that way at one point. Or, that humans HAVE changed over time, but even though they looked more ape like, they were still always HUMANS…” – Others might tell you that some of what the bible says might account for what’s being talked about above (like Genesis chapter 6).
What I’ve found is that when science is tested with intelligent Christian men who bring up wonderful points, science doesn’t always seem so “solid” … in fact, in several instances, there comes up a gaping hole. I’ve said many times that luckily, I had the chance to really sort of cause the two to fight with one another in my mind back and forth, and the reality is that I could not POSSIBLY share in one comment everything that I learned (partly because I don’t communicate it well either, even though I understood it well when I learned it)
I am not the kind of person who would tell you that I have all of the answers, certainly not. But, I do believe that a loving God breathed life into humanity and created man with a purpose in His image. I also believe that man by nature is sinful and fallen from God, and that as a result, we need a savior. I believe that everything has a purpose, and that purpose has to be given to us by something greater “than” us.
I think it’s actually a long and arduous process to discover truth, and I don’t think we’ll ever know everything.
@Lost_In_Reverie - perhaps read some of my above comment ?
Why do people always put a disclaimer when they talk about evolution? Evolution is science and Creationism is an attempt to turn religion into science (without adhering to the basic tenants of science). When I teach evolution in my class I don’t even bother talking about creationism. I wouldn’t even do it if I taught high school, I would conveniently run out of time. In fact, next year, I am changing the textbook to one that doesn’t mention creationism because it is not science, it does not belong in a science class, and scientist should treat creationism the way other psuedosciences are treated. When my students ask about creationism or intelligent design, I tell them to ask the professor that teaches religion (and I think he tells them the same thing I do, science and religion are separate).
OK…I am off my soapbox. I did enjoy your post.
@Lost_In_Reverie - 90% of the people I encounter don’t believe in evolution. A few of them may actually believe that the Earth is a little more than 4000ish years old. They believe that dinosaur fossils were planted by Satan to fool people into believing in evolution. When I was a graduate student (in a PhD program) my colleague put “because God made it that way” on a test actually got mad and argued with the instructor when she got it wrong. I am guessing you and your boyfriend do not live in the South.
@Erika_Steele - Wow. I find it unbelievable that religion has so distorted the history of this earth. Pretty sad indeed. In my FB status last night I posted that humans have gotten in the way of their own cognitive development in the name of control, power, and greed.
@crazy2love - science teachers at the K-12 level are REQUIRED to at least mention Creationism and Intelligent Design. I live in one of those lovely states where K-12 textbooks have to have a sticker stating that evolution is a theory. I remind my students that gravity and the idea that matter can neither be created nor destroyed are also just theories. If you are going to reject something because it is a theory, you have to reject all of reality. I like your facebook status. It’s very true
@LKJSlain - Thanks for the heads up about your comment, it was an interesting read. What I gather from your comment is that you are not a strict literalist in regard to the Bible, and if you have any other thoughts in that vein I would be interested to hear them.
@Erika_Steele - I grew up in New Jersey and now live in New York, but my boyfriend grew up in the south which is why I am confused by the fact that somehow I have run into more people with a literalist/anti-evolution mindset than he has. I’m glad that you mention the dinosaur fossils because that is something that I cracked a joke about during our conversation. I suppose they were put there just to mess with us? Preposterous. Not to mention that if they are claiming Satan put them there, that kind of knocks god’s omnipotence down a few pegs, wouldn’t you think?
@Lost_In_Reverie - I am actually pretty much a strict literalist, but the thing is, that I don’t believe that study of the bible tells us to ignore science.
I believe that the bible when read, studied, and compared with science, and with other things can shed light ON science, and vise versa. For instance, I don’t believe that the bible doesn’t say that animals don’t change over time. *SHOCK!*
In fact, I think that there’s a good explaination of why they do, and how it happened. It has to do with the flood. =^_^= and some of the other things in genesis
@LKJSlain - Okay, so then from that perspective, do you believe that the earth was created in 7 days? If so, do you believe it was created with dinosaur fossils pre-planted in it or that there were dinorsuars in the garden of Eden or some other option? I know my tone doesn’t carry through but I just want to impress upon you the fact that I am asking out of a genuine curiosity, not any attempt at being condescending. I’m just interested in how the pieces fit together from your perspective. It sounds like you believe in the possibility of evolution, so do you believe in a planet earth that has many millions of years of history or a fairly newer earth? I was raised Catholic so I do have a fairly solid knowledge of the bible but I can’t recall when or if it gives any specific age for the earth.
@Lost_In_Reverie - NONONONO! Your tone is fine XD Tone doesn’t start buggin me until someone just goes nutty/pissy.
I am not entirely sure what I believe regarding “when” the earth was made. I’ve been introduced (Funnily enough by my husband who was a former atheist XD) to the idea that God created the earth “old” … he brought this up because Adam and Eve were not “babies” when they were made, and neither were the animals. ALSO – There’s some speculation, that while the earth itself MIGHT have been created in seven days, that those seven days might not have been consecutive. Understand? BECAUSE the bible tells us that satan fell to earth, and satan was in the garden WITH Adam and Eve, some people believe that satan was on earth between some of the time frame that the world was completed.
To make a long story LONGER, I don’t know where I stand. I believe that it is a POSSIBILITY that like God created Adam and Eve being OLDER that He might have also created the earth to be OLDER…
As for dinosaurs… 9_9… the Christians who don’t believe in dinosaurs are just looney IMO… In fact, JOB 40 describes a “creature” that might indeed BE a dinosaur, and personally, I don’t know if there is a ”lake monster” in Loch Ness, BUT if there WAS, I would believe that based on the flood story, that would make total sense. (That a dinosaur would have survived the flood who was already water based).
Yes, I am pretty sure that there were dinosaurs in the garden of eden. I believe that before the fall of man, animals (like people) were un-knowledgeable about sin. Which also equals violence, and and pure instinct. Side note on animals – and I know this makes me sound a little insane, but heck, I’ll go with it anyways. I believe that the animals used to “speak”. Not “english” but whatever language/communication that was used at the time. The reason being that A, God gave Adam dominion of the animals, and I don’t believe Adam would have been able to have that without being able to communicate with them. B, when Eve encounters a “talking snake” there doesn’t seem to be any shock, or concern about why it’s “talking” and C, interestingly enough, we as people STILL talk to animals. Even though they don’t fully understand us, when we have a dog or cat, we talk to them a whole heck of a lot more (most of the time) than “come… stay…”
Sorry, I went way off topic there. haha. I think it’s very plausible that all animals lived together in harmony. I think it’s ALSO plausible that the flood wiped out many species of dinosaur. I think it’s also interesting that most civilizations have a “flood” story.
