Evolutionism vs. Creationism

[ZAKtheGeek]

Okay, here's a debate-like topic. Which do you believe to be correct: creationism, or evolutionism? Or another theory? Why? Use logical arguments here, this is a serious topic. And it may become heated or offensive due to religious matters.

Right, so, start discussing, Pokeschool!

[RLRL]

Both theories are IMO flawed in the way they are set out...

I personally do not like the idea of creationism as I am against the idea of there being a single Creator....
Evolutionism is too "perfect" for me if you get what I mean... the idea that suddenly boom, single cell organism, after thousands of years when it divides it changes slightly, and then boom, millions of years later we have forms of life... Just too perfect for me...

Dogbert I think put all theories like that into place with his arguement "All creatures that have or will exist are still around today, just most of them are hiding" this goes well with the fact they share their house with 2 dinosaurs called Bob and Dawn (who later have a kid, but thats not important)

[pohatufan1returns]

Something sounds pretty oxymoronical about the phrase "and then boom, millions of years later".

I favor evolutionism. I've grown nigh-atheistic lately and don't believe there's a God or Gods that created us, even if I do like learning about ancient mythologies.

Although I admit that Dogbert's idea is very appealing too.

[Bub@]

Both. I believe a powerful deity created everything (the big bang as scientists say) and he guided evolution to what we are today.

Has anyone played The Sims? Intresting game...

[baratron]

I believe both too. I believe that deity exists (although I am entirely ambivalent about whether there is one god or many gods, or what genders they are) and that evolution is the way in which the deity guides things.

Pure creationists make me get teeth-grittingly angry, but evolutionists who insist that their atheism must apply to everyone else in the universe also make me annoyed.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Well personally, I'm an evolutionist. It's not a perfect theory, but when choosing between it and "a wizard did it," I think the choice is clear.

And even if your opinion is not popular, don't be afraid to voice it... that's the only way this would be interesting.

[RLRL]

Personally Dogberts view will last for me... it suggests both theories essentially.. which makes it funny... oh and the idea that things are just in hiding... Im now gonna go out and find a tazmanian tiger (they look cute okay!)

[PKS Dragon Lord]

I'm going with both too. It seems impossible that single celled creatures just suddenly can into existence after the "Big Bang" but I also find it highly unlikely that we were just created as we are today.

Creationism is flawed because of the existance of prehistoric human-like creatures. Evolutionism is flawed because I don't think that anything can be brought into existance from an explosion. There has to be a God in some form that has guided the evolution of all living things, but didn't just say "Poof" and they were there.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Natural selection sounds like a good way for evolution to have been guided. Frankly, I don't see the point in bothering to make single-cellled organisms if you're just going to evolve them anyway.

And obviously, single-celled organisms magically springing up from the big bang makes no sense either. Because no one is making that claim. The big bang is what theoretically began this universe, in which the sun from our solar system eventually formed and began to gain planets in its orbit, including earth. At some point once earth cooled, it had seas of molecules essential to life, as well as thunderstorms. Is it not likely that, with energy from a random bolt of lightning, a molecule of ATP was formed, which gave another molecule the energy to turn a different pair of molecules into itself? Just as an example. With chemical reactions focused on making more of the involved chemicals from other ones found in the environment, the very concept of life is formed.

[Andurin]

I personally believe in both. I agree with Bub@ that a Creator of some sort guided life to be what it is. I also come from a highly devout Catholic family, so that could affect me, although I do not consider myself that devout.

I find it highly unlikely, like most of you, that a single cell organism could un-magically spring to life without something/someone's intervention.

Ya know, I was writing this story(but gave up after writer's block and laziness took over) about how all the gods are just regular people(Vishnu and Shiva throw wild parties, God is a nerd, etc.), and God programmed the world as a game for his friends, and we actually do live in a world similar to the sims. And it was written in the style of Genesis(ie. And God clicked on the compile and run button, and it was good).

Has anyone read American Gods by Neil Gaimen? I'll have to say I agree with Sam's monologue, alhtough I forgot which points I agree with her on. I just know that when I read it, it was worthy of applause.

And, just to get the mind reeling, we can't forget the Dark Tower series by Steven King. What if, the universe, in all it's near infinite glory, was just a quark in another, even bigger universe, and all the atoms in our world contained universes? Makes ya think, doesn't it?

[PKS LeeTupper]

Give me time to write up a debate, and I will be all over this topic.

[ZAKtheGeek]

What if, the universe, in all it's near infinite glory, was just a quark in another, even bigger universe, and all the atoms in our world contained universes? Makes ya think, doesn't it?
I've thought about this long ago too. I think there's some theory about this.

Ya know, I was writing this story(but gave up after writer's block and laziness took over) about how all the gods are just regular people(Vishnu and Shiva throw wild parties, God is a nerd, etc.), and God programmed the world as a game for his friends, and we actually do live in a world similar to the sims. And it was written in the style of Genesis(ie. And God clicked on the compile and run button, and it was good).
It's possible, but it rasies questions:
1. Wouldn't this mean that gods don't care about us, with such a huge universe to observe?
2. If not, why make an entire universe you're not even going to care about?
3. They must have an enormous amount of patience, observing everything for billions of years... and if it goes faster for them, then the program is unnecessarily complex, allowing for small things to happen despite the fact that they aren't even observed and probably don't even affect anything. (okay, this one's not really a question)
4. Who created the gods?

[Salamence-trainer221]

Well, in my opinion, evolution is a load of crap. How can a single boom just create people and a world and a society? It can't. I am a Lutheran, so I believe that God created us, but their is one thing that has always trouble me about God. How did God get here? Who created him? Who created the person that created God? And it goes on and on. I just have trouble thinking that there is only one God and that he created everything.

It really troubles me thinking about this, because there is no possible way to answer this question...it sucks...

[ZAKtheGeek]

Well, in my opinion, evolution is a load of crap. How can a single boom just create people and a world and a society?
Contradictory much? That's the basic principle behind evolutionism: it can't all have happened at once.

How did God get here? Who created him?
I think the theory is supposed to be that god is the uncaused cause.
On another note, it gets tiring to see people refer to god as "him" or wondering what gender god is. If god exists (which it doesn't), why would it have a gender? Because people do? Why must people think they're so special? We're just another organism, only special because we are the most intelligent organism that we are currently aware of.

[Andurin]

Most of my religious teachers have said that God is only referred to 'Him' because of a lack of knowledge, and when the belief sprang up, it was during a time of male predominence. Also, to me, saying 'it' sounds somewhat disrespectful, even if you capitalized the 'I.'

1. Wouldn't this mean that gods don't care about us, with such a huge universe to observe?
It was meant to be a funny story, but hey, I'll take your questions. ;) You know how the world right now is divided up into its many religions. Each god/goddess took control over several people, and from there, they would try to lead their people into some sort of goodness with a soft chewy center. The world was the only actual thing that was created, and the universe around it is just a blanket to cover our eyes... (Matrix-esque sounds)

2. If not, why make an entire universe you're not even going to care about?
Erm.. uhh... it was a fun game?

3. They must have an enormous amount of patience, observing everything for billions of years... and if it goes faster for them, then the program is unnecessarily complex, allowing for small things to happen despite the fact that they aren't even observed and probably don't even affect anything. (okay, this one's not really a question)
Ah, here's a gameplay thing. Have you read the Ellimist Chronicles by K.A. Applegate? They too had games, where they'd try to lead a chosen species to prosperity. What they did, was that they were able to fast forward, rewinds, etc.

4. Who created the gods?
Yes.

[PKS LeeTupper]

If you ask where God came from, why not ask this, too? Where did the matter from the big bang come from? Was all of this matter just spontaneously here as well? You see, even if it came from the compression of a previous universe, that previous universe still has to have an origin. By this measure, one can use this argument on any idea presented.

The reason that God is refered to by the male gender is a two fold reason. First of all, the Lord fulfills the role of a father to humanity, protecting us while at the same time eventually disciplining us if we do wrong unrepentantly. Secondly, the one time that he came to the earth in a human form, he was in a male form, to help spread his message (in those days, or even now, a woman prophet or religious teacher could not receive the same reception as a man would). So, I suppose that since male is the only gender God has assumed, it could be said that even though "he" is beyond something as earthly and simple as gender, "he" is the most appropriate pronoun.

[ZAKtheGeek]

If you ask where God came from, why not ask this, too? Where did the matter from the big bang come from? Was all of this matter just spontaneously here as well? You see, even if it came from the compression of a previous universe, that previous universe still has to have an origin. By this measure, one can use this argument on any idea presented.
Well, see, perhaps there IS a first uncaused cause. Just not necessarily god. The main reason (i think) that I don't believe in a god is the fact that god is depicted as having conscious control over things. However, I believe that there are no truly conscious decisions: everything can be explained by formulas and/or random chance. The obvious exception, of course, is human thought, which we have not yet been able to comprehend. This is the one hole in my theory; if human thought could be understood and explained in terms of what we already know, then my theory would be flawless (as far as I see) and the concept of an omnipotent conscious being doesn't make any sense.

By the way, I don't know how to spell "conscious."

[PKS LeeTupper]

You spelled it correctly, Zak.

Actually, if you believe in God, the idea of math and probability controlling things is pretty spot on. Think of this as a mathematic pattern following a set of rules. God set the equations, and lets it run, stepping in and changing formulas and rules when he desires certain results, or because one of his friends desires certain results. You see, God is the one being that is exempt from the rest of the systems and laws he has set. The Bible, if you take it on its merit, proves truly logical in its entirety.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Let's not get into the pain of saying that the bible is "logical"... problems with the concept of the great flood and noah's ark alone will bury you.

[PKS LeeTupper]

How so, pray tell? I'm signing off for the night now, but pose your argument, and I'll do my best to retaliate tomorrow night.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Honestly? Haha, okay, I take no credit for the following compilation of much of my thoughts on the subject:

In answer to the question "why don't you think the flood in the bible is the literal truth?"
Some of the consequences of a year-long global flood would be:

All of the fresh water fish would have become extinct, as the lakes mingled with the salt water of the oceans. This has obviously not happened, since the world's lakes and rivers are full of specialized organisms which cannot survive in the salt water of the oceans.

Most of the sedimentary rock on the Earth should be in the oceans, since the loose material would have been largely pushed off-shore as the flood waters receded. However, most of the sedimentary rock on Earth is on high ground! In fact, even the mountains are largely composed of sedimentary rock!

The level of erosion should be constant all over the world, since all of the world's erosion was supposedly caused by a single global event. However, some mountains are much more eroded than others (e.g. the Appalachians as opposed to the Rockies).

Animal species which are dependent upon non-European localized ecosystems would have become extinct, since they would never survive the migration back home after debarking from the Ark. For example, the South American trapdoor tarantulas would have had to somehow journey all the way from Europe to the Amazon jungle, over an ocean and through environments which are much too cold to support them. The polar bear would have had to journey back to its arctic home, through thousands of kilometres of temperate zone. The giant panda would have had to journey from Europe to the bamboo forests of China, despite its poor mobility and extremely specific dietary requirements. What did it eat until it reached the distant bamboo forests? Species like this should have become extinct, but they didn't.

The distribution of recent fossils should follow a radial pattern from the point where Noah unloaded his Ark, irrespective of species. Consider the fact that all of the Earth's creatures had to migrate outward from a single point. This would leave obvious fossil patterns, which we have failed to observe. Instead, the fossil patterns seem to be consistent with a pattern of long-term migrations and evolutionary adaptations.

All the plants in the world would have died, because plants require UV radiation and cannot survive deep submersion for prolonged periods (that's why all underwater plants are close to the surface). However, the ancient Bristlecone Pine trees of California show an unbroken line passing right through the Flood and dating back more than 10,000 years. In fact, one particular specimen (nicknamed "Methuselah") is still living, even though it dates back nearly 4800 years, or 500 years before the Flood. How did the creationists deal with this? You'll love this ... when they heard about it, they started writing "research papers" denying the validity of tree-ring dating

Fossils of flightless animals should be depth-sorted based on their size and hydrodynamic characteristics rather than their position in the evolutionary progression. However, this is not the case. Species of virtually identical hydrodynamic characteristics are separated by eons, while even the largest dinosaurs are found at the same level as the smallest dinosaurs (which are all, in turn, found far below much smaller and more recent primates). No pattern of depth-sorting based on size and hydrodynamic characteristics is identifiable in the fossil record.

Fossils of species with superior mobility should always be found at the shallowest levels in the sedimentary rock rather than being grouped with their evolutionary contemporaries, since they would presumably have reached high ground and taken the longest time to die. Flying animals in particular would be at the very top. However, this is not the case. For example, flying dinosaur species are buried at the same depth as other dinosaur species, well below much more recent species with inferior mobility. No pattern of depth-sorting based on mobility is identifiable in the fossil record.

The fossil record should be composed almost entirely of land creatures, since flood geology claims that all sedimentary rock was formed during the Flood and ocean-dwellers wouldn't die in a Flood (remember that any ocean disruption violent enough to kill the sea life would have easily capsized Noah's boat). However, much of the fossil record is sea life.

Metallic man-made Bronze Age artefacts would be found at the very bottom of the fossil record, since such objects fall quicker than any organism, and will obviously not run to high ground or struggle to tread water. However, this is not the case; the vast majority of the fossil record lies beneath the earliest human metallic artefacts.

How did Noah build the Ark? A simple examination of shipbuilding techniques and manpower requirements reveals that a wooden boat of that size will not be seaworthy because of excessive leakage, and that one man couldn't possibly build it. The act of procuring the necessary wood alone would have easily overwhelmed him.

Exactly how did the mountains form? Why would a flood make mountains? Did they form by magic?

Why do the sedimentary rocks in the mountains contain fossils of ocean-dwelling creatures?

How did the ice caps form? They would have been broken up and melted during the flood, and there hasn't been enough time for them to form since then. Moreover, Greenland ice cores show a progression of yearly patterns since well before the Flood, even though the entire mass should have been broken up.

Why aren't the fossils of modern land-locked animals routinely found deep in the sea bed, even though a catastrophic flood should have easily pushed huge amounts of coastal life into the ocean?

Why aren't environmentally specialized fossils found away from their native environments? A flood would easily disperse fossils over very wide areas irrespective of their original environmental suitability, yet we see no evidence of this dispersion.

Why do we often find sedimentary rocks which demonstrate severe erosion long after their formation? The Red Deer River valley, for example, is composed of a single region of sedimentary rock through which a fissure was eroded by a river. Exposed, eroded sedimentary rock makes up the walls of the valley. Are we to imagine that the same Flood which deposited and then rapidly compacted this rock then preferentially arranged itself so as to cut a groove through the middle as it receded?

Why are different components of the same organism (i.e. the pollen and trunk of a plant) invariably sorted at the same layer? Did the flood somehow sort the pollen and trunk and leaves of plants so that they would always end up in consistent layers?

Why are exposed-surface features such as footprints found in deep rock, often layered on top of one another? How does a footprint form, remain intact, and fossilize in the midst of the chaotic sedimentation process described by flood geology?

Why are fossils layered with complete forest ecosystems to match, so that soil layers and plants and animals from one epoch are always grouped together? Did the flood somehow sort this too? That's one clever flood!

How did all of this sedimentary rock form without releasing the requisite amount of heat, which would have boiled the oceans? Sedimentary rock forms because the resulting rock has a lower energy state than the loose matter from which it was formed, and the energy decrease in the rock must be balanced by an equal energy release into its environment. You can't accelerate the process of rock sedimentation without also accelerating the consequent rate of energy release. The ark and everything on it would have been poached.

How do they explain where all of the animals would have lived, or have they ever noticed that the sheer animal population indicated by fossil deposits is enough to fill the Earth to the point of being dangerously overcrowded? Not a problem if those animals lived over many hundreds of millions of years, but if they were all crammed into a 6,000 year history ...

On the same note, how can they explain the sheer volume of organic material in the Earth's coal deposits and sedimentary rock layers? It's been pointed out many times that even a globe-spanning forest wouldn't provide anywhere near enough organic material to account for all of that mass ... unless, of course, it was deposited over a very long period of time rather than just one year.

How did Noah or any of the other animals survive in the barren, devastated global ecosystem that would have been left after the flood? Since all of the plants would have died from prolonged deep submersion, the effect would be similar to any other global holocaust scenario; there would be no food except for the other animals coming off the Ark. Even if we assume that fertile topsoil magically appeared amidst the devastation and new plants began growing immediately, they wouldn't grow quickly enough to keep all of Noah's animals from starving to death.

How did the forests and jungles regrow so quickly? Why are some of the most ancient trees and densest jungles in the world found in the Americas, so far from Noah's Ark? Did he travel to North and South America via magic carpet and reseed the jungles?

How did all of the human-specific diseases survive? Did the residents of the Ark simultaneously carry every disease in existence? That must have been one sick ship, particularly when you consider the fact that every other species on the boat must have also been carrying all of the diseases that are specialized for it.

]How did species with short lifespans (e.g. mayflies) survive the long trip?

How did Noah feed all of those species, particularly those who must eat other species to survive?

How did Noah provide environments suitable for all those species, since some of them can't survive in heat and some of them can't survive in cold? Did he have heated bays and refrigerated bays in his boat? Was there a Fridgidaire logo on the side of the Ark?

How did unique species find themselves on isolated islands?
Why isn't there any inbreeding-related damage in the Earth's species? Such damage should be severe if every species was repopulated from just two specimens, but then again, your average Southern Baptist creationist probably thinks inbreeding is a good thing.

Why didn't the ancient Egyptians make any record of a catastrophic flood even though they were known to have an advanced civilization at the time (between 2000BC and 2500BC)? Are the creationists going to dispute the historical and archaeological estimates of the Pyramids' age as well? Maybe the Egyptians are part of the vast "evolutionist" conspiracy

How did Noah and his family repopulate the Earth so quickly? Some of the Egyptian pyramids were built in the centuries immediately following the imaginary global Flood; were they built by a few dozen people?

Why are all the flood myths across the world so different? They love to point out that flood myths are common to many religions, but they don't like to point out how much different they are from their own flood story. That's quite odd if all those stories originate, as they claim, from a single consistent event rather than common cultural phobias such as the dissimilar Armageddon stories which are also found in many religions.

Why doesn't their own Bible mention any of these other crazy errata which they attribute to the flood, such as the global catastrophes that supposedly created all of the valleys and mountains in defiance of the laws of physics, or the enormous steam geysers shooting into the sky to provide the rain water, or the devastated lifeless planet afterwards?
How did life on Earth survive if all of the meteor impact craters were formed within the last 6000 years, as required by young-earth creationism? This also begs the question of why none of the world's cultures recorded the devastation of all these meteor impacts. There are numerous huge impact craters which betray evidence of impacts powerful enough to devastate the planet (such as the infamous "dino-killer" asteroid), and in primeval periods, some that were so powerful that they would have vaporised the oceans. The huge craters are right there for all to see and yet we're still alive.

How can the story of Genesis and the Flood be taken literally when flat-Earth and Earth-centred solar system models (also derived from the Bible) have both been discarded in favour of scientific observations and theories?


...Oh, and let's not turn this into a two-person debate.

[PKS Dragon Lord]

I noticed one BIG flaw in what your saying. You seem to think that the activity in the Bible was in Europe. That's so far from the truth that it's not funny. The vast majority of the Bible is centered in the Middle East. This is where the first known human civilizations were discovered and that's exactly where the Bible is. You are also saying that thing about animal migration and basically conterdicting your point that evolution is the true way we're here. Animals may evolve, am I not correct??

Another point is in the time where there were emerging religions that were seperating from the mainstream religions. This is where people argued as to which view of God was correct. A good way to look at it is that there was one central religion in which most of the population were members of. Groups in certain areas had different views on God or religion from those if different areas. This caused conflict and they split to create an offical religion for their viewpoints.

It's said that Abraham is the father of both the religions of Islam and Judisim. From these groups came up Christianity and so forth. But where did all of these come from?? It all stems back to that central religion which is stemming back to a form of paganism.

That said, it's pointless for religions to fight among one another and kill each other for their God, because it's the same God. People have just become so involved in how they believe that their religion is correct that the don't take the time to go back and look at history. I personally believe that every religion is correct in a way, but then again they all have their flaws.

[ZAKtheGeek]

I noticed one BIG flaw in what your saying. You seem to think that the activity in the Bible was in Europe.
Where does it say that? I don't see what you mean. The only such mention of something like this is where it says that noah "docked" in europe, and the animals would have to leave for their respective environments from there.

You are also saying that thing about animal migration and basically conterdicting your point that evolution is the true way we're here. Animals may evolve, am I not correct??
Again, not sure what you're talking about. Anyway, it doesn't matter, for a number of reasons:
1. The whole point of that long thing is mainly to discredit the bible, which I think is done quite thoroughly based on just one of the many nonsensical things written in there.
2. It's called assuming for contradiction; I assume that the bible's writings are correct, then show why that doesn't make sense under creationism, leading to a contradiction that leads us to the conclusion that the original assumption must be incorrect.
3. "It is the mark of an eduacted mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." ~Aristotle (in other words, considering the ramifications of creationism doesn't mean I have to contradict my previous evolutionist beliefs)

[Pikachu]

I prefer the idea of evolutionism to creationism it seems to explain things a whole lot better. One thing about religions that I have always believed in are the morals and values that they teach. While some are very wrong the main things like not killing each other, stealing, commiting adultery are what every person should live by.

The thing you posted disproving the flood is pure genius Zak.

I wondered something, are all humans supposed to have spawned from Adam and Eve? If so does that mean that we are all horribly deformed mutants due to inbreeding? sorry if this is incorrect I don't know all that much about the bible.

Also is it not fair to assume that god is male since he created humans in his image and Adam was supposedly the first human?

[PKS Dragon Lord]

Need I direct you to Gary's topic?? We are all mutants if you're white. The whole dairy thing and all.

That's all I'm putting here for now, but it's fun anyways.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Homo sapiens have been around for a few million years. Racial variations are a very slight speciation developed over that time period. Under evolutionism, anyway. I don't really see how all the various races could have arisen from adam and eve at all without turning to evolutionist concepts.

Again, I don't take credit for the very very long passage written above.

[ImJessieTR]

I don't see why God would give me a talent for science if it were wrong. I am of the Creator-did-it-but-everything-evolved persuasion.

Jeez, where to begin?

1. Homo sapiens turned into seperate races due to geological differentiation. That being said, the answer the Bible gives (at least this, maybe more) is the differentiation of people at the Tower of Babel incident. The creation of the First People is always magical (and coming from the ground/mud/sand seems to be a popular choice), but I know the birds and the bees -- I know how I got here, so I don't get the point of arguing about how our ancestors got here. Somebody had fun and along the way homo sapiens appeared.

2. Noah's story is ripped from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Actually, so are a lot of things, because the ancient Israelites were subjects to tons of different empires over the centuries and who can blame them for picking up a few tales? In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is trying to find out about immortality and in his journeys ends up talking to (I think) Utnapishtim (sp?). He was the only Mesopotamian guy left with a pure heart, so he and his family were instructed to build a boat because everyone was partying and making noise and the gods decided to kill everyone to get some sleep (more or less). After the flood, Ut sends out some birds to check things out, and later settles when things are dry. The Gods grant him immortality as a gift. Gilgamesh, learning that an herb or something grants immortality, is rowing back from Ut's place and meets a serpent who offers him the herb (because mythologically snakes represent immortality), but poor Gil drops it and so he has to die later. Anyway, from what I've read, Job is also a Babylonian story.

3. In any case, if you look at maps of Pangea (sp?), water is everywhere in many continents as they begin to split up. Tons of fossils were left as fish were left high and dry. Ancient people saw these, knew they belonged to the sea, and came up with flood stories to explain them.

4. I can tolerate Biblical literalists, but I don't think they, as a whole, read the whole thing. In many places (because true monotheism didn't appear until the Babylonian exile) in the Bible, mentioned are scores of other beings, even pagan gods. The 10 Commandments (although I guess it depends on the translation) state that you'll have no other god before Him -- it never says He's the only one, so literalists have nothing to say to polytheists if they read the Bible. Also, the Bible itself admits to being rewritten because political tragedies made the scrolls disappear, so someone had to redo the whole thing.

Which leads me to this ...

5. I don't care if the Bible has 'issues'. I pray to God, not the Bible. I want His opinion now, not from thousands of years ago. The Bible is a chronicle of middle-eastern (and later greco-roman) attempts to discover the sacred. I prioritize them as such. Just because people stopped writing the Bible doesn't mean God can't have an opinion now. I follow His directions and surrender myself to Him, and He helps me out -- not by granting my every wish like a genie, but as a Father who (unlike mine) sticks by me and guides me -- even when He does something I don't particularly like.

P.S. I know wiccans, I know fundamentalists, I know atheists -- I don't tell people whether or not they're saved because it's none of my business. God deals with a lot of unbelievers in the Bible. He spares kings, um -- women of pleasure (when they help out His people), wizards, etc and even favors them at times. John the Baptist said, (to paraphrase in a modern way) "Don't brag because you're God's children, because He can make kids out of your gamecubes if He really wants to."

P.P.S. Over the years I have come to this conclusion -- humans are not special to God, they are "special" -- in the same way slow people are "special". God doesn't help us because we're His favorite kids -- we just need the most help... :D

[ZAKtheGeek]

Touching, but not convincing. Man has always used religion to explain that which he himself could logically not, and modern religions are seriously losing their ability to serve that purpose. I personally don't see any reason to have faith in some preposterous super-being that can be used to explain any and all of the greatest mysteries we will ever know: "You can't explain it; god made it like that." Unacceptable. I simply don't see sufficient reason to take to belief in a god, or the concept that life in some form was just magically generated arbitrarily. There's a fairly well-working explanation that I'd rather accept.

[PKS LeeTupper]

Okay, then. When the big bang occurred, all atoms flew outwards at the same rate of speed, in different directions, no?

I'll put up my Noah arguments eventually. I'm being thorough with my answers, and triple checking all my facts.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Okay, then. When the big bang occurred, all atoms flew outwards at the same rate of speed, in different directions, no?
What does this have anything to do with anything?

[ImJessieTR]

Touching, but not convincing. Man has always used religion to explain that which he himself could logically not, and modern religions are seriously losing their ability to serve that purpose. I personally don't see any reason to have faith in some preposterous super-being that can be used to explain any and all of the greatest mysteries we will ever know: "You can't explain it; god made it like that." Unacceptable. I simply don't see sufficient reason to take to belief in a god, or the concept that life in some form was just magically generated arbitrarily. There's a fairly well-working explanation that I'd rather accept.

We'll have to agree to disagree. My faith isn't shattered when a new science fact is revealed. As I said, I know where I came from in reality, and belief in "poof" theology doesn't help because it's not how real life works. In fact, I love it when theocracy is proven wrong with scientific facts -- people say they worship the "Truth and the Way", yet they freak when scientific evidence shows up. Knowing how the ancients explained things doesn't detract from any meaning our lives may have. Yes, eventually science will have everything pegged. Yet, we as humans haven't evolved much since the caveman days. Unlike the dinosaurs, we will have outsmarted ourselves by blowing up the planet or something. What gets me is just how "religious" non-religious people are about their beliefs. I think debates like this show just how alike we think, even if we come to different conclusions. It's all very Zen...

[leaf blade treecko]

I am a creationist, a Christian. Well anyways I didn't take time to read all of the posts in this topic but first of all look God has always existed and he always will. No one created him for no one is his equal. And wait I thought in Pokeschool it is not aloud to have a beliefs arguement. Oh and evolutionism in my opinion is just a hypothisis. There isn't enough proof.


We in my opinion couldn't have evolved from monkeys because
first of all the closest thing our DNA is closest to is a tree.

second, things are not evolving today. I don't see any monkeys evolving into humans right now.

Third is that there is no missing link between humans and monkeys.

Fourth Christianity is the only religion that says man is evil and the bible is the worlds best selling book. that is all.

[Coco]

You put your foot in it right about here,


There isn't enough proof.


The same could be said about Christianity, I personally have no interest in evolution and such things so i have no real explanation why we are here, Neither do i beleive in any type of God. Reason being that christianity is run on fear and I do not want to be a part of anything like that.

[ZAKtheGeek]

God has always existed and he always will. No one created him for no one is his equal.
Says who? The bible? And how do you know the bible's true? Because it's the word of god, right? Save the circular logic for someone it'll work on, please.

We in my opinion couldn't have evolved from monkeys
Ah, here come the misconceptions. No, of course we didn't evolve from monkeys, because that would mean that humans were the dominant form of monkey and therefore should have caused the extinction of all monkeys with our genetic superiority. Has that happened? NO, because we didn't evolve from monkeys, but rather from apelike creatures from which monkeys also evolved.

the closest thing our DNA is closest to is a tree.
Can you cite this information somehow? I've never heard this before.

second, things are not evolving today. I don't see any monkeys evolving into humans right now.
First of all, see my second argument. Second, evolution takes millions of years. You're not just going to "see" it happening, except with particularly low-life-span organisms. Case in point: bacteria gaining resistance to antibiotic substances. This is something of an example of evolution on a very small scale.

Third is that there is no missing link between humans and monkeys.
See my second argument for the third time...

Fourth Christianity is the only religion that says man is evil and the bible is the worlds best selling book. that is all.
Um... what does this have to do with anything? At all, in any way? I'm really not getting a lot of these arguments...

[PKS LeeTupper]

"What does this have anything to do with anything?"

Now that's just rude. I can stand your blockheaded inability to consider our argument from our viewpoint while we look at yours through your eyes, but when there's a debate, answer somebody's friggin' questions, okay? Generally, when somebody does something like what you just did, it's because they don't have evidence to back it up.

I'll respond to the Noah's ark thing, but it's taking forever to respond to that hulking copy and paste.

I was an evolutionist for eight years, until I actually looked at the theories, and found them to be quite ridiculous. If you try actually looking at the Bible, it holds its own merits when taken alone. I wasn't converted through feel good ministry, or through emotion. When I became a Seventh Day Adventist, it was a cold logical decision that I had pondered over for almost three months straight.

EDIT: I am saying this in reference to my own being ignored with "What does this have to do with anything?", where I ask a question about the fundamental properties of the Big Bang. Treecko, your own argument is not holding water. Millions of people can be totally wrong. Look at evolution for example. ;)

[ZAKtheGeek]

Now that's just rude. I can stand your blockheaded inability to consider our argument from our viewpoint while we look at yours through your eyes, but when there's a debate, answer somebody's friggin' questions, okay?
Sorry. It's just that, the way you worded it, it seemed like you were stating it as a fact and that probably shouldn have been followed up with something related to the argument. To answer your question, I don't know. I have no clue.

And, what exactly is so ridiculous about evolutionism? Don't ask me the same about creationism, I already wrote about my consciousnessless theory.

[leaf blade treecko]

Says who? The bible? And how do you know the bible's true? Because it's the word of god, right? Save the circular logic for someone it'll work on, please.

Ok first of all have you even tried reading the bible before you condemn it? It has tons of geoleoligy in it just to prove to people like you that it is real. Oh and to that one guy who said:
I don't see why God would give me a talent for science if it were wrong. I am of the Creator-did-it-but-everything-evolved persuasion. evolutionism isn't science. Its science fiction. Just because it involves atoms doesn't make it true.

Oh and Can you cite this information somehow? I've never heard this before. the fact that humens DNA is closest to a tree came from the book Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Oh and also I am tired of this argueing, this topic seriuosly needs to be locked. This is turning into a flame war. Lee Tupper I get what your saying. They are unwilling to even listen to me. They believe in there ideas about evolutionism and they always will. And argueing with them is pointless because no matter how much I am winning they will always believe the way they believe unless they actually look at the bible. So I give up.

[ZAKtheGeek]

It's ironic that the creationist is the one complaining about people not even looking at things his way, but I won't say any more, because it'll be too... fiery.

I have yet to see you present any evidence as to why evolutionism doesn't make sense. All you've really done is call it science fiction and say it's ridiculous, and present some very misguided argument about monkeys that I quickly disproved. I don't know how I'm supposed to see your side when you barely present a side for me to see.

[leaf blade treecko]

The side is the bible why don't you go read it? Oh wait you can't can you? Seeing as you can hardly read what I am trying to say. Well anyways what I was saying about it starting flame wars like now. You keep only quoting certain parts of what I am talking about. Just cause we look slightly like monkeys or that some sort of "change" could've made us from cells from some sort of explosion milions of years ago. Its just a idea where is the proof? I don't see any. I don't see one little tiny speck of it. NOTHING!!!! THERE IS NO PROOF NOW PLEASE STOP RESPONDING TO ME I AM TRYING TO LEAVE THE TOPIC!!!

[ZAKtheGeek]

I WILL respond; it's hard for me not to. Perhaps you simply shouldn't retort if you are trying to leave the topic.

Oh wait you can't can you? Seeing as you can hardly read what I am trying to say.
Who's making this into a flame war again?

The side is the bible why don't you go read it?
Well it's rather long, you see. I know the gist of it, and that's basically all I really need to know that I don't believe in it. Even if some details make sense, I know the general idea and I don't take to it at all, so I don't see how reading it would change that.

Its just a idea where is the proof?
How can you prove the bible? You can't, which is why I don't like evolutionism: it's the idea you take to when you have no proof at all. At least there is SOME proof of evolutionism, such as fossils. How come there's fossils all these primitive, less advanced organisms that aren't alive anymore? Might be because they changed into more modern ones because those were able to survive better. It's certainly a better explanation than, "god did it, so there is no proof."

Oh, and I've heard of the explanation that humanoid fossils were placed there by god to test people's faith. I'm sorry, but if that is a valid argument, then you could basically disprove any evidence against your theory by saying, "it's just a test of my faith." So in case anyone was going to try and use that argument, please don't.

[leaf blade treecko]

Yes I can prove the bible. There is no gist of it. Each part of it is hystorical evedince!!!!! Including the section that contains geology! Oh wait you don't know what that word means do you?? Of course you don't.
Well let me brake it down for you! It means that ok lets say that two pages of the bible are just one giant family tree! That means it has thousands of names of tons of people who lived back then leading all the way down to Jesus's birth!!!

[ZAKtheGeek]

What does a family tree have to do with geology?

And seriously, stop flaming. You're the one complaining about it.

Now honestly, I don't care about 95% of what the bible claims. How does it prove the part about how everything was instantaneously created by god? Or that god exists, even? That's the part I'd be interested to hear.

Edit: Also, after some research, Carl Sagan (you know, the guy who supposedly wrote that humans are most similar to some tree) has refered to evolution directly as a fact rather than a theory. Also, pope john paul II himself said that evolution "is more than a hypothesis."

[PKS LeeTupper]

"Also, after some research, Carl Sagan (you know, the guy who supposedly wrote that humans are most similar to some tree) has refered to evolution directly as a fact rather than a theory. Also, pope john paul II himself said that evolution "is more than a hypothesis"

That's our problem. You keep refering to Christianity by the members, not the base doctrine. Of course there will be some Christians that believe in evolution. The base doctrine itself, the Bible, stands on its own merit.

And don't even mention the Catholics. While I respect their religion, they aren't really Biblical, per se.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Alright, now it is entirely possible that I keep missing it, but after going back and looking at every post I've made in this thread, I only see myself referring to specific people once, in the post you quoted. Not that I raelly care about what specific people think so much: the entire concept simply makes no sense to me. The bible contains a bunch of claims with lack of much proof to any of them, mainly because it's pretty much impossible to prove some of the ones i'm referring to here.

Now can we get back to the discussion? Let's stop pointing fingers at people and start using and countering logical arguments. I've yet to see a response to two of the questions I've posed...
I don't care about 95% of what the bible claims. How does it prove the part about how everything was instantaneously created by god? Or that god exists, even? That's the part I'd be interested to hear.
And, what exactly is so ridiculous about evolutionism?

[leaf blade treecko]

How can evolution be a fact? It doesn't have enough proof to back it up. And also no real Christian would believe in evolutionism it specifically says in the bible how the Earth was created how we were created, so if you wanna go and mix up truth and lies to make your own weird religion. Go right ahead. Oh and I don't care about the Pope actually I don't even know why he is there. Popes don't matter. I only obey God.

[Pikachu]

You really need to leave the topic, nothing you have said makes sense. Blind faith breeds fools, you need to think outside the box. Be open to the fact that the bible may not be 100% who knows who actually wrote it or why. For all we honestly know it could be a fairytale. I'm not saying the bible is right or wrong just that you should be open to other ideas.

[PKS LeeTupper]

Exactly. Your enthusiasm is heartening, Treecko, but honestly, you're doing more harm than good. To deal with this soulless opposition, you need to use only what they have. A cold, logical head. You're too much heart, too little head, for this debate.

Blind faith does breed idiocy. Ironic how that applies to evolution, too, no? It does not matter whom you are. Thoughtless loyalty to a cause becomes an issue for all involved.

[ZAKtheGeek]

You speak great truths.

This is a good time to point out that I'm not mindlessly devoted to evolutionism. I would welcome another theory pertaining to fossils, primordial organisms and modern man, as long as its basis is as logical as that of evolutionism and is not "we don't know, so a wizard did it."

[The_Waiting_One]

Treeko, I'm a christian also and I'm sorry but, you're not helping. You can't just state your opinion and expect people to belive it is true. you have to back it up. I got one word for you, "apologetics."

Now for my argument.

1. All things tend to dissorder.

Examples: Can a car run ok forever? No, you always end up taking it to the shop once or twice a year. Does a house stay standing forever?

Rocks break down into smaller and smaller pieces. The sand on the beach wasn't always sand was it? No, it was part of a larger chunk of rock. But why is it sand now? Cuz things break down. If things didn't, we wouldn't get all these people dying every day cuz of old age or sickness.

How old is the earth supposidly again? Billions of years wasn't it? Due to this scientific law, our earth couldn't ever last this large amount of time.

2. What fossil evidence is there to prove the evolution theory? All the "ape-like" fossils have been proven to be something else. I also believe that like in the sixties or seventies I think it was when they found a bone smaller than your finger in Austrailia. They thought that it was an ancient ancestor when later they found out that it belonged to a boar of some sort.


3.How could a cingle celled organizm emerge from an explosion of nonliving matter?

4. Why would the organizm have a need to evolve?

[ZAKtheGeek]

All things tend to dissorder.
I think this is the second (?) law of thermodynamics: all things are constantly moving into a state of disorganization. It's a very good argument, but not a valid one, because this law only applies to closed systems. The earth, howevger, is receiving massive amounts of energy input from the sun which make all of our matter organization needs possible.

What fossil evidence is there to prove the evolution theory?
Are you saying that all the various species found in fossils all coexisted at some point in time? That's just not possible. The earth would be way too crowded, not to mention that some of the simpler stuff would just have died off very quickly due to the fact that it lacks good adaptations. Oh, and it's it a tad bit suspicious that, as you increase in depth at which the fossil was found, it seems to vary more and more from our modern organisms, yet still retaining the same general shape (can't think of a better word)? Perhaps those older ones changed slowly into the newer ones. Makes sense, don't you think?

How could a cingle celled organizm emerge from an explosion of nonliving matter?
And obviously, single-celled organisms magically springing up from the big bang makes no sense either. Because no one is making that claim. The big bang is what theoretically began this universe, in which the sun from our solar system eventually formed and began to gain planets in its orbit, including earth. At some point once earth cooled, it had seas of molecules essential to life, as well as thunderstorms. Is it not likely that, with energy from a random bolt of lightning, a molecule of ATP was formed, which gave another molecule the energy to turn a different pair of molecules into itself? Just as an example. With chemical reactions focused on making more of the involved chemicals from other ones found in the environment, the very concept of life is formed.

Why would the organizm have a need to evolve?
It's not that the organism decides, "I want to evolve. I should do that right away." No. It just happens. There is genetic variation among a population of a species, as well as constantly arising mutations. Sometimes a variation or mutation gives the organism some sort of small advantage over the rest of the population. This allows it to, in some way, survive better, which also means it can reproduce more and pass its genes on in a relatively greater proportion than the "normal" organisms. In this way, helpful changes spread and increase from generation to generation, culminating in the process of evolution.

[Coco]

As i said before I do not have enough knowledge of evolution to argue that point, so this is my theory:

Following religion is in the human nature, as we are rather short lived we like to beleive that there is something for us after death. As cultures rise and fall religions go with it, thousands of years ago there was no such thing as christianity and in the next few thousand years the current world leaders (or world police if you like, **** yeah) will go into decline and another country will become the worlds dominent country. As all these things change the primary religions will change as well as the western type culture is taken over.

I know i have not really given my arguement justice but its the best i can do at 2am.

Another thing connected with religion is fear, this is why i do not like religion. It works much like a country. EG

"Don't steal, murder or rape or your going to be executed or go to jail."

"Follow religion or you are going to hell and will miss out on paradise in the afterlife."

You can even see it on a lesser scale each christmas, "Be a good boy or santa will bring you coal" Christianitys main holiday is way to commercialized for me.

Ultimatly religion is extremly selfish because people reasons for attending church week in week out are so they can reserve a spot in heaven, avoid enternal hellfire or both.

And please no flaming this is merley my humble opinion so no righteous crusades against the "souless opposition" or the evil hellspawned Coco.

[Pikachu]

Heaven and religion in general probably came about because humans fear there own mortality. We don't want to believe that once we die thats the end there is nothing after that.

[ImJessieTR]

Poor Treecko: it's genealogy, not geology. One refers to family trees, one is the study of dirt/rocks/and stuff. And as Christian as I am, the Bible doesn't "prove" anything because that is not it's function. It was designed to guide, not educate. Try to understand that logic as we know didn't arrive til the Greeks, many centuries after the Israelites started on the Bible. The Old Testament has more pagan/mystical influences because the Hebrews were always in someone else's empire, while the New Testament reflects the "new" concepts created by Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, such as the immortality of the soul, the supremacy of logic, and the inferiority of the flesh. These ideas don't exist in the previous testament because they didn't exist yet. Humanity's ideas evolved. If the Bible was really what it was hyped to be, you would ask God a question and see His answer in a letter to you specifically. You're not in the Bible. Neither are we. The internet isn't in there. Heck, all of the Americas aren't even in there (unless you're Mormon). The people who wrote it never imagined that humanity would last as long as it did. Most thought their own generation was the last. And I have to agree with Zak, people are getting WAY too ticky about this thread. Oh, and as my avatar shows, I'm a woman. Try not to read too much into my being fascinated with large snakes. :D

To Zak: I'm not flaming you. I admit I got kinda miffed when it seemed I was being treated condescendingly, but I took some away time from this thread, inhaled, counted to 10, and realized that emotion is the reason these kinds of topics get banned. Yet, as more people flame you and offer nothing in terms of logic, I see myself taking your side as the "debate" rages on. All you're asking for is logic and reason -- there's nothing wrong with that.

Some more points to ponder:

1. Although it's the truth, the continued lashing out at immature theists is irritating me. Nazis did horrendous experiments on minorities (even our own government did with the Tuskeegee (sp?) studies, not counting all the secret nuclear testing that now creates cancer for many people who move to the towns where they used to do that). Science was used to justify enslaving/destroying everyone that wasn't some rich European guy. Creationism nor evolutionism makes you a monster -- your heart does. So please, every anti-theist rant about corrupt jerks can be met with examples of mad scientists, so there's no point in continuing that line of talk.

2. Evolution is NOT science fiction. Teleportation, light sabers, and -- as NASA is quickly discovering -- so is interplanetary travel, apparently, IS fiction because it doesn't appear like it's going to happen anytime soon (dang it). Did anyone's pet dog just magically appear? No, wolves and coyotes were selectively bred for different characteristics so that we could get dogs. If humans can evolve their pets, why can't God? Why does God have to resort to Vegas strip parlor tricks to get His way instead of just tweaking your genomes? Why go through all the extra effort to create a bird from scratch when you can just slap some feathers on an archeopteryx and call it a day?

3. Regardless of your beliefs, there simply can never be any "proof" of God, at least, not in a scientific way. If we pointed the Hubble telescope (before they ditch it) toward a far-away planet and you see a giant billboard that says "Lost? Call God at 555-1234 today for a personal consultation!" -- that still doesn't prove anything. True, it would be amazing that an alien planet would have an English billboard with an Earth telephone number, but just because it's interesting doesn't make it proof. So, I'm sure Zak will ask, is proof? None that isn't intensely personal for the person involved, I'm afraid, so I guess that doesn't really help. When I need help, I ask God and get either clairevoyant or precognitive (the first is like live TV, the latter is like getting next week's newspaper) dreams/visions/"gut feelings". Perhaps those who haven't developed these abilities can never believe in the supernatural (although I don't believe these are supernatural -- I think they just involve an amazing capacity to analyze things subconciously), just as a person blind from birth will never be able to comprehend the meaning of color. Only people with those sensory capabilities can detect them. It may be hard to believe in infrared since we don't see it, but someone, on intuition, created a device to let us see it too.

4. Many criticisms I have read about concerning religion is that "Ultimatly religion is extremly selfish because people reasons for attending church week in week out are so they can reserve a spot in heaven, avoid enternal hellfire or both" -- just to quote one particular example. However, if one reads religious literature, or psychological literature if religion isn't your thing, one finds that the goal of religion is NOT to act like a scared toddler. One is supposed to delve deep into an introspective look at one's own character and end up doing things because the actions/thoughts are inherently good/evil -- or adaptive/maladaptive, in secular terminology. I refer you to Kohlberg's Moral Hierarchy (http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm ) so you can see where everyone, atheist and theist, is supposed to feel before they croak. In brief, the stages are 1) Obedience & Punishment (this is the one followed by everyone over the age of 1, and some never grow out of it), 2) Individualism & Exchange (moral relativism + economic moral outlook), 3) Good Interpersonal Relationships (do good/evil because it serves the community's purposes), 4) Maintaining Social Order (similar to 3, but more global), 5) Social Contract & Individual Rights (not "my country right or wrong), and finally 6) Universal Principles (inalienable rights inherent and applicable to all). The idea behind "being saved", "being enlightened", etc is that you do things because they are the right/wrong things to do, not because your parents/community told you to. Jesus encouraged people to think outside the box, such as when he told Pharisees that religion is deeper than what He eats on a Saturday (because Sat.'s the Jewish Sabbath). Buddha, Muhammad, Socrates, and others also said this, more or less. "Know thyself" is the greatest spiritual achievement you can accomplish, regardless of your religious affiliation. Oh, and everyone who mentioned this was accused of being atheists and threats to their community. People don't like being told they must live for higher standards than the average two-year-old. Go ahead, research the greatest religious leaders/secular philosophers -- see just how long they managed to live in a world that feared and hated them. If you become "enlightened" or have "the Spirit come upon you", that's good because you'll usually be hunted down soon afterwards. I guess that's why shallow people are in the majority.

[leaf blade treecko]

Umm we didn't evolve them we mixed breed them. We reproduced with different genes. That is intirely different from evolving. So you are saying that if a black guy and a white girl have a kid that kid evolved? Oh and it was a typo. Oh and also you are saying that if something changes to fit the invirment its evolving? No God made his creatures able to fit most situations.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Oh and also you are saying that if something changes to fit the invirment its evolving?
That IS the basic principle behind evolution, yes. As opposed to environmental influence, an organism may also evolve in response to other organisms.

No God made his creatures able to fit most situations.
The meaning of this sentence is highly ambiguous because of a possible lack of proper grammar.

I do have to agree with treecko on one thing: I don't think it's a very accurate statement to say that we "evolved" our dogs. We selectively bred them and/or their ancestors, perhaps evolved artifically, if you will. The guiding force here, though, is not natural selection at all but instead human influence. I suppose it DOES demonstrate the mechanics under which evolution functions: when certain organisms' genetic information is passed down to the next generation at a greater proportion that that of the rest of the population, the population will eventually "evolve" to become more similar to original genetic specimen(s). In that sense the selective breeding of Canis domesticus (I'm guessing on the name) is in a sense evolution.

Humanity's ideas evolved.
I agree completely. Yes, I see that this is the irksome practice of quoting a single line and using it to my advantage, but hey... quiet down and keep reading. See, I think it's time for a religious update; something that doesn't directly conflict with more logically backed ideas, or something that still makes at least SOME sense. You don't have to think that you were created by a mighty being in order to worship them. I mean, maybe some highly advanced sort of life form provided primordial earth's chemical soup with some initial ATP and left (or perhaps has been here all along somehow). That wouldn't mean that the being created life on earth, but certainly increased its probability of occurring. It's just a ridiculous example, but the point is, you can have religion under evolutionism too.

[ImJessieTR]

Dear Treecko: I'm beginning to wonder how you define evolving. Maybe that's where the issue is. Getting new characteristics from reproduction (sexual or asexual) is the very meaning of evolution. Racial mixing is only slightly different than what I was talking about. Before we created dogs, there were ONLY wolves/coyotes. Let's say I breed two wolves, both gray for the sake of the argument. Let's say gray wolves have a disadvantage in snowy regions because they tend to stand out in a white landscape. Now let's say that one puppy from the litter is more tan/blonde -- whatever. It now has a better opportunity at blending in with it's environment. I go find another blonde wolf and breed it, creating more blonde wolves that are more and more suited to snowy environments (shorter snouts and ears, bigger paws) -- keep doing that for a few decades and you get a German shepherd or something. That's what is meant by evolving. It's not like you glow and transform into something else like a houndoom from a houndour. It only refers to the gradual tweaking of your chromosomes over many generations. When scientists work with fruit flies, you can see the process very quickly because each generation doesn't live that long (days, although they're working on anti-aging stuff and got some to live to a few weeks). So I guess, yeah, a multi-racial kid could be considered evolved, but so are you and everyone else because we are all tweaks on our parents' design. Sometimes this isn't great, like with birth defects, and sometimes it can have peculiar positive consequences. People of African descent are more vulnerable to sickle-cell anemia, but if you cross someone with that vulnerabilty with someone who doesn't, you come up with kids who might have only one sickle-cell gene in their chromosomes, but having only one of those genes gives you immunity against malaria, because the parasites cannot bond correctly with mis-shapen blood cells. So, yes, you could call someone evolved if they are better adapted to a certain situation. And please don't misunderstand me. I understand your religious beliefs -- I share them. Atheists are going to say that evolution proves there is no God -- but like I criticize proof of God in my previous post, I criticize the proof of no God. It's not like atheists are going to find a billboard on a planet somewhere that announces there is no God. And even if they did, that's still not proof. God, in most belief systems, has no physical form that humans are currently able to detect. That means no one can prove either argument because we don't know what to look for. There is a phrase for this situation: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." So, no one can say much when you say that God helps creatures adapt. God doesn't really leave His initials on our chromosomes, does He? As a believer, I agree with you that it is God that guides the genomes, filtering out what works and what doesn't, separating the wheat from the chaff, to use Biblical lingo. God isn't perfect in that all His creations are unchangeable -- He is perfect because all of His creations are capable of adapting over time, of changing. God wouldn't be much of one if He ordained that you could only become, say, a doctor, but when you're old enough, there are no more doctors because, say, nurses do all the work. No, He made you adaptable so that you can become whatever fits you better in your current environment. So please, if the definition of evolution is something you've been ill-educated about (and I should know because I've seen science teachers skip the debate to avoid offending people), then please take this post and keep in mind that all we're discussing is genetic manipulation. Evolution no more replaces religion than your need to eat and drink do. It is a biological function, not a God-killing anti-religion. Oh, and someone mentioned (I can't remember if it was you or not) that Catholics aren't Biblical.... Huh? Catholics are the original Christians. Jesus' disciples became apostles and formed congregations calling themselves "the Way". Later, Greeks and Romans called them "Christians" when it became obvious they wanted to get out of Judaism. Finally, these "Christians" came together and, believing that they had happened upon a universal truth, called themselves "Catholics", which means universal. The term was chosen because they saw a universal truth and also believed that anyone (the universal population) could join up, unlike the Judaism of the time because they were going through a xenophobic episode brought on by the Roman occupation (sound familiar to those following the news?). As the congregations increased in size, people started splitting up into other denominations (when they got angry at one another) and it's been that way ever since.

Dang it, Zak posted before I got mine up. Anyway,
Dear Zak,
I only said that we selectively bred dogs into being. Natural selection, from my understanding, discusses usually the changes from one generation to the next that we can see pretty easily. Evolution is just natural selection across a bigger timeframe. They're related phenomena, if not the exact same thing. And it IS natural selection, even if humans did it. WE didn't get involved with dog sex to evolve the species. We supplied the appropriate pair, but nature worked itself out. I think that is how God works: He sets things up and watches. Oh, and I said that statement about human ideas with you in mind. :D I just knew that would get your attention.

[Pikachu]

Not trying to insult Treecko but I doubt he will even read your full post/s and if he does I'd be surprised if he understood it. He seems to be stubborn in his beliefs nothing you tell him will make a blind bit of difference. Sorry to jump in and post something unrelated to the topic but it was bugging me :P.

Sorry Treecko I really don't mean any offence, you rock just be open minded.

[ImJessieTR]

Meanwhile you show your ethical/moral superiority by contributing only an accusation of stupidity. I could argue that everyone is less mature than Baratron and me because we seem to be the eldest and most educated on this thread -- but I don't, because it's rude, wrong, and irrelevant. How do you expect anti-evolutionists to see it your way when you're just as emotional as they are? Atheists and theists alike should be able to have manners. I think there has been some progress in thought, some evolution of thought, by both sides -- not much, but some. Let's try to keep this a rational and logical debate instead of a flame war.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Here, here! (or is it, "hear, hear!"?)

Anyway, I'm not sure anyone has stated yet why evolutionism is so wrong, with a reason other than previously established beliefs. One has to be able to analyze the validity of a theory despite its being in contradiction to their own beliefs, or there is no real point in continuing. This is a good time to quote aristotle again...

[leaf blade treecko]

Ok fine I am a little busy to read all of the posts and I am a little young to understand what they are saying. So I should exit this topic maybe a Christian older then me will be better at this debate topic.

[Pikachu]

Meanwhile you show your ethical/moral superiority by contributing only an accusation of stupidity. I could argue that everyone is less mature than Baratron and me because we seem to be the eldest and most educated on this thread -- but I don't, because it's rude, wrong, and irrelevant. How do you expect anti-evolutionists to see it your way when you're just as emotional as they are? Atheists and theists alike should be able to have manners. I think there has been some progress in thought, some evolution of thought, by both sides -- not much, but some. Let's try to keep this a rational and logical debate instead of a flame war.

I was not flaming, I didn't mean to be rude and I don't think what I said was wrong. I was trying to explain that he was young and would not understand the larger posts or even read most of them. Thats not anything against him as a person infact he seems a really nice guy. I could have used kinder words or sent him a PM but at the time I decided to post in the topic. I apoligise LBT if you were upset or offended by what I said. Also I wasn't trying to be superior or say that I was in anyway better than him. I certainly wasn't accusing him of being stupid, stubborn yes but not stupid. My post wasn't that deep.

LBT: Don't leave the topic I was wrong when I suggested that earlier. You just need to read the posts and try to understand them as best you can. I'd like to hear your opinion as much as the next persons. Also check your PMs I replied to the message you sent me. :)

[ImJessieTR]

I'm not complaining that you're young. Realistically, there just aren't very many commenting on this post over 20. You could print out the long ones and read them at your leisure. I hope you won't quit contributing, but you should at least read them. You'll face these issues again as you get older, so being exposed to them now will make the different arguments less of a shock. Jesus didn't duck and run (not that that's what I am saying you're doing) when people tested Him. He stuck around, listened, and offered advice that was meant to teach as well as stick it to the authorities. Yeah, He got irritated later on in the ministry and fried a poor fig tree, but we can all agree He was under stress because everyone tried to kill Him. All I'm saying is, keeping watching this thread if nothing else, because the debate itself doesn't go away.

[PKS LeeTupper]

"How did Noah and his family repopulate the Earth so quickly? Some of the Egyptian pyramids were built in the centuries immediately following the imaginary global Flood; were they built by a few dozen people?"

Let's put it this way. People can reproduce very quickly. There were four breeding pairs, possibly three. Assuming that they matured at the normal rate, and married and bred at the age of twenty, actually quite late for those days, and had a child a year up to five children... Which as we all know is quite low, as well, since they'd try to have as many children as possible in that era, well, there could be a fairly large number in less than one century.

We'll assume that people die between the ages of fifty and seventy five, but stop having children after the fifth. Have you forgotten that reproduction is almost exponential?

The sons and wives were mature, leaving the ark. Assuming that they each bore five more children in the next five years, and assuming that Noah did not bear any more children, we already have 23 people. This number increases by 45 in twenty five years, bringing us up to 68, though the first two generations have called it quits. Now, 45 people make their families, meaning that roughly 110 more are added to the number. This is getting up on fifty-five years, so we'll say that the first generation dies, leaving us with 170 people, 110 of which are going to reproduce twenty years later. By year eighty, we gain 275 more people, but lose the 15 that came from Noah's sons and daughters in law. Which means in 80 years, we are already all the way up to 430 people. The 275 pair off, and we've now got 695 children in the year 105, though 45 die of old age. In 105 years, we've already broken 1,000, and by a sizeable ammount. 1,080 total, year 105.

And we're just getting started. In the year 130, we've got 695 people making kids, meaning, you guessed it, a whole 1,735 more. 110 die, so 2,705 people are kicking around. 155, well, we lose 275 of the oldest remaining generation, but the most recent generation reproduces, 4,335 more, or 6,065.


That's less than two centuries, but I think I'll show where two centuries put this. In the next twenty five years, (putting us at 180, for those of you watching at home) 695 die, but we gain 10,835. 10,140 are added to the total population. 16,205. Only one cycle more I'll go through this, numbers are getting fairly big, no? 25,350 at the next twenty five years, putting us at year 205, with 39,640. Couple dozen on the pyramids, eh? If you try to counter with "But there's unexpected deaths!", you should remember that people would more often have families of six to eight if at all possible, easily covering any flaws.


There's one of my points, there.

[ZAKtheGeek]

How did Noah or any of the other animals survive in the barren, devastated global ecosystem that would have been left after the flood? Since all of the plants would have died from prolonged deep submersion, the effect would be similar to any other global holocaust scenario; there would be no food except for the other animals coming off the Ark. Even if we assume that fertile topsoil magically appeared amidst the devastation and new plants began growing immediately, they wouldn't grow quickly enough to keep all of Noah's animals from starving to death.
Thus, all those people (not to mention how quickly all the animals would reproduce) would easily eliminate all plant life from any area they live in or near. Alternatively, they'll never get the chance to reproduce that much, because they'd all be horribly malnourished.

Not to mention that the people would be incredibly busy reproducing and caring for their kids, what with all the civilization rebuilding, expansion and agriculture they'd have to be doing at the exact same time.

[ImJessieTR]

Not only that, but those particular cultures regularly killed daughters because they were more expensive and considered men's property, so you have a culture regularly killing daughters and even some sons because life was so difficult that people cut their losses. There is historical (written) and archaelogical evidence for this. The problem with trying to prove it mathematically is that it doesn't take into effect known cultural problems. What if a lot of those people only had sons or only had daughters? That affects the numbers of how many more people can be born. The reason for the Bible telling us how precious children are is because they were treated less than dirt most of the time, often sacrificed to gods or worked to death or turned into sex slaves (people didn't get married and have kids in their 20's -- that's too old for an average life span of 30 -- they got married and had kids when they were 12-14). Hammurabi's code of law (Babylonian -- and what most people in the middle east would've been using around the time of the Babylonian empire) said any child who disrespected their parents would be executed. Yeah, that's later than the Noah story, but Noah was willing to curse an entire line of his descendants because he (Noah) was too lazy and drunk to put clothes on. The fact is that every culture has a flood story, so doesn't it seem reasonable to assume that the real reason the population wasn't extinct was that representatives of every global culture survived? How would Noah know if the Aztecs over in Central America survived the flood? He didn't get CNN on that boat. Saying that Noah and Noah's family repopulated the earth is unrealistic because too many people were willing to harm/kill their own children if they were inconveniences. Besides, an article I read somewhere said that you need at least 500,000 people to have a genetically-viable population -- otherwise, genetic defects multiply rapidly and whole lines become extinct. That's why there are hardly any ancient Roman dynasties (family lines) -- everybody was sleeping with family members, etc and that is why Caligula and Nero were whack-jobs.

[PKS LeeTupper]

If you take Creationism as it says, then it could be said that God blessed humanity to prevent those defects until they had diversified enough. Creationism ONLY stands if you actually treat it as it is, a belief that there is a God that created and/or controlled events.

[ZAKtheGeek]

So, your counter-argument is, "god did it?" Do you see how this isn't going to go anywhere if people continue to do that?

Did god also instantaneously repopulate the planet with plant life? You also have to consider the nourishment factor.

And here's a new (I think) argument: All those animals would probably suffocate to death. I mean, a sample of every animal species on earth starting off in one small area, and absolutely no plants? They would have seriously thinned the air of oxygen if not just plain suffocated.

[ImJessieTR]

LOL: the smell alone in that boat would've killed most people :D

[ZAKtheGeek]

So... are any more arguments being worked on for either side?

(sorry, couldn't let it start dying on such a light note...)

[MasterJedi]

I go with a combination of the two. God created the universe and all life and then things evolved from there.

[ImJessieTR]

So... are any more arguments being worked on for either side?

(sorry, couldn't let it start dying on such a light note...)


Better than letting it die on a vicious note...

Anyway, I'm out of ideas unless someone has a specific topic to respond to.

[PKS LeeTupper]

Well, it is a BOAT, and not a U-boat, Zak. The Bible says animals of a kind, and not of a subspecies. A pair of camels, a pair of giraffes, a couple pair of beetles. You get the idea. If creatures can reproduce together still, chances are that they both came from the same pair on the ark. We all know that almost all varieties of canids and large cats are capable of reproducing together, meaning that most likely, they had only a few pairs of large carnivores aboard the ship. Also of note is that they did bring aboard more of certain varieties of animals, to provide food for the carnivores. But I have no clue as to why you would consider there to be an oxygen problem. The world may have been flooded, but if a boat can drain all the oxygen in the atmosphere in forty days, your time scale is out of whack.

Plants can survive a flood. Seed pods float, birds carry seeds in their droppings. A flood to kill all of man kind merely has to rise above their heads at the highest point they can reach, and have enough ferocity to overturn their vessels. Plants have floating seedpods, and can regrow from harsh conditions. I can attest to the fact that an empty area can be completely regrown with lush grass after about two weeks, and that's small fries timewise. If Noah's ark was adrift more than twenty days after the flood, there should've been enough plants to support an existance until the more stable varieties came in.

[antisuperheroguy]

Alright to press some things out im a Christian and im on the side of Creationism and Evolutionism. But i have a question that really has been bothering me after reading all of this. (Yes, this is about one of the only topics that ive taken the time to read everyone's post.) But um, no one brought this up so maybe everyone knows and i dont.

Everyone has different hair colors today right? Well.. would that mean that everyone on the Ark would be carrying a chromosome of each hair color and all that? And freckles and everything. I mean what if people used to have things that we dont have nowwa days because no one on the Ark had those chromosomes. That would be weird, people with actual blue hair.

Also, you know how we have different colored people? Does that mean that the sun is capable of changing our DNA so that our future generations have tanner color skin? Or lighter depending if your deprived of sunlight? I was just wondering about all this and i hope someone can supply a response.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Does that mean that the sun is capable of changing our DNA so that our future generations have tanner color skin? Or lighter depending if your deprived of sunlight? I was just wondering about all this and i hope someone can supply a response.
You seem to be slipping into lamarckian heredity... This talks about acquried characteristics (as in, gained during a lifetime) that are passed down to offspring. It's not valid; only genetic material is passed down, which remains unchanged throughout one's life.

With humans it's actually a case of the skin becoming lighter, as human life began in africa so all humans had dark skin to begin with. As they traveled to areas with less intense sunlight, it was advantageous not to produce a darker skin tone because it would use up less resources and energy. Thus a slight change within the species occurred to produce people that appeared different from the originials.

Everyone has different hair colors today right? Well.. would that mean that everyone on the Ark would be carrying a chromosome of each hair color and all that? And freckles and everything. I mean what if people used to have things that we dont have nowwa days because no one on the Ark had those chromosomes. That would be weird, people with actual blue hair.
Hair and eye color are generally more complex than to be controlled by a single gene. I would say it's possible that all the modern hair and eye color alleles were aboard the ark. And despite the fact that freckles (and other traits) are controlled by a single gene, each person has two genes for a trait so unless everyone on the ark was recessive in single gene contrlled traits, they could have been carrying both alleles for all these traits too.

The Bible says animals of a kind, and not of a subspecies. A pair of camels, a pair of giraffes, a couple pair of beetles.
A pair of BEETLES? Bad example, man. There's a very large number of beetle species, some we're not even aware of. You can't just take any two you want and expect to generate a diverse population from them.

And there would still be plenty of large, hungry, and/or killer animals on that boats. How about snakes and bears and wolves some variety of large cat (breeding from only 2 would NOT result in the variety we see today btw...). I don't even know how noah convinced some of the more vicious animals to go onto his boat anyway. Or how he gathered them. You'd think he would be a bit preoccupied gathering wood and constructing this gargantuan ship of life. Oh, and were they carrying parasites? I bet they were, they'd ahve to. Don't know how they survived, but I'm sure glad they saved those guys.

The world may have been flooded, but if a boat can drain all the oxygen in the atmosphere in forty days, your time scale is out of whack.
Oh, of course not, that's not what I wrote. Boats drift, so they would breathe oxygen from various parts of the atmosphere. Once they land though, it's a sample of each and every animal species living on earth (some that even aren't here today, sincea ll of those fossils are of animals that have gone extinct relatively recently, right?) in a fairly small area with no plants. I'm not saying they'd totally run out of oxygen, but they would thin the air in that area out like crazy. Only the healthiest would survive.

And here's another issue: back then, there was no problem with the belief of spontaneous generation. God's will of two of each would have confused noah as back then some animals simply arose from nonliving materials. Because of this noah might just indiscriminantly have taken two animals of the same gender of a particular species, for any number of animals he was supposed to save.

Plants can survive a flood. Seed pods float, birds carry seeds in their droppings. A flood to kill all of man kind merely has to rise above their heads at the highest point they can reach, and have enough ferocity to overturn their vessels. Plants have floating seedpods, and can regrow from harsh conditions. I can attest to the fact that an empty area can be completely regrown with lush grass after about two weeks, and that's small fries timewise. If Noah's ark was adrift more than twenty days after the flood, there should've been enough plants to support an existance until the more stable varieties came in.
So you're saying that in 20-something days, enough plants will have rown both to continue the life of the plants themselves AND to feed every plant-eating animal on the ship? No way. They'd finish their food supply sintantly, unelss they had some really lean rations, and good luck convincing a hungry animal not to stuff its face with all the food it can find.

[ImJessieTR]

Well, Noah wouldn't have had to invite the beetles, anyway. Bugs are real good at latching themselves onto anything that will save them some travel time. I've watched spiders, katydids, butterflies, grasshoppers, etc ride on my windshield and then get off at the next intersection.

Also, Noah didn't have to go get these animals. (I'm looking at the KJV on my computer right now.) God just said two-by-two (and seven-by-sevens of clean animals) were coming along for the trip. He said Noah should bring them into the ark, He didn't say Noah had to go round them up. Migratory animals would come on their own, having sensed the coming atmospheric trouble.

Also, God told Noah to bring food for his family and the animals. So, actually, the animals present on the ark were not meant for consumption by either the humans or the animals. Which brings me to one of my "issues" with this story (other than the rip-off of Gilgamesh):

So, try to imagine a moderate-sized family sharing space with a boatload of animals, (2x2,7x7), plus food and surely space set aside for sleep and ... um ... other functions. The Bible says that the ark had to be, in cubits, 300x50x30. A cubit is approximately the length of a grown man's lower arm, from the elbow to the fingertips. My arms aren't much shorter than average, and the distance on my arm is 16 inches. That means the length was around 400ft, the width 67ft, and the height 40ft. Doesn't that seem a bit small for what all Noah has to include? Even if you argue that he took common ancestors only, that's still a lot, plus you get into the very idea of natural selection that many like to avoid, because the animals have to adapt and differentiate after the flood.

Also, even though the Bible says that everyone but Noah's family got offed in the flood, one particular race manages to slip through the cracks, which goes along with the theory that, in reality, the flood may have happened in numerous sea-level or below communities, but nowhere near the scope the Bible purports (remember, Noah lived in Mesopotamia, which included a lot of ground but mostly is talking about the marshes and lowlying areas between the Tigris and Euphrates). The Nephilim, a giant race said to be from a mix of angels and people (which doesn't mean much: if you're five feet tall and your neighbors are 6 or 7, then they're going to seem supernaturally tall to you), were created before the flood. Yet, as Moses is taking the Israelites on the ultimate road trip, centuries after the flood, these giants show up again. Huh? They weren't on the boat manifest or anything: they shouldn't be there -- unless the flood wasn't as global as Noah thought.

It's difficult in the modern age to see why the ancients did not care about glaring discrepencies like this, but the criticism ignores the primary goals of the ancient world. To them, a "fact" meant only that the statement provided some sort of inspired proof of a larger concept. The Snake (actually it would have been a lizard, since it had legs in the beginning -- and you can still see nubs of legs on some snakes) is a good example. In today's world we would want to see the shed skin or skeleton to "prove" the snake was there. In the ancient world, the snake's presence was a "fact" only because it went along with their Jungian concept of reptilian immortality (I've seen on Animal Planet a tortoise in England I think that was alive when Darwin took it from the Galapagos, that's well over a hundred years!) and that's what the serpent promised Adam and Eve, just as the snake promised Gilgamesh immortality. "Facts" in the Bible, at least the prehistorical ones (before writing was invented), really, anytime before Abraham, speak to a larger philosophical world and can't adequately be compared to the "facts" we determine through the scientific method. Logical investigation and presentation of evidence is a (relatively) modern invention that the Stone-age people of Genesis wouldn't understand.

P.S. Actually, I just remembered the comment about the unlikelihood of carnivores not eating everything in sight. Animals aren't that stupid. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's a limited supply of food available on a boat. Most animals respond to a lack of food by first shutting down all reproductive capacities, then, if famine is still in play, by going into topor or hibernation. That's why bears etc. hibernate, there's not enough food in winter. The fish in my pond (well, the ones that are left) don't reproduce very often and don't lay a lot of eggs even when they do, plus they don't grow past a certain size because it's a small pond. Environmental limitations force some animals' biologies to alter to accomodate bleak periods. If I moved two of my fish to a much larger pond, they would grow and have more babies. Their genetics didn't change, just hormonal productivity levels.

[ZAKtheGeek]

P.S. Actually, I just remembered the comment about the unlikelihood of carnivores not eating everything in sight. Animals aren't that stupid. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's a limited supply of food available on a boat. Most animals respond to a lack of food by first shutting down all reproductive capacities, then, if famine is still in play, by going into topor or hibernation. That's why bears etc. hibernate, there's not enough food in winter. The fish in my pond (well, the ones that are left) don't reproduce very often and don't lay a lot of eggs even when they do, plus they don't grow past a certain size because it's a small pond. Environmental limitations force some animals' biologies to alter to accomodate bleak periods. If I moved two of my fish to a much larger pond, they would grow and have more babies. Their genetics didn't change, just hormonal productivity levels.
That seems like the kind of thing that happens along with a more gradual change, not a catastrohpic sort of "here's all the food in the WORLD that you could possibly eat" scenario. I mean, SOME animals may well have temporarily adapted, but since there's only two per species, there's a fair chance that a good number of species just died out due to a continuation ofnormal eating patterns: only one of a species even needs not to adapt for the whole species to go extinct. I could be wrong though.

Also, Noah didn't have to go get these animals. (I'm looking at the KJV on my computer right now.) God just said two-by-two (and seven-by-sevens of clean animals) were coming along for the trip. He said Noah should bring them into the ark, He didn't say Noah had to go round them up. Migratory animals would come on their own, having sensed the coming atmospheric trouble.
So each of the required animals knew, by itself, that it had to go to this specific area? I find this very difficult to swallow, noting again that divine intervention leads to a circular sort of argument. How did some of the animals even travel there? Like, ones that lived on faraway continents that need those unique-ish environments to survive. There's probably something on this very topic in that long post on page one.

[ImJessieTR]

But my point to my post was that Noah was incorrect about the scope of the damage. That it was impossible to repopulate the earth like that, human and animal alike. The surviving giants that appear later in Genesis is another point of evidence that Noah was mistaken. And before any creationists start yelling at me, I'm not saying God was mistaken, I said Noah was. As to the animals knowing where to go, haven't you ever seen animals hide in garages or something during a storm? Assuming Noah was only capturing local fauna (as I described, the dimensions of the ark don't lend themselves to a complete roster of all animals possible), it's not hard to imagine that animals trying to evade the storm got into the ark as it was the most convenient place. These people lived in small mudbrick huts and stuff; not exactly great shelter for human or animal. Fleeing animals come upon a sturdy wooden structure that dwarfs all available shelters and they choose to hide out in the highest available shelter, the ark. The animals don't have to know it's a boat. All they have to know is that it looks a lot better than their other choices. Another reason to believe that not all the world was flooded is this: assuming Noah lived in Mesopotamia/Iraq, it would seem like everything was flooded because he came from lowlying areas easily affected by floods. Many assume Ararat (sp?) is in Turkey somewhere. Perhaps he didn't hit the mountain because after 40 days the water was subsiding, maybe he hit it because he had been adrift for 40 days and the mountain was still standing. Let's say Turkey wasn't as hard hit, if at all. That permits survivors of humans, plant and animal. That takes care of the food supply problem: he just landed far enough away from the major damage zone. It's also possible that the reason no one knows the true identity of the mountain is that it is difficult to believe even Noah knew where he was. On boats you would use the stars to navigate, but Noah had 1) no means to navigate a block-like ship and 2) cloud cover would have negated any attempt to navigate. He could have gone in a circle or drifted out to Saudia Arabia or somewhere completely different. And the birds being unable to find a spot to land is not real proof in my mind because, as I've maintained, the authors of that story were living in Babylonia at the time (the Bible, or the Old Testament, anyway, did not really come together until the Babylonian exile -- it had only existed as oral storytellings or brief scrolls to cover laws and such) and those authors were assimilating the Epic of Gilgamesh and other documents like the story of the Unjustly Punished (Job) to fill in the details. If you read through the old testament, city folks are villainized in almost every way, even from the Cain&Abel days when farmers were fighting shepherds. That's because at the time, the Israelites had been enslaved by pretty much every empire to show up: Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, etc. Constant occupancy by foreign forces made the editors such as Ezra bitter about urban life and so, as they were writing the Jewish canon, they made sure to gloss over the "Green Acres" lifestyle of the ancient Hebrews and make all city dwellers and their religious practices seem evil. That's why even heroes like Abraham had to leave their cities and go out into the pastures/wilderness. David, once an innocent shepherd, becomes king and lives in an urban palace. Note how well that turns out: he becomes greedy and corrupt in mere pages. Much of the Bible is propaganda of some sort or the other. The New Testament is no different. It glosses over Pilate's role to make a certain group of people who complained to the Christians look bad. Pilate, according to historical Roman documents, was a Hitler-esque jerk who had no problem killing people just because their presence incovenienced him. He got so bad that the emperor kicked him out and sent him to exile. Early Christians, upset with the way Jews were rejecting them, turned to Greco-Roman pagans for recruitment. Obviously, you won't win many converts if you talk about vile individuals they all know. So you make it seem like Pilate was a wuss that could easily be manipulated by a group of religious rulers that had no legal authority in Jerusalem anyway. It's uncomfortable to admit that there is a huge bias in the Bible, but it's there and Christians (and Jews) should be honest with their God and concede that faithlessness made them rewrite the Bible to fit their own purposes, which are now useless, except as a warning for those currently having many of the same issues in that part of the world.

P.S. I am including a link that discusses many science&theology issues: http://beliefnet.com/index/index_506.html . Perhaps people will find this helpful.

[ZAKtheGeek]

We seem to have drifted off point, possibly due to the lack of stars by which to navigate.

So if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that the "great" flood was only a local flood saving only the local animals? Why oh why does god care? I think noah ate some funky mushrooms right before he began his project...

In other news, I won't be able to debate here for a fairly long while, so if anyone feels like usurping my prominent debater's position (sounds egotistical, but it's true, dammit), that'd be really cool.

[ImJessieTR]

This may sound irritated, but it's not because I'm sincere, but you can't hear my voice, but here goes:

If you don't believe in God, why do you care if He cares about the locals?

Let's do a flood scenario without God for an instant: Noah, already severly stressed out due to his neighbors being arrogant, amoral jerks, senses a change in the atmosphere/land just like in the tsunami or an earthquake when animals detect problems. In the ancient world, shamans, prophets, etc used animal divination to determine the will of the gods. As Noah is out doing his thing every morning, he begins to notice some time before the major storm hits that birds and livestock and such are acting strangely. Humans learned early on it's wise to investigate animal behavior. Curious, Noah muses on this for a while and dreams an answer. Possibly, he, unlike his neighbors, can sense the coming problem and subconsciously in his dream, El, or the god of Abraham that is later renamed with the start of the Hebrews, tells him that a storm is coming, which is what he probably suspected in the first place. Perhaps Noah was considered a pious man in the bible because he could have been a diviner, a wise man able to "commune with the spirit world." Firmly believing in the accuracy of his vision, Noah begins to build the boat to protect the fauna of his region, plus his family. He would believe that he is protecting the whole world because every ancient community believed it was the center of the globe. Look at old maps: no matter who drew it, the homecountry of the cartographer is in the center and the rest of the world is drawn around it.

This scenario should suit you better because a) it would be historically reasonable according to ancient literature and archaelogy and b) it removes the needed deity that you don't care for much anyway. Creationists can believe it really happened, and evolutionists can believe it happened without divine intervention. Everybody's happy.

Also, I am slightly confused over the statement that we're off topic. In my understanding, the creationist/evolutionist debate is really a debate about whether things in the bible actually happened. I'm trying to be a moderate in this debate, showing that the ancients believed a certain way historically and that influenced what went into the bible. If this were merely about creationism, then Noah shouldn't even be much of a topic because that happened WAY after "creation". A debate with that limited of a scope should focus merely on the passages that revolve around Adam & Eve and Eden, as that is the only thing that has to do with creation itself. To me, arguments about Noah show that this is more a debate about the assumed stupidity of the biblical authors than a debate about what God does with His day and human interactions with the perceived divine.

[ZAKtheGeek]

The whole noah's flood thing was only brought up in order to show that the bible, quite simply, doesn't make sense. It's meant to shoot down the christian argument of "it's in the bible so it must have happened that way." This does not, however, totally disprove creationism. Not at all. In fact that's almost as impossible to do as proving that there isn't a god.

This is the extent to which I am able to accept creationism: almighty being (from our perspective) (referred to as god) sets the rules of physics, and perhaps assigns a specific amount of energy and matter to the universe, and lets his creation loose. From this point god simply observes it: perhaps on a subatomic level, perhaps on an astronomical level. Either way, there is little chance that the actions of humans on earth mean a thing to it. It may well be ignorant of our existance.

[ImJessieTR]

How very Aristotle, not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm still going to check in on this thread every once in awhile, but I think I've said all I can contribute to the matter, so I leave it to others.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Oh, this thread may well die in that case. But if people don't want to argue I guess no one can force them.

[ImJessieTR]

Well, it has been a fascinating experience, being on this thread. I really enjoyed debating with you. If inspiration hits, I'll come back to this. I've been reading that site I linked to earlier and it has some interesting discussions on it.

[onaivasa]

I believe in the theory I refore to as the onion ring theory.
I know some of you have never known about the pendulum, so this is going to sound wierd. In the book The power of the pendulum By t.c.Lethbridge, he (lethbridge) speeks of the rates (inches of the pendulum string) of different dimensions, these are found every 40 inchesand are like so
THIRD: TIME MOVES AGAIN ecs.
SECOND: NO TIME (THERE IS NO RATE FOR DEATH AND SLEEP 40 INCHES) HERE
EARTH: MOVING TIME
with earth at the bottom. These demensions are usualy 6 feet high and to the right, and these levels are ever on going. THIS IS NOT THE COMPLETE THEORY BECAUSE IF IT WERE THIS POST WOULD BE FIVE PAGES LONG. :D
Well thats all.
Ikirak

[ImJessieTR]

I'm going to assume you're talking about the multiverse theory. It's sort of like Sliders, where many dimensions of Earth overlap each other. It's supposed to explain weird happenings and deja vu.

It relates somewhat to quantum theory, as your life as it is is only one path out of the millions that you could be on. As your actions start to choose your own adventure, so to speak, the 'you' in other dimensions do all the stuff you didn't do. Sometimes, the dimensions overlap and that's why sometimes you feel you've done something before (or you tell the future) when you haven't.

I guess that's what you're talking about. I've never heard of this guy but I have heard the multiverse theory. I can't say much about the specific measurements you mention, as no one has been able to confirm these other dimensions at all, much less measure them. Right now, scientists have only circumstantial evidence of other possibilities, so they philosophize about the evidence since they have nothing else to go on.

[redeyes15]

If god exists (which it doesn't), .

i find this very disturbing, i believe in god and that he created us, im not christian, i am muslim.

i have read a book in arabic that said that they found noahs ark........... and just like it was said in the quran it has the names of prophets that came later, and while most of the ark was completly destroyed and stuff, those names were unharmed........... i believe in god

[ImJessieTR]

I have the utmost respect for the Prophet. I'm glad to see you airing your opinion/knowledge on the subject. The more backgrounds we have, the more interesting and thought-provoking this topic becomes. I've read stories and seen on the news where they've found Noah's ark. However, when a critic of religion wants proof, they say they had to hurry and get out of (usually Turkey) because of political safety problems. In the views of the critics, that's a convenient excuse. In any case, nothing is proven either way, because supposedly no one is allowed onto the site itself. So, faith must take over: you either believe it's there or you don't, just like with God.

I am deeply sorry that you were very disturbed by this. Let me see if I can help put this thread in perspective:
1. Islam shares with its Jewish and Christian bretheren a reliance on genealogies, poems, oral traditions, and divinely-inspired guidance in the form of our respective sacred texts. Although the details here and there are different, the spirit is the same and many parallels can be seen among the different theological histories, because they are, after all, related. Abraham is credited with leaving paganism to form the beginnings of Judaism, Jesus (with a large boost from Paul) modified Judaism into Christianity, and finally the Prophet brought his people from Arabic paganism into God's fold with Islam. God is our Father, and we are all His children, even if we squabble too much for His liking.
2. As science, like theology, has evolved (it was once scientific "knowledge" that planets revolved in perfect circles instead of ellipses, flies magically appeared on rotting meat, and that any illness was an imbalance of the four humours: blood, yellow/black bile, can't remember the other one), it has sought even stricter definitions of proof. This is how sometimes debates like these can get nasty.
3. The reason this debate can only heal so much and is really just an intriguing thought experiment, is that proof is a tricky creature. Some things can be proven/disproven, such as the fact that I'm a woman or that my computer desk was made from wood, but some things cannot. We have to rely on sacred texts for our heritage because modern ideas of making scrapbooks and home DVD's and such didn't exist then. Sometimes, religion gets lucky, like when descendants of Aaron (Moses' bro) were legitimized when someone had the idea to do a DNA study of them and find out that they did indeed go at least that far back. Critics of the origin story in genesis skip over the genetics study that we all come from the same woman (the chromosomes of the mitochondria are inherited from the mother, I think, so the study can't prove an Adam). Yet, God can never be proven in such a way. Spiritually-gifted people like prophets and such believe their visions and whatnot are proof of God. Critics don't see this as proof. Yet, if God were to appear in a form we could understand and sign a guestbook at a convention or something, the problem is that it still isn't proof. Even you can't be proved. People can forge identification documents all the time. Only with meticulous study can anyone spot fakes. By then, you've already suffered large amounts of time and dignity loss because someone just took a trip to Maui on your credit card.
4. Finally, this debate was never really about forcing our opinions on people. It really ended up more or less a debate between me and Zak. It was a thought experiment, nothing more. The hope of these kinds of debates is that people from anywhere and from whatever background can learn new ideas from each other in a civilized way and take something from it, whether or not you agree with the whole thing.

[RLRL]

There is evidence to some extent for both theorys of evolutionism and creationism, this was something I discussed in one of my science lessons a few months ago.. I decided to try and make the lesson more interesting and say that evolution just seemed too perfect, but the alternative is slightly disturbing, hoping to get a varied response from around the room as there were alot of people from different backgrounds...
Unfortunately on the whole people of this generation are being taught that evolution is the answer, the UK national syllabus for Science clearly states that Evolution is the answer... This also disturbs me slightly as it means people may be forced to learn facts and figures that discourage their personal belief system...
A debate such as this one cannot fully be proven either way, it is a topic that is affected too much by belief, even if you believe in evolutionism it eventually bears down to the old theory of proof god exists that eventually there is a first cause that would have been god...

[ZAKtheGeek]

...holy crap, this is still alive.

What exactly is "evidence" for creationism? The best evidence for that seems to be a lack of evidence...

[ImJessieTR]

I think life's complexity is seen as evidence of creationism/intelligent design. The most common concept used by proponents of this is that the eye is too complicated, or the wing, or whatever. While I can see their point, proponents of these examples might not be studying paleontology or comparative biology too well. The light-sensing cells in microscopic life was not a fully-developed eye but it is still advantageous. The ability to detect a sudden shadow lets you know that a predator or obstacle is upon you. Feathers for wings were apparently for insulation before they were adapted by the longer-armed creatures for flight. You can have advantages without having fully-evolved organs.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Are wings really all that comlicated? The entire concept of flight is understandable, but what's so complex about the wing itself? Early birds (seriously, this ISN'T supposed to be a pun) must have been very pathetic fliers as it probably would've taken them quite a while to evolve their super respiratory systems/metabolisms/light bones/etc that allow them to fly and keep flying.

[kimishiro]

If you ask where God came from, why not ask this, too? Where did the matter from the big bang come from? Was all of this matter just spontaneously here as well? You see, even if it came from the compression of a previous universe, that previous universe still has to have an origin. By this measure, one can use this argument on any idea presented.

The reason that God is refered to by the male gender is a two fold reason. First of all, the Lord fulfills the role of a father to humanity, protecting us while at the same time eventually disciplining us if we do wrong unrepentantly. Secondly, the one time that he came to the earth in a human form, he was in a male form, to help spread his message (in those days, or even now, a woman prophet or religious teacher could not receive the same reception as a man would). So, I suppose that since male is the only gender God has assumed, it could be said that even though "he" is beyond something as earthly and simple as gender, "he" is the most appropriate pronoun.


Hmmmm.... not to pick on you in particular, for I just skimmed, and I usually hold your oppinion slightly above others.

First of all, if we all came from a compression of a previous universe, then perhaps that previous universe came from yet another compression. Then where did it come from?

The human mind is unable to firmly grasp the concept of infinite. They think it means "never ending", when in actuality it is more plausible to say that it has neither a beginning nor an end. Why must everything have been created? Why couldn't time fly both ways, and the spectrum of reality we are dealt goes forward?

Most religions deal with an "eternity". Why must eternity flow in one direction? Because the human mind can't control the thought of being ignorant. We are ignorant to most all facts of the universe, and every idea that has ever been ran across to you, and every "truth" you have been told, has been made up out of theory and speculation at one time or another.

If there was no afterlife, then we could not exist today. Why? Do you remember when you were 2yrs old? Vaguely... As time passes by, we lose track. If we were to die, would we be able to remember everything? Then how can we have a memory now if its not going to be there later? I know there are many concepts that can go against that, but the fact is still there if you linger on it long enough. If we die and are put out of existance, then how can we be here now, and know all these things.

That may express how there is no end, otherwise just save some time and shoot yourself.

Heaven.... An eternity of what? If it's supposed to be perfect then the concept is flawed and immpossible. After trillions of years, you would forget of a time when it wasn't perfect for you, and without pain, both emotional and mental, and all the stresses of the world, your perfection would be the same as any other day. Heaven contradicts itself as much as hell does. If you can burn in hell, then eventually you would adjust. You would have no other choice.

These concepts of religion sound like an ancient tool to govern the world, that still works today. Religion is the perfect brainwashing mechanism, and stands as the world's strongest power.

Jesus, one of my faverite fictional characters of all time, was said to have told the mass of society to "**** off" as he went about his way to find the relgion that dwelled within his heart. He had a personal relationship with God (Who, I believe exists, but not as a creation nor gender, but as everything) and uncovered most of the truth.

Of course, he was so misquoted that it wasn't funny, and after his death, they used his way of thinking as a weapon rather than trying to fend it off.

Its the perfect trap....

1) go against us and suffer eternally
2) anything that sounds opposing, shall perish (gays, women being more powerful than men, people forming their own ideas.)
3) you must make your friends and everyone believe in this, or you fail and their eternity is your fault.



Blah, I know it sounds one-sided, but I suggest instead of debating against the major/minor religions of the world, that you form one yourself, as I did.

Don't go off something someone just told you. Listen to yourself...What do you think is real? Don't say "I think the bible is real" Because that's the same as saying,"I'm siding with her. Whatever she says, goes for me"

Think for yourselves.








((too many things on my mind at once, I didn't scratch the surface on my debates about religion, but it seemed to be getting too random on my side so I'm stopping.))

[ImJessieTR]

Heaven contradicts itself as much as hell does. If you can burn in hell, then eventually you would adjust. You would have no other choice.

I think it was the book Man and Superman (sadly, I have forgotten the name of the author since high school) that elaborated best on this (if I'm thinking of the right book). Some dead characters are in Hell and one person is surprised that everything is nice and clean and everyone's happy. One resident who'd been there for a while laughed at this character and haughtily explained that of course bad people don't suffer in Hell... they were bad/immoral/evil, so this is their heaven. Really, does anyone expect the BTK dude to enjoy peace and love and harp-strumming? No, he'd enjoy watching eternal suffering. I believe in a heaven and hell, although you can't drive to it or anything, but now I can see the concept that some people don't believe in hell, but for different reasons: that evil people would enjoy being around other evil people.

[Pikachu]

But the point of hell is to punish those who are evil. You wouldn't have time to enjoy watching people burn because you'd be busy getting tortured for eternity.

[kimishiro]

Which still contradicts itself. Sure, George Bernard Shaw's story was interesting, but still fictional.


Despite what punishment may await you, if it lasts for an enternity, then you would forget of a time that it was like that, in which you would have no opposition to compare it to, thus such a contradiction would create a paradox.


There's an idea for another fictional story that would rival the bible. Paradox in Hell. >xD



My theory, if you wanna know, is that once you die, your soul does go to an afterlife. There, you will watch down upon yourself from birth to death, and for every action you made in your life, you will experience the reprocussions of each individual you effected.

For example:

If someone's baby was burning in a fire, and as a firefighter, you ran in and rescued it from certain doom, you would be able to feel the joy and relief of the mother, and it's family members and everyone it effected in even the slightest way.

Then again..if you had murdered someone's baby, not only would you feel the pain of the baby, but of it's family and friends.

I suppose if you lived like that, then you would experience a metaphorical "hell" once you died. YOu would re-experience your whole life, and all the bad things you did would come back to you ten-fold.



I also beleive in reincarnation. Not as another creature, but not nessecarily on the same planet. If time is infinate, then each and every possibility will occur. Perhaps you will be reincarnated into a pokemon world. Nice. =D

Thats silly...right? Well, if time is infinate (grasp that word), thenm it will never end, and anything adn everything is possible.

Why would we spend eternity being reincarnated? You wouldn't.... your spirit would learn from it's previous lives, and eventually, you'll become so spiritually enlightened, that you will stay in the afterlife. You will have the opportunity to travel down and help others to realize that they are not alone, and help guide them through troubled times. You'll become an "angel" if you will...

In the fact that we are here, present today, then that gives reasoning to believe that each and every possibility can occur. Even demons, ghosts, aliens.... they can all exists. If we could be created, then why couldn't they? Whether it was by some cosmic accident, or by God, we are alive, so what proof do we have that they couldn't?


The concept about "angels" or spiritual guidance.... There is proof all around you if you just listen. For instance..

A man has been unemployeed for 3 months. He finally gets a call for a position at a bank. As he goes to get dressed for the interview, he burns a whole in his nicest shirt as he irons. Cursing he grabs another, and spills coffee on it before leaving. Once again, he grabs another shirt and goes to his car. As he backs up onto the road he is nearly missed by oncoming traffic and quickly pulls back in. Shaking his bad luck off, he tries again and successfully backs up. As he drives down the road, it turns out there is a crash in the midst of the road. Traffic is blocked from both sides. Fortunately for him, there is a detour, of course, this will cause him to be ten minutes late. As he continues forward, he runs over a nail and his tire flattens. This being the unluckiest day of his life, he should go back home and give up. Of course, this man is very stubborn, so he changes the tire and eventually makes it to the bank. As soon as he enters.....BAM.... he's shot in the head as the bank robbers make the escape. ...Needless to say, he didn't get the job....

There were so many forces trying to make him stay at home....but he was too narrow-minded and stubborn to realize that they were there....

Bah..sorry about ranting...too much to discuss in the area of religion..

[Pikachu]

I'm all for the evolution idea but I quite like your theory. It would be nice to think that there is somewhere to go after this life is done. Perhaps thats just because I don't like to think that once it's over it's over. I guess in some way we all want to go to "heaven" and maybe we all will but then again maybe we won't. We like to think we know it all but in reality humans in general know very little about the world and beyond. I guess it makes things more interesting lol.

[kimishiro]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that evolution was wrong. It doesn't go hand-in-hand with the Big Bang Theory, but I was talking to God about this the other day, and he (not a male, just easier to type "he" than "God") said ,"Well, I was ****ing bored outta my mind, and so I decided BANG!, I'd make me a planet full of little monkeys. I put your souls into them and allowed you to develop. It was a little game of mine, you see.... I was seeing what creatures could adapt the best....I was quite suprised by the outcome, but hey..it's free-will, and there is no enjoyment when you use cheats in your games. I little push in the right direction is good and all, but if I knew where everyone was headed, it would be boring."


So you see...God told me....... We're a game... =P

We won! The monkeys won.... dun be a sore winner...you bishes...





-----------------------------------------------

In all seriousness, I often find myself talking to God, and I find that I always get an answer in some form. But he doesn't want to cheat, so rarely will he come out and do something miraculous.... He gave everyone the opportunity to evolve and adapt...it just so happens that we did it better than everyone else.

Boo-ya!

[ZAKtheGeek]

I find myself disagreeing. What truly makes humans "better" than any other advancedly evolved organism? I mean, it's a very self-centered sort of view. Great brainpower is not necessarily the best possible thing to gain from evolution; if it were, perhaps animals would be a lot smarter? Our brains have helped us but it's fair to say that as a whole they have hurt us as well.

As for "something afterward," this seems to be the previously mentioned human fear of death creeping in. I find something along the lines of ghosts believable: some sort of projections of the minds of dead humans. I'm not saying everyone who dies becomes a ghost, nor am I saying that I believe in any particular theory about ghosts, but I see it as something of an "acceptable answer."

This is way off-topic, now...

[Blastoise]

I do not personally support either side, as I see numerous points from both Evolution and Creationism. I am a strong Atheist in terms of a strict religion such as Christian and/or Catholic; however, I do believe there is a superior being out there. Of course, I cannot dream to support my point in a way comparable to Zak (I am extremely impressed by the whole scientific way of looking at the Ark :)), although I like support my arguments with literature and science. So here are two:

- Many creationist disapprove of the BBT (My dubbed ‘Big Bang Theory’) by bring up the second law of a simple Gas Law – which states that hot gases expand outwards. Creationists based on this argument to further state that a star cannot form from tiny atoms such as Hydrogen and Helium, since if these particles heat up, the expanding force (Second Gas Law) of the heat would drive all particles apart, and therefore no stars would be formed. Incorrect. Professional Astrologists know that in order for a star to form, the temperature of the Hydrogen and Helium must drop near Absolute Zero, therefore bypassing the Second Gas Law, and the gravitational pull will slowly heat up the gas. However, the gas now would not have enough energy to repel each other, since most of the energy is lost from the extreme low temperature. Slowly yet surely, if there are enough mass, Nuclear Fusion would start, and a star will shine. This disproves the argument set by Creationists, and their efforts to use the Second Law of the simple Gas Law to flaw BBT.

- A prominent humanist during the 1400s had written an important dialogue to question God’s real powers. In his dialogue, On Free Will, Lorenzo Valla pointed out a few conflicts between God’s power and his goodness. If God could have saved a man from his sin and did not, then God’s goodness is in question; on the other hand, if God wanted to save a man and could not, then God’s power is in question. (A nice thing for all of us to think on…)

[kimishiro]

First of all...I was joking about humanity winning. =P

I agree on what you protested towards me, so there's no debate from me there.

On God and "Free Will", I think he's lonely..... He wants to see how spiritually enlightened we can be, so that he'll have someone to talk to besides small minded simple rednecks who condemn everything saccriligious(sp?).

[ZAKtheGeek]

If god were so lonely, why not simply talk to people that are still alive? Like, a lot of them, and all the time too? Plenty of occupation there.

Edit: Yay, 100th post.

[iankobe]

Well I didn't read all of the replies but me, as a Christian, this is what I think:

1)How can you not be a Creationist if you were a Christian? Do you know what a Christian mean/is?

2)Zak: God DOES talk to people, through different ways, in different situations. I'm not forcing people to believe in God or anything.

3)Some Evolutionists say: "No real Schientists believe in Creation!" Oh really? Link below are just a few PhD's who ARE creationists.
www.icr.org and click Scientists

4)Science can tell you this:
Volume; Mass, weight, chemical composition, density, temperature.
Science cannot tell you:
Age. Age is NOT a physical property.
Looking at the block of ice example, you can measure many things (current volume, current weight, current chemistry, etc.) but none of those answers the question of how old the ice is. By obervation you can see it is melting, but you have no way of scientifically determining for how long it has been melting.

What you would need to know, but you do not know:
a) Its oringinal size. How big was the ice orginally? You do not know. You would have to assume its original condition. Science cannot tell you its original condition.
b) Its history. What was this ice subjected to? Did it sit in a freezer for ten years? Was it sitting in the sun for an hour? Science cannot tell you its history.

IF you knew the original size and the history of the ice, you might be able to give a good guess to the age of the ice block. But since you do not know it, you have to make TWO HUGE ASSUMPTIONS: 1) its original state; and 2) its history.

5)The flood of Noah: Does the bible teach the flood of Noah covered the entire earth?
Many people think that the bible teaches the flood of Noah was not global. Yet the bible says "ALL flesh" would be destroyed; "ever living thing" would be destroyed. (Gen 6:17, Gen 7:4, Gen 7:23)
If those verses do not convince you the bible teaches the flood covered everything, Gen 7:19 states, "all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered."

k, so the bible says the flood was global, do facts from Geology support this concept of falsify it?
Yes. On EVERY continent there are billions of fossils buried in sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock is rock deposited by WATER. The only way these fossils were buried under sedimentary rock was by a flood.

Q:How can you believe the high mountains were once under water?
Mt. Everest, the world's highest mountain, has seashells on top of it, as do many mountains. Many mountains also have sea life fossils and sedimentary rock on them.

Where did all the water go than?
Eath is a water planet. About 75% of the earth's suface is water. If you shoveled all the earth in to the oceans, the earth would be covered by ONE MILE of water.

6)Did you know that there are several theories of evolution? Students are rarely told that.
There are 3 different theories: Darwinian evolution, punctuated equailibrium, and theistic evolution.
>IF EVOLUTION WAS TRUE, why are there SO many theories?
Because evolution has never been observed. Darwinian evolutionists say evolution happened slowly and gradually. But recently many evolutionist have admitted there is no fossil or living evidence to support this! THus they say evolution happened too fast for there to be fossil or living evidence. They thus admit there is no evidence for EVOLUTION. Eheistic evolutionists think GOD used evolution. Remember, if it isn't observed, it ISN'T science.

[ZAKtheGeek]

The flood being global only supports the theory that it could NOT have happened...

For more information on the above, sedimentary rock, please consult a little something I like to call page 1 if you haven't already.

Seashells can be found on top of mountains because mountains are formed when two tectonic plates collide, forcing large amounts of land to rise up and form the mountains that you see.

Scince can be used to determine the age of certain things, through processes such as carbon dating. Not sure why this is important but... there's your answer nonetheless.

But recently many evolutionist have admitted there is no fossil or living evidence to support this!
There's no fossil evidence to support evolution? I don't know who said that, but they can't have been very good scientists (if at all...).

God DOES talk to people, through different ways, in different situations.
I meant all the time, and almost to everyone. Since he's so lonely by the theory prior to the post in question.

>IF EVOLUTION WAS TRUE, why are there SO many theories?
>IF THE BIBLE IS CORRECT, why are there SO many interpretations?

[Pikachu]

Well I didn't read all of the replies but me, as a Christian, this is what I think:

1)How can you not be a Creationist if you were a Christian? Do you know what a Christian mean/is?

2)Zak: God DOES talk to people, through different ways, in different situations. I'm not forcing people to believe in God or anything.

3)Some Evolutionists say: "No real Schientists believe in Creation!" Oh really? Link below are just a few PhD's who ARE creationists.
www.icr.org (http://www.icr.org/) and click Scientists


I can honestly say I have never heard an evolutionist or anyone else for that matter say that.

4)Science can tell you this:
Volume; Mass, weight, chemical composition, density, temperature.
Science cannot tell you:
Age. Age is NOT a physical property.
Looking at the block of ice example, you can measure many things (current volume, current weight, current chemistry, etc.) but none of those answers the question of how old the ice is. By obervation you can see it is melting, but you have no way of scientifically determining for how long it has been melting.

What you would need to know, but you do not know:
a) Its oringinal size. How big was the ice orginally? You do not know. You would have to assume its original condition. Science cannot tell you its original condition.
b) Its history. What was this ice subjected to? Did it sit in a freezer for ten years? Was it sitting in the sun for an hour? Science cannot tell you its history.

IF you knew the original size and the history of the ice, you might be able to give a good guess to the age of the ice block. But since you do not know it, you have to make TWO HUGE ASSUMPTIONS: 1) its original state; and 2) its history.


Can religion answer or prove any of those things better than science can? Also age is a physical property, when you look at someone can you not tell if they are old or young? Obviously you couldn't look at them and know the exact age but you could still tell the difference because physically they are very different. The age of ice may be hard to determine I wouldn't know I've never tried but there are other factors to look at.


5)The flood of Noah: Does the bible teach the flood of Noah covered the entire earth?
Many people think that the bible teaches the flood of Noah was not global. Yet the bible says "ALL flesh" would be destroyed; "ever living thing" would be destroyed. (Gen 6:17, Gen 7:4, Gen 7:23)
If those verses do not convince you the bible teaches the flood covered everything, Gen 7:19 states, "all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered."

k, so the bible says the flood was global, do facts from Geology support this concept of falsify it?
Yes. On EVERY continent there are billions of fossils buried in sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock is rock deposited by WATER. The only way these fossils were buried under sedimentary rock was by a flood.

Q:How can you believe the high mountains were once under water?
Mt. Everest, the world's highest mountain, has seashells on top of it, as do many mountains. Many mountains also have sea life fossils and sedimentary rock on them.

Where did all the water go than?
Eath is a water planet. About 75% of the earth's suface is water. If you shoveled all the earth in to the oceans, the earth would be covered by ONE MILE of water.


Read Zaks reply to the Noahs Ark story.


6)Did you know that there are several theories of evolution? Students are rarely told that.
There are 3 different theories: Darwinian evolution, punctuated equailibrium, and theistic evolution.
>IF EVOLUTION WAS TRUE, why are there SO many theories?
Because evolution has never been observed. Darwinian evolutionists say evolution happened slowly and gradually. But recently many evolutionist have admitted there is no fossil or living evidence to support this! THus they say evolution happened too fast for there to be fossil or living evidence. They thus admit there is no evidence for EVOLUTION. Eheistic evolutionists think GOD used evolution. Remember, if it isn't observed, it ISN'T science.

There are lots of different religions does that mean religion isn't true? There is fossil evidence to support evolution, plenty of it. Remember just because some book says it's true DOESN'T mean it is true.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Oh and also, if we have all the water that melted off from the ice block, and we know the temperature of the area as well as how and when this temperature has changed (if at all), we should be able to determine at what point the block was at full size, thus telling you for how long it has been melting.

[ImJessieTR]

I like the idea of God being a Sims player. Maybe God's speeches to us aren't out of loneliness, they're out of menu commands. :D

Jeez, so much was said the last time I posted...

1. Age: Things degrade at a predictable rate. Just because you may not be able to create a formula to describe it at first doesn't mean you never will. Artifacts in glaciers (tools, mammoths, people, etc) aren't age-determined by ice but by themselves. A person stuck in a glacier usually has pollen and other stuff that can be easily categorized into a certain era. Although it's not perfect, your chromosomes have tips at the end that are erased in regular intervals (the reason you can't age precisely is that genetic disorders and viruses and solar radiation damages your "clock"). If age were not scientific, we would not have clocks. All a clock is, from the earliest water and solar versions to the nuclear-atomic ones today, is a moving tool using a predictably regular interval.

2. Stars: I don't know about the Absolute zero thing, but stars are formed when a "big ball of gas" (to quote the wise Pumbaa :D ) reaches critical mass and begins to collapse due to gravity. Heat increases as the atoms are packed ever closer to each other, and fusion occurs after a certain temp is hit. Jupiter, our biggest planet, was most likely going to be a sister sun to the main one, like in many solar systems, but it never received the correct amount of mass and just stayed there.

3. I Swear This Is the Last Thing I'll Say on Noah, Since It Is Off-topic in a Creationism-vs-Evolutionism Debate (see prev posts): (deep breath)

Just because the ancients saw fish and shells on mountains does not mean there was a world-wide flood. The Bible, Herodotus, Leonardo da Vinci, and others thought it did, but it doesn't. The Chinese and Native Americans believed that the large skulls and very long vertebrae they saw coming out of the ground or in the mountainsides proved the existence of dragons. Do dragons exist? No. They saw pterosaurs and tyrannosaurs and velociraptors, but not knowing of these creatures, dragons were what they were called. The Bible may be divinely inspired, but the humans in it are ignorant and primitive and arrogant. This is how the Bible may be right about spiritual things but wrong on factual things.

[RLRL]

*prepares to be flamed*

Primitive societies of humans would have asked some of the same questions we ask now... "Why are we here? What is our purpose" etc... They would naturally ask the older people in their villages about these questions, essentially my interpretation of this is that religions were made to make people think that they did have a purpose, it is easy for a person to turn around and say "We are here because a god has made us, if we are good then we will be rewarded in the afterlife"... From there it is easy to manipulate people into doing "the right thing", the idea that a person would be eternally tortured in hell if they sinned would have meant that out of fear people would do exactly what religion told them...
Christianity is a religion that works with that exact principle, "do as god tells you or you will go to hell" well what a nice concept! Sound like a dictatorship to anyone else? Seriously, is there a thing called "free will" described within the bible... free will with limits it sounds to me... "you can do what you like, as long as god approves, otherwise, you will burn in hell!"
Lets look at the other religions and tribes etc that have been around, how many of them participated (and in some cases still participate) in human sacrifice... They had their own reasons for saying certain things happen such as why the river flows etc... Most of these religions have died out over time, and it doesn't mean "Christianity is right as it has outlived the other ones" it purely means that christianity in its own right has been a religion widely adopted as giving people a purpose...
Religion = Hope
And really thats all it is really, hope that life that has been given to us will be worth something in the end, and that when we die, we do more than just rot in the ground...

A popular religious ruse was the tale of the scientists that "discovered hell" by digging down into the ground, they literally opened the ground up and heard a sound which was like "thousands of souls screaming" its somewhere around www.snopes.com but it has been proven to be just a hoax... Still good plan to get people to believe "we have found hell, meaning heaven exists, therefore we are right all along, join our faith!" thats like me pulling a skeleton out of the ground and saying "this is Jesus', note the holes in the wrists where he was nailed, therefore the bible is true"...

[ZAKtheGeek]

Well, here's my thoughts on god just doing something sims-like: this is similar to my other theory (on the previous page, I think) about how god is the creator of the universe, but doesn't interfere or affect anything afterwards and only observes, except in this case god is more able to interfere. The problems are:

-the entire universe must have been created through the game (or whatever), so god still has a lot to watch - earth hasn't necessarily even been "discovered" yet
-there's little reason to worship god; i doubt it would bother for an afterlife with every intelligent creature in the universe, and i doubt it would grant "blessings" to every single little critter that says "god is almighty!" and offered a sacrifice, perhaps, that could never even reach god anyway.
-it is no longer necessary to consider god to be an overly benevolent being; god may simply be a sadistic bastard who wants to see us all suffer, in this case, for all we know
-it's also likely there are several, if not very many, beings that are equivalent to god in its own world, as viewed through our eyes
-although god may indeed speak to certain people at certain times, it's not necessary going to be "good advice" or emaningful at all since it's not necessarily there to help, it could just be screwing with you for laughs

[RLRL]

The Sims like version of God and creation can be related to a sci fi novel i read a few years back... In it, universes were created in bubbles within a larger universe, this also adds in the idea of expanding universes, as the longer the bubbles lasted the more they grew, the people who made the universes had little to no control on what happened in them after creation, so they merely sat back and watched...

[ImJessieTR]

I couldn't stop laughing over the "discovery of Hell" story. It reminds me of a story where Adam and Eve's bones were discovered (although how anyone could tell is beyond me) or the boat where Jesus calmed the storm.