2kool4skool;1116295 wrote: But coming to the conclusion that a guy in the sky created two people who ****ed a lot and populated the world 7,000 years ago or whatever it's supposed to be, and that at some point a guy collected