@Erika_Steele - that is really messed up.
“creationism” is a heresy. Taking the genesis/flood narratives literally is contrary to science and brings ridicule on religion per se. Augustine of Hippo said that and also that there are at least four ways to interpret scripture and that literalism is the least and the last to consider. He basically said that believers who insisted on showing their ignorance of what is known by “pagans” damages religion and they should keep their mouths shut. That was in the fourth century.
@Lost_In_Reverie - I once had a Sunday School teacher who, while teaching about Creationism, made claims that the earth was created in 7 literal 24-hour days, as opposed to 7 figurative days that might be longer than 24 hours (which I had heard in Sunday School classes in years past). He felt that the first few chapters of Genesis had to be taken literally because they were the foundation of the whole Bible and if they weren’t literal then the rest of the Bible might as well have been thrown out.
This ‘creationism’ thing was not a ‘thing’ until recentely. I was in Australia before I ever even realized that somebody didn’t ‘believe’ in evoution. Then I assumed “OK, this is just something about Australia.” because evolution is real science, the other are philosophy and/or religion.
Actually, only since I got to xanga, and then in the most recent few years did I even realize there were all these people who claim the science of evolution is - made up…or whatever they say.
All that said, I think if they want to teach creation theories outside of “Sunday School” they ought to teach ALL of them, because the Hindus had a story about how it all happened long before the Christians did.
Evolution is science, I think that people who want to believe in one or another of the reliigious creation theories might as well just consider evolution as part of the larger plan. That would be smarter, if they’re going to talk about as something other than a story or metaphor versus something literal.
@DivaJyoti - Yes, if we are to teach “all sides” than we have to teach how all religions believe the Earth was created. How recent do you mean by recent? I remember people talking about creationism when I was a child and definitely by the time I was in high school and could tell the difference between the two.
@Erika_Steele - Maybe it also had to do with where one lived (I grew up in Florida, but not North Flordia, which, you know, means that I’m not a southerner by culture of growing up experience) and I’m pretty old, especially in Xanga years. They didn’t teach anything about any of it before college except in Sunday school, which I didn’t relate to or believe (Episcopalian). I didn’t really believe those stories, I thought they were metaphors, not literal.
I took evolution in college during my first semester and it all made total sense, but it’s not me that I trust, it’s all the expert Nobel prize winning scientists of the world - unified in pronouncing evolution as scientific fact. There’s no conspiracy to that, if there was, then there would be other scientiests pushing all kinds of different theories of creation, not just the one.
To me, it’s obvious that science is critical thinking and the rest is just personal choice about what religious philosophies we relate to, if any.
@Lost_In_Reverie - LOL. I never thought about it that way, but I am almost positive people who believe that Satan planted dinosaur bones would say that God tests our faith. It is completely possible to grow up normal in the South. The larger cities especially Atlanta, Charlotte, Mobile, and New Orleans are less “Southern” than say Eutaw or Boligee, Alabama. If he wasn’t raised Baptist or Southern Baptist (highly likely not to think dinosaurs were real) he probably doesn’t know very many people who don’t believe in evolution.
@DivaJyoti - I think people my age or a little older must be the first ones where it was controversial to teach it at the K-12 or perhaps it became controversial because that was when they started to teach evolution. I think I first remember hearing about it in the second grade. A few years after that, I remember Sunday school teachers teaching creationism and intelligent design which confused me. By the time I was in high school it was a huge deal to the point that one of my teachers went on a tirade about it because some parents asked their kids to be pulled out of class when he taught evolution.
I went to a seminar at UA and I agree with the scientist that spoke. She said we end the debate by not entertaining the creationist. They aren’t scientist and aren’t worth our time. We don’t debate with alchemist, phrenologist, and palm readers and we definitely don’t mention them in our classes so why bother with creationism? The reason they even have any power with the educated public is because we give it to them by discussing science with them.
I find it incredible that there are people who choose not to believe in evolution. @DivaJyoti - I never realised that about our Aussie bro’s, although the American thing about creationism is well known here. I’m finding out new things every day. Must be my mind evolving!
@Relic47 - yeah, some guy I was considering actually dating over there – lost all interest when he just volunteered, out of nowhere…
“I sure as hell didn’t come from no damn monkeys.”
I was wary about all of them after that, now this was in 2002 that I was in Australia for a year, prior to that I had never heard any human being suggest that evolution was “a theory” to me that is akin to saying “the existece of the moon is a theory” the suggestion that the moon affects the tides is a theory.”
nope, nope, not theories, this is reality. And ‘reality’ may mean more to some than others, that I can accept, so like if a newly enlightened person said, to me, “Nothing is real” now THAT I could buy as something that might possibly make sense. But in this reality, evolution is fact.
@Relic47 - DJ sucks at spelling and her vision not that great either, which makes it even worse: fact not theory.
@Erika_Steele - We don’t debate with alchemist, phrenologist, and palm readers
Makes total sense to me. I’m GLAD and grateful I missed all that crap, reason being, I was left with an open mind by the time I was old enough to make up my own mind about things. The only thing I dealt with was seeing the little Jeh. Witnesses or Christians sci. or which ever ones were not allow to get involved in easter egg hunts and santa stuff, I remember thinking their parents were big meanies to make them sit out the fun stuff. I don’t remember any Jewish kids just not joining right in the fun, but – I don’t really know the demographic from those days of my fellow students, aside from being white. I had no black peers in school until highschool.
Sometimes I think that being older and remembering things so vividly and witnessing things, causes me to talk about things that younger xangans just look at my stuff and go “WTF that never happens.” Well, yes, it still does, it depends on where you live as to what you’ve witnessed if you’re younger.
But the reverse is true for this blog, I remember no evolution controversy and I think I’m better off for it.
@DivaJyoti - the no fun kids were the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I am a Military Kid so I got to meet all kinds of people.
@LKJSlain - Dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden?
They date at 50-65 millions years back.
Mankind only appeared in the last 20,000 years. (depending on whom you ask…some say no more recently than 15.000 years.
I took a college course last year that gave the age of the Earth as 4.6 Billion years…give or tale a few millennium.
No offense, but that is a rather HUGE gap…and there are no 20,000 year old dinosaurs, to my knowledge.
So…you reject carbon dating?
@galadrial - You might have missed the part where I said that I have been shown where God might have made the world “old” to begin with.
Why would anyone object to being decendant from Apes? Monkey are primates but separate from apes (no tails)
Why would we want to argue about the Garden of Eden? The door to it is locked and guarded by an angel anyway.
Things are really fuzzy 4-5 thousand years ago. I do not like arguing about things that long ago. In the Middle East they have found evidence of the plants that early man raised. Did you know the fig can only survive when cuttings are put into the ground?(eating) Figs do not survive in the wilds.
Rice is a recent food. Looks like the other grains are more ancient. The western Hemisphere introduced foods to the rest of the world 500 years ago. Can you believe Italians without tomato sauce? That is amazing. Sort of amazing like Italians without noodles (introduced to them 700 years ago)
History is blurry even back to Jesus’s time (2,000 years ago) Even if history for Creationists go back 4,000 to 7,000 years ago (they still haven’t figured out precisely + – 1,000 years) They only will fail tests that have the evolution twist.
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The Finches and moths sort of prove suvival of the fittest and selective breeding. Species like dogs and cats have great variability. Certain fruits like navel oranges are a freak mutation and cannot survive in the wild.
Different species of man? No. Races are just variations. Almost all humans can interbreed which is the old rule of what a species is. The creationists will claim that there are no new species evolving. Don’t argue that point because species label is more definition and not any genetic marker that you can claim evolution.
Too bad the genes of some of the fossils have not survived. We now know a lot about our genetic blueprint. Unfortunately the creationists have the dark side of the coin where they will want to force everyone to avoid stem cell research and cloning.
@LKJSlain - My first thought after reading your comment was “I am so that person who wants to believe in the Loch Ness Monster no matter how insane that may be.” I really love conspiracy theories and the like, and I always want them to be true! But at any rate, they’re always fun to read about.
Back on topic… I think your comment really brings to light how multi-faceted the whole issue is, and how it really is the farthest thing from being black and white. I really think that, at the end of the day, what is most important is that you manage to derive some sort of comfort and understanding from whatever it is that you believe, regardless of whether or not it makes sense to someone else. I think that problem comes in when this progresses to the point of ignorance. For example, someone who completely writes off any scientific information that could contradict something the Bible says. I think that becomes harmful to society because it does hinder our cognitive abilities, and our abilities to learn more about the world around us.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain your point of view to me.
@Rob_of_the_Sky - I also had a few Sunday School teachers who taught in that way. When I was a bit older I had a few different teachers who were a bit more lenient in letting us decide what we thought for ourselves, but I do recall being taught by people who took the bible very literally.
@Erika_Steele - That probably explains it. He was raised Catholic, and grew up near Atlanta. He did mention once dating a girl who was a Southern Baptist whose parents were pretty convinced he was going to hell though. Hahaha.
@LKJSlain - You could’ve just saved everyone else a lot of time and said “I’m not telling”, that is what your long-winded comment amounted to.
@galadrial - I think you mean 150 to 200 thousand years. Left out a zero.
@LKJSlain - I think the idea that animals used to be able to speak is really interesting.
Food for thought … hmmm.
( btw I really like the way you’ve made an argument for creationism using evidence(ish))
@LKJSlain - Ah, so god is dishonest?
@PPhilip - Monkeys, gorillas and humans are all “apes”. Ape is usually used to refer to non-humans, but the term is synonymous with primate.
@LKJSlain - No…I just think you missed the numbers…MILLIONS…not tens of thousands. I was not being snide.
@agnophilo - My bad…
@Erika_Steele - Really? Please tell me you’re joking. If not, I feel I may cry. They are seriously distorting the meaning of science by doing this. Creationism and Intelligent Design in a religion class… yes. In a science class, it should be obvious the answer is no. I hope those poor kids will realize this.
@galadrial - No worries.
Evolution does not explain the existence of man. We are the only creature who can create a thought in our mind and then turn that thought into physical reality. All other animals “think” about what they need to do to survive.
They don’t have the capacity to create cause like man does.
There is no evolutionary reason for man’s ability to create vast, complex civilizations, art, music, poetry, engineering, science etc.
The leap from animal to man is just too vast to be explained by evolution.
@crazy2love - “humans have gotten in the way of their own cognitive development in the name of control, power, and greed” – add religion and you’re spot on – “control, power, greed and RELIGION”.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - “All other animals “think” about what they need to do to survive” – not true. I assure you that my pets do things just to amuse themselves. They play. They look to be cuddled. Do they need someone to pet them to survive? Nope. They seek it because it feels nice physically and emotionally.
@galadrial - I wasn’t trying to imply that you were being snide, forgive me if it looked that way. It’s one of the reasons I destest speaking through the internet.
Hey, I don’t know if it’s true or not… I just think it’s an interesting theory.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - I disagree. It’s been shown through various studies that an animal’s intelligence is relative to the ratio of brain size to body size. Chimpanzees are our closest living ancestor, sharing 98% of our human DNA. Their cranial capacity is approximately 500cc, and they are known as the next smartest animal. They have been shown to have some abstract thought when interacting with humans. Though they don’t have the potential that we do, it shows a lot. As you can see in this post, the cranial capacity has progressively increased through the years, which indicates that the potential for abstract thought increases through time as we evolve.
@misuriver - I am serious. All of my colleagues said they had to teach creationism and intelligent design as alternatives to evolution, they of course found ways to avoid it. Unfortunately, many of the kids accept creationism over evolution. My students, in a college course, asked why I didn’t teach it. Like I said in another comment, when I was in the Biology PhD program, one of my friends put because God made it that way on a test and argued with the instructor that he couldn’t mark her answer wrong. A PhD student.
@Lost_In_Reverie - If you want a laugh, ask him what Baptist think about Catholics. I could write in a post, but it really is so much more amusing if you hear it in person.
@ItsWhatEyeKnow - I only wrote part of what I said in my FB here in context. The full status I wrote was “I just realized it’s past 1am. I guess I got too engrossed in reading
the chapter that starts talking about the evolution of homo. I’m still
not sure how people can be creationists with all this evidence to the
contrary. Religion is blind, I guess. Humans got in the way of their own
cognitive development on that one…all in the name of control, power,
and greed.” So I did include religion on FB so people wouldn’t be confused as to what I was talking about
@crazy2love - Evolution comes about through natural selection. There is no evolutionary reason for man to be the way he is, with self awareness and the capacity to create cause from his own mind.
Relativity still can’t explain the vast difference between man and animals. There simply is no comparison. Apes though genetically close to humans, have never created a civilization, built pyramids, computer chips, literature, poetry or complex language.
@ItsWhatEyeKnow - Your pet has been touched by human love. It is you, the human being who brought out whatever you see in your animal.
And remember, evolution is about natural selection. There is nothing natural about the relationship between you and your pet. Your relationship is the product of your humanity.
@Erika_Steele - Once again, I hereby and officially quit the United States of America. What does that say about a country when a disgruntled citizen quits it twice!
@galadrial - There’s actually a lot of fallacies in carbon dating..
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - All other animals “think” about what they need to do to survive….
I’ll remember to tell that to those primates that just have oral sex for fun.
@misuriver - Animals evolved to have sex. And animals evolved to have fun. Unfortunately my comment was about the things that evolution does not explain.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - You just contradicted yourself.
@misuriver - You made a claim. Now support it please.
Great post!
It is nice to see a post involving religion verses science without a big battle. Excellent points on both sides.
I have one question, I’ve always had this question. How was the earth created? The big bang? And if so.. Where did the life, or gene’s come from?
I’ve always wondered this.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway – Yes, evolution comes about from natural selection. However, natural selection isn’t always viable. There have been millions of creatures that have lived and become extinct in the history of this earth. And there are actually striking similarities in modern humans and modern primates in the way we behave. The only reason we are above the rest is because our brains are bigger and more developed. The brains of us and proxies primates are very similar. The only difference is ours are bigger and more developed. The more developed parts towards the front of the skull is the part of the brain that us what makes us human: further developed emotions and the ability for abstract thought.
@crazy2love - There is no evolutionary reason for our brains to be as big or as well developed as they are.
Further, since man can destroy every habitat on earth, it is totally irrational to believe that nature would evolve an animal that could do that. The existence of man destroys the theory of evolution since every animal except man lives in harmony with the nature that evolved it, and every animal except man evolved to fill an ecological niche.
If man suddenly disappeared what other animal would notice? No other creature depends on man. Man has no ecological niche.
just tonight i saw polls that show most people in Mississippi and Alabama do not believe President Obama is a Christian despite the fact he has said he is on many occasions and he and his family attend a Christian Church on Sundays. of the people who don’t believe he’s a Christian most say they believe he is a Muslim and the rest say they don’t know if he’s a Christian. i think the answer is there are people who don’t want to believe facts when those facts don’t support their beliefs. it’s the opposite of intellectual courage in which one is willing to question one’s own beliefs if they don’t add up. they instead question facts when they don’t add up to their beliefs. it’s important to stick with facts because if one’s belief is true and has integrity facts will eventually confirm that belief.
-
“All other animals “think” about what they need to do to survive” – not
true. I assure you that my pets do things just to amuse themselves.
They play. They look to be cuddled. Do they need someone to pet them
to survive? Nope. They seek it because it feels nice physically and
emotionally.
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3/13/2012 5:40 PM
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ItsWhatEyeKnowShe is essentially saying her pets don’t need human contact to survive, but they play and look to it for fun. I suggested that monkeys do the same thing, through oral sex, a form of sex that has nothing to so with procreation (which is where your argument seemed to be heading in terms of the evolutionary process). Here is what you said to her.
@ItsWhatEyeKnow - Your pet has been touched by human love. It is you, the human being who brought out whatever you see in your animal.
And
remember, evolution is about natural selection. There is nothing
natural about the relationship between you and your pet. Your
relationship is the product of your humanity.
Then I pointed out the monkeys just having fun, doing something purely for fun… you said:
Animals evolved to have sex. And animals
evolved to have fun. Unfortunately my comment was about the things that
evolution does not explain.
When earlier you said that the fun that the pet owner’s animal’s have were based only on her interactions with them. If it’s not a contradiction, it is most definitely an attempt to bypass a point.
Nine times out of ten it’s religious conviction. Ask a Christian what would shake their faith in the Bible, and most will reply “nothing.” Evolution and a literal reading of the Bible contradict each other; ergo, from a Biblical literalist’s point of view, the former must be wrong. If evidence points to the contrary, the evidence must be flawed.
“In what other context would you ignore all the evidence and decide the opposite based on no evidence?“ religion. religion is based of faith — that is, it is conviction in something you cannot prove, but must believe with no evidence. if you can do that, then there’s no reason why logic/proof need be presented, or why anything can counter your argument if it opposes your faith. and therein lies the problem…
@crazy2love - Turns out we are on the same page. Thanks for the full status. I couldn’t agree more.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway – Evolution is completely random, based on mutations in dna. There is no rhyme or reason for it. There’s no reason for us to be the way we are, it’s completely a matter of chance the way we evolved.
@misuriver - His name is Curtis and he contradicts himself all the time.
The short answer is, people prefer a reality they can understand, and a lot of people don’t understand evolution and/or have no desire to. It probably doesn’t help that it (evolution) is part of an interpretation of reality that is competing with a fantasy world where people can live forever in paradise, either. A lot of people will opt for such an appealing belief, no matter how unrealistic it is.
For one thing, the evidence is not ignored. We just don’t take it to mean what evolutionists do. Bones in the dirt do not prove anything other than the owner of it lived once. Nothing about ancestry. That is pure assumption. Much about how they figure out the ages on those bones is too.
In your own example with finches, the ones with longer beaks already existed. Common decent evolution teaches that through mistakes in the copying if DNA entirely new physical characteristics came to be. Scales to feathers, and such. Then we are directed to examples where existing features/characteristics are weeded out or divided out from original parents, such as ring species.
It is not about intelligence. It is not about refusing to acknowledge facts. It is all about world view and interpretation. Since our origin is past, there is no evidence for how we came to be that will not rely heavily on how it is interpreted.
I rather think that Creationism v. Evolution is comparable to a contest between a yacht and a battleship. Unfair and unnecessary. It’s just that the guy in the yacht is very determined to be a threat to the battleship.
But on to your question…
“I’m wondering, with all this evidence of evolution, how there can be so many creationists out there.”
What we humans believe has a lot to do with the narratives with which we approach evidence.
For example, most physical evidence neither indicates the existence of a creator or the non-existence of a creator. The evidence has neither theistic or atheistic implications. There’s no embedded metaphysical narrative in the physical evidence as examined by science, which is not surprising when you consider that metaphysical and physical are different sorts of things and science doesn’t even seek to examine the metaphysical. And yet most people have concluded that the evidence either implies some form of theism or atheism. And when they encounter new evidence, it generally reinforces whatever they already believe, whether their view is theistic or atheistic.
None of this should be completely unexpected. Confirmation bias is a well-known phenomenon, and one that Karl Popper was rightly concerned about with regard to science. He certainly tried to minimize its impact on science with the falsification criterion as a solution to the demarcation problem, and with some success.
@Nous_Apeiron - I think the point that you are missing is that we are not really discussing existence of a creator vs. non-existence of a “creator”. It’s not about atheism vs. theism. It is implied in the original post and many of the comments that we are talking about a very specific creator who created the universe in a very specific way. There is plenty of evidence against the existence of the Christian god. Much of it can be found in their own holy book. The same goes for pretty much every other god that anyone has ever worshiped and even Christians don’t have a hard time accepting that those gods are mythical.
If we are talking about a generic creator then I would agree with you. We don’t have sufficient evidence to make a claim for or against the existence of a creator. Though we have no reason to believe that such a creator has any relevance in our lives. For all we know some other life form that we would call “aliens” created this universe and everything in it. I’m not saying it was aliens… but it was aliens.
@crazy2love - Stating that evolution is the result of random processes is yet another reason why evolution is not a valid explanation for what is going on.
For example, there are 200 parts in a single cilium of a paramecium. For just that part to evolve at random the odds are 1/200! (1 over 200 factorial).
It’s like having a deck with 200 cards and asking what are the chances of choosing 200 cards in the exact order needed to evolve that single cilium. The answer is around 1 in 9.8 x 10^374. There isn’t enough time in the universe for those odds to play out.
A billion billion galaxies weigh on the order of 2 x 10^42 tons. So you can see that 10^374 is mathematics for impossible.
In short, evolution is mathematically impossible on top of defying simple reason.
@LKJSlain - You are the first person I have ever seen making a claim that it’s possible god made the earth appear “old”.
First of all if you interpret the Holy Bible literally, you must accept that it claims Earth was made in 7 days as we experience them now. The idea that 1 day could have been 1000 years to god or any other crazy stuff like that doesn’t make sense if you actually read the text. If you read Genesis chapter 1 verse 13 you can see that the “days” were bound by evening and morning. Unless evening lasted 1000 years when god created everything then it must have been 7 normal days.
Secondly, even if god created the earth to appear old, some things still wouldn’t make sense. For example, light from some distant stars that can be viewed from Earth with a telescope has traveled much longer than 10,000 years to reach Earth.
So many ppl, if they don’t want to understand something, are willfully stupid.
What i find nuts is that creationists start out with the assumption that the experts (including the ones who are Christian) are completely 100% wrong about what the evidence points to in their area of expertise. They start out with the assumption that the ppl who are both ignorant about evolution and biased against it are right, and the people who are knowledgeable about it (regardless of bias) are all wrong. That alone is completely counterintuitive and contrary to how we’d think about any other topic. I think what it boils down to is that ppl believe what they want to believe.
In my own exploration of the topic, I personally got a lot out of Origin of Species. I also read The Man who Found Time (a biography of John Sutton), and stuff by Richard Dawkins.
@AtheistInfidel - I think you missed my point that it was an example of confirmation bias used to explain how creationists can exist in the face of the evidence for evolution. It happens. I can be terse and unclear at times.
If you would like my point to be that there’s no evidence against certain conceptions of God, I suppose I could make that point. Is that what you would prefer?
@AtheistInfidel - You missed what I said.
God created the earth OLD to BEGIN with. – If we take the bible literally, then Adam and Eve were not created as “babies” they were created as “adults” … the same concept is being applied to “earth” … That when God CREATED the earth it was created ALREADY being several million years old.
Understand?
Also, I’d like to add, I am NOT the only person who has thought of this as a theory I heard it from someone else and when I brought it up to other people, they also addressed the idea that people and animals were created “Adult,” so why not earth? (You can look up these theories online even)
I’d also like to add that I said that it was a “theory”, it’s not necessarily something that I fully believe.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - I disagree. There isn’t one straight line that shows the evolution of early hominins to modern homo sapiens. This chart shows the taxonomy of evolution of man. As you can see, there were attempts of natural selection that did not succeed, and there were no further attempts of evolution on those branches, they simply die off. It is this very idea that signifies that natural selection didn’t simply go from point A to B to C, and in this it proves that chances were taken by natural selection that failed. Statistically the odds were stacked against us, yes, but in the end, the odds and chances don’t matter because it happened. Only by trial and error did we become what we are. Also, the later hominins on into early Homo started using bone and stone tools, which says that we started having cognitive and abstract thought the bigger our brains got as time went on.
@crazy2love - You are disagreeing with Stephen Hawkings, one of the greatest cosmologists in history.
And because something happened doesn’t mean it was caused by evolution. The science, the math and simple reasoning say that evolution is just a fable.
I was raised in a “Creationist” home, and home educated from 1st grade until I graduated high school. I’m just now learning about evolution in a zoology class I’m taking in college. It has completely blown my mind. I can’t believe I wasn’t “allowed” to learn about evolution before I was an adult in college. I can’t fathom the fact that I once believed, whole-heartedly no less, in creationism. It just makes so much sense.
My mother is so crushed.
Nobody who ever existed on this planet knows for a fact what the complete nature of God is, nor will anyone who ever will exist on this planet, or anywhere else in the Universe. God is the Unknowable Essence. The way we know of Him at all is through the various advocates of the Golden Rule, whom we call Manifestations of God, Prophets, Spirit Guides, etc. That, and by looking around and appreciating the wonders of Creation- none of which happened in a mere 6,000 Earth years.
Too much big and advanced modern words. Much simpler to comprehend that everything is made as is…
I had a jewish Astronomy professor. It is odd that science and religion are so often pitted against one another.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - I don’t know what you’re talking about. How can evolution be a fable? It happens all the time. Evolution is caused by mutations in DNA. DNA is what we are. It tells our cells what we look like, the shape of our bones, everything. So why is it so crazy that changes in DNA slowly changed us over millions of years? DNA mutates ALL THE TIME. Most of the time the mutations aren’t viable, so they are destroyed (die), or the mutation simply isn’t reproduced when the cell divides. However, mutations in DNA that aren’t beneficial to natural selection are sometimes passed along anyway. There are many genetic diseases out there. One of them is sickle cell anemia. That disease developed in Africa because as we started farming, there became stagnant pools of water that attracted mosquitoes that carry the disease malaria. Sickle cell anemia is a mutation of DNA that arose from that situation. If a person has two recessive genes of sickle cell, they are immune to malaria. So if a mutation of DNA works for diseases, why is it so hard to expand that thought that mutations of DNA can change the way we look?
@crazy2love - Evolution doesn’t happen all the time. All of my comments have explained that. Man is an example of evolution not happening. Life is an example of evolution not happening. Diversity is an example of evolution not happening.
The very existence of a universe where life happened is an example of evolution not happening.
@SolidStateTheory - I don’t find it odd at all. I have the firm belief that religions were created to control people. At the time religions were being created, they didn’t have the knowledge that we do now. They more than likely never thought that we could ever know the truth to what they were selling, because at those times science wasn’t around. The knowledge of science has grown by leaps and bounds in the last couple of centuries. And, the knowledge of science is fluid. A scientist can discover something that disproves what was originally thought. As I’ve read from many comments here, it’s no surprise to me that the knowledge of science has been so repressed in areas that are highly religious, such as the south. The church is afraid that more and more people will realize it’s all a sham.
@crazy2love - But much of science has nothing to do with refuting religion. And many scientists in the past were from various churches.
@crazy2love - Every great civilization grew up around religion. The greatest mass murders were instigated by atheist regimes.
Religion is simply man worshiping and paying homage to the Creator.
And did you know that Western science, is a product of Christianity?
@SolidStateTheory - I know, but some of it does, such as evolution….but this theory only disproves creationism (in my opinion). I guess I’m more referring to these kinds of arguments with regard to science in this context.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - Actually, evolution DOES happen all the time. Evolution isn’t just changing a species, it includes the biological level, which happens to include DNA mutations. And that happens all the time. I find it funny that you pick and choose which parts of my argument to counter, and you keep saying the same information over and over again, while I keep offering new information. Such as now.
The brain develops from the back to the front. The last part of our brains to develop is the frontal lobe, which is fully developed by about the age of 25. However, every single animal starts with the same brain. A worm, a lesser animal, has one of the most basic brains. As we move up the chain, we see that animals all have that part of the brain, the first part. But as brain development starts at the back and works its way forward, the basic brain gets parts added on to it, as you move from lesser animals to greater animals. That’s why, as humans, we have the most evolved and developed brains. Why have the biggest brains. The fact that we all start from the same basic brain further shows that over millions and millions of years, we have evolved from one source. We have that same part of the brain that worms do. The very same, that controls the same things. We just have much more brain, and that’s what makes us what we are and not worms.
Every great civilization grew up around religion…that we know of. We don’t know the history of human beings and their culture before a certain time in history. Homo sapiens have been around for about 100,000-300,000 years. We only know the history of humans and culture for about the last 10-15,000 years. What about the thousands of years before what we know? There could have been great civilizations in that time that we don’t know about because they had no way of recording it. And they might not have been religious.
@crazy2love - How can you say that evolution happens all the time? I have given you examples where it has not happened. And all you have done is say, “I disagree.”
That kind of continuous reply is a repudiation of science.
And yes every civilization has grown up around religion that we know of. What we don’t know, or what we fantasize is not a valid argument for anything other than story telling, which is what the theory of evolution actually is.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - You just completely ignored the fact that I said evolution isn’t just changing a species and it includes the biological level, which INCLUDES DNA mutations, which DO, in fact, happen all the time. You just don’t know it. Most of the time one mutated cell in your body is not going to change something about the way you look, such as your eye color. The DNA mutation is ignored at the next cell divide. Just because it’s not how we classically think of evolution doesn’t mean it’s not evolution.
@crazy2love - But your comment doesn’t address man. And man has been the heart of my proof that evolution is not a viable theory. All you’ve don’t in your comments is change the subject away from the proofs against evolution.
@PPhilip - “Almost all humans can interbreed which is the old rule of what a species is.”
That figures. Someone on this comments string thinks there are humans we can’t interbreed with. I reckon it must be the Welsh. They’re ugly buggers.
God created Adam but realized he was lonely so one day God called Adam over and told him he had a gift for him.
Adam: What’s a gift?
God: It’s something you give to someone without asking for something in return because you care about him.
Adam: mmmmmmmmmmm k. so what is this gift you have for me?
God: A woman
Adam: What’s a woman?
God: A woman is someone like you in ways but in other ways…oh never mind. I think you’ll like her.
Adam: mmmmmmmmmmm k. where is this gift?
God: You’ll find her in the mountains off in the distance.
Adam: What’s are mountains?
God: Those things you see touching the sky in the distance.
Adam: What is the sky?
God: That blue thing you see when you look straight up. Just walk across the plain to get there.
Adam: What’s a plain?
God: JUST GO ALREADY…and when you find her, touch her and kiss her, your lips to hers.
God smiled and thought to himself “I’m not going to see him for a long time” as he watched Adam head toward the mountains but to God’s surprise Adam returned in only a few hours.
God: Didn’t you find her?
Adam: I did. Her name is Eve, yes?
God: Yes. Didn’t you like her?
Adam: I liked her.
God: Well did you touch her? Did you kiss her?
Adam: I did both.
God: What happened?
Adam: I’m not sure. What’s a headache?
Interesting reading through all this. Interesting too that,so far, the literal period of bible creation is being said to be seven days. No one has yet challenged that. The bible says it is six days not seven. Let’s get the basics right. At least give the impression that you read your own text.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - Complex parts didn’t evolve in their modern form, all at once, which is what those astronomically unlikely odds reflect. Rather, a crude version, much simpler and much, much, much more likely to occur as a random mutation, develops, and from there, a process of evolutionary fine tuning occurs, with each minor improvement granting an advantage to the individual, and thus becoming more prevalent than the previous version.
This is common among evolution’s opponents. What you’re doing is misrepresenting evolution, and misapplying statistics. You don’t want it to be true, so rather than learning about it and considering it in full, you glean just enough information to take out of context and distort for your own purpose.
@Maverick83 - Oh my goodness thank you for saying it like that. I was getting exasperated so I stopped arguing and wrote a paper on my social deviance experiment, lol.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - What about man is unique? What aspect of us could not have evolved? Emotions? No, those are further developed and more complex extensions of our basic instincts. Logic? Reasoning? No, that is a further developed extension of basic problem solving abilities possessed by any remotely intelligent animal. Civilization? Just a more advanced version of social behavior exhibited by plenty of other animals. Our various forms of self-expression? The motives for those range from simple leisure activities to alleviate stress, to efforts to communicate things we don’t feel words to be sufficient for, to displays of prowess, all of which are evolved versions of behaviors exhibited frequently in the animal kingdom.
@crazy2love - you do know sometimestheycomebackanyway is Curtis aka loborn. don’t bother.
@crazy2love - lol no prob, though I still don’t think it will have much of an impact. When someone doesn’t want to believe something, it makes no difference how thoroughly it is explained or undeniable it is, they will continue to reject it. I believe I even have previous experience with that particular Xangan, under a different name, and quite frustrating experience, at that…I’m expecting to see, if anything, a response containing the same manner of gibberish he’s been putting forth consistently, and odds are, I’ll just ignore it.
@TheSutraDude - OMG SERIOUSLY?! I had no idea. Thanks for the info. I had a feeling I was dealing with a troll. I guess I was gone too long and missed that change.
@crazy2love - don’t mention it. the loborn site was apparently shut down by Xanga, so i’ve heard. i wonder if they know he’s created new accounts.
@Maverick83 - Would your experience have been with Loborn? Because apparently that’s who that is. Reminds me of this video, bahahaha!
@TheSutraDude - @crazy2love - So it IS loborn! I kind of suspected. (and the username is kind of a giveaway) I’m not active enough in the community to keep up with that kind of thing, but I can detect that particular brand of psychosis from a mile away. Yeah, I think the loborn site was shut down because of something he said about the user GodlessLiberal, or more specifically, his girlfriend. Shortly after, I saw some comments from a user called homealivein45 (on other sites and my own) that reeked of lobornity, a brief search indicates that site was shut down, as well. I think loborn is a pimple the Xanga community will have to get used to having on its ass.
@Maverick83 - i don’t know why loborn’s site was shut down. could have been for a thousand reasons but the reason you gave doesn’t surprise me. i miss GodlessLiberal btw. great guy.
You wrote an excellent post here and, if the nay-sayers actually stopped and considered what you wrote, they might learn something; I did.
People who question the science of evolution and then give serious thought to the possibility of everything being winked into existence by a really angry and judgmental entity amuse me for a minute or two. Then I leave them to babble and go talk to the adults.
@TheSutraDude - @crazy2love - @Maverick83 - By name calling, you proclaim yourself the loser. My arguments are solid. Yours are simply the result of indoctrination. I used reasoning, science and mathematics to prove my points. Calling somebody a name in response is rather chilling.
Religious fanatics, and fanatics of all stripes do the same thing.
@LKJSlain - I didn’t miss what you said. I’m not talking about how old the Earth is. I’m talking about particles of light known as photons. It doesn’t matter if god made the Earth appear to be 4 billion or 20 billion. A star that is 20,000 light years away would not be visible from the Earth if it had only existed in this spot for 4000-6000 years. If we can view a star that is 20,000 light years away that means the Earth has been here for at least 20,000 years. Unless you are claiming that god also created an infinite photon emitter 4000 lightyears away and he is tricking us with optical ilusions.
To believe that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time and that animals spoke to humans is ridiculous as well.
@AtheistInfidel - I’m not denying that the earth could indeed be 20,000 years old, heck maybe even a touch older. The reality is that we have no idea how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden before the fall. The other reality is that again, I’m not talking about “appearences” I’m saying that if God created Adam and Eve to be twenty then they were twenty. If God created the earth to be four million, then it was four million. (BTW, the same could go for the universe)
As for what’s ridiculous or not, hey, no one’s telling you you have to waste your time talking to crazy people. =^_^=
People believe what they believe for social reasons rather than because they’ve gone about examining the evidence in a scientific manner. This applies to a lot of stuff besides evolution.
Ah, but I see there are already over 100 comments and I am late to this party.
@TheSutraDude - Really?!
I just wanna leave my 2 cents here FWIW as a Muslim and someone who’s taken a Biology & Society humanities elective in an engineering university taught by a molecular biologist.
I personally don’t have a problem between evolution and “creationism.” I double quote creationism because my theology differs from that of Christianity so what is in common and different shouldn’t be assumed in advance.
Belief is something that, say, exists beyond knowledge. Evolution is not a belief issue, depending on who’s talking about it it may very well be a scientific discourse. I say “may very well be” due to the gross absence of knowledge combined with common misunderstanding alike since Darwin’s having brought the subject to spotlight. The subject of heredity has been contemplated for ages and was nothing new (not for Greeks, not for Muslims, not for Christians (and I put it in this order chronologically, not to say there’s any soundness to my knowledge on this)). What was new since the 19th century is having some substance to show for the ideas and ever since what with eugenics gaining huge motion people put observation of external characteristics to work. That alone, however, is a dead end. On its own it’s entirely fallacious. What gave evolution more than just apparent credibility was Mendel’s work. With that we knew and continue to know for sure there are evolutionary processes at work as you mention in the end of your post… the precedence of DNA over other things. Darwin’s ideas on how “genes” got passed down? They’re laughable in this day and age.
So these are things people can learn about, they can come to know.
As for belief in Adam and Eve? Do people believe it because they’re told or because it has to be that way? In Islam like Christianity and Judaism before it there is a belief in Prophets of God. However, unlike Christianity we don’t believe in natural sin, and we believe Prophets were free of sin, infallible in the tasks they were set to. God would send miracles so people might believe the Prophets were in fact who they said they were. Miracles by definition are an exception to, say, natural law as we know it. For example with Prophet Jesus, if you could take a snapshot in time of him reviving someone from the dead, if that were possible, it’s possible quite a great number of people would just give up trying to figure out how that was done and just take his word for it on what he said happened, who he said he was, and everything else.
So if someone’s in that position in which they believe such and such is a Prophet of God for whatever reason, that said Prophet in no ambiguous terms said we all came from one initial pair of humans, that that pair of humans were essentially made from scratch, then they believe in an Adam and Eve not because of archaeological or anthropological findings, but literally because to them God or a Prophet of God said so. Why does this not *necessarily* pose a conflict or contradiction with real world knowledge of evolution? Because it’s a belief in a miracle or something like it, i.e. if a person believes in Adam and Eve and that Adam is created from scratch (not an effect of an evolutionary process), then if anything it only supports that evolutionary processes exist. Why? If it’s a miracle asides from immediate heredity what other natural laws would it be defying? The event is inherently exceptional.
I hope the above stuff helps out anyone that either gets all confused or frustrated and refrains from pursuit of knowledge in either direction, whether of their faith or the workings of the world around them, the one upon which we all reside.
@LKJSlain - I don’t feel like it is a waste of my time because I value truth and even if you don’t accept what I am saying, others may.
You have a misconception about what it means to be old. Being old is actually a measure of time. 1 Day after Adam and Eve were supposedly created they would only be 1 day old. It doesn’t matter if they look as if they are 20 years old. They are still only 1 day old as age is a measure of time, not physical maturity. The same holds true for the Earth. That is what I mean when I say “appears” to be old. In this case the Earth would be only 5000 or so years old but god has made it so that to humans it appears to be 4.6 billion years old. For example it has canyons that appear to have been formed over a long period of time, etc.
Also I just want to point out that most creation “scientists” agree that the earth is around 6,000 years old.
@AtheistInfidel - I value truth as well.
The difference between you and I is that I don’t put anything outside of “God” – See, since I believe that He CREATED time, I believe that He could do anything He wants with it. I believe that He COULD indeed create someone twenty years old, and they would be twenty years old. (Again, because He created and can manipulate time)
I would also like to say that I don’t trust all of carbon dating, knowing how it works, and the assumptions that it uses to test against other things. (I know the conversation wasn’t really about carbon dating.)
As I said in one of my first comments, the bible actually confirms some of what science says. And in reality (since I am not great at communicating through text when it comes to these things) if you wanted to know, you could do some research yourself.
And no, I could never accept your truth, God has personally done way too much for me for me to ever turn my back on Him. Including lead me straight to my future husband who was an atheist at the time, and had an unprompted experience with God.
@galadrial - If you want to be technical, there are dinosaurs sitting outside my window right now
Sorry, not trying to undermine your point (because you’re right), I just get upset when people forget that birds are dinosaurs.
@Doitean - I think it could be argued that they evolved from them…but I take your point. It also adds to the evolution theory—explaining why apes still exist…so point for that!
@galadrial - Well, no, they didn’t evolve “from” them; Aves is literally a clade within Theropoda, a member of Saurischia, one of the two divisions of superorder Dinosauria. They are dinosaurs by definition.
But yes, it does provide further proof of evolution. (Quite frankly, I can’t believe anyone can deny such a fact. They may as well deny gravity, since the theory of gravity has less evidence, more holes, and is less well-understood than evolution.)
@Doitean - I bow to your superior knowledge in this one…but am so happy you mentioned it.
Good on ya!
@galadrial - Bah, I only know these things thanks to Google. The only reason I really care is because I love the joke that owls are “super-advanced flying stealth dinosaurs”
@LKJSlain - This was a very thoughtful response. As a believer, I KNOW (due to science) that the earth is well over 7000 years old. I do not think that we can dismiss fossil evidence. I also happen to think that the Bible does not contain every detail of our (Earth) existence. Rather, it contains what is relevant to us as a race (human).
I searched for a very long time for someone to articulate what my thoughts were as far as creation and the age of the earth and so forth. Here is a link. Let me know what you think. http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/tbr/tbr094.htm
@TigersLovePepper - whoa, that’s a lot to read. HEHE
I may or may not get to it. I’m pretty busy over the next few days.
@Doitean - Part of the beauty of the net is that it makes information available.
Part of the reason I like the net is that it DOES expose me to other people—and their thoughts, and how they process it. You don’t give yourself enough credit. People can learn from each other…even old ones like me!
@LKJSlain - Whenever you have a chance. The link goes directly to the part I would like for you to see. Of course, if you scroll back you will go on for days, as it were. Just read the part under the heading New Earth.
What an interesting–and CIVIL–conversation. I went to Sunday school as a kid, and bibile school. We sang, did crafts, learned Bible stories. It was all cool, until I realised that my peers actually believed that stuff to be true! So, I guess I was born an atheist and have seen no evidence in my life to be anything else.
@LKJSlain - Have you ever looked for some extremely smart Christian WOMEN?
The neanderthals are not our direct ancestors, and we know this because neanderthal DNA has finally actually been sequenced. Having said that, the rest of your presentation is excellent.
I have nothing to say about creationist drivel. What I am interested in is the other homo subspecies and species we may have interbred with in the last 40 millennia. Neanderthalis is one of them. There is a race named Denisova found in Siberia and linked to populations in Southeast Asia. There is another genome linked to populations in West Africa.
To me this is very exciting. Recently, fossils of a new hominid, 10-14 millennia old, were found in the Red Deer Cave site in China. They may or may not be homo sapiens. Stay tuned to the science blogs!
@vexations - Yup, they exist too O_O haha
@crazy2love - Just letting you know, sometimestheycomebackanyway is one of those people who loves to keep circular arguments going forever. He will argue until you’ve had enough then move on to be a pain in someone else’s ass. He doesn’t believe a word s/he is posting, but enjoys the argument.
You could post fifty links to fifty different peer-reviewed scientific journals and he would say they don’t count because they are all biased toward science, then demand christian sources.
You’re not going to get anywhere, no matter how good your sources or evidence are because he’s here to be a pain in the ass, not learn, educate or even express a real viewpoint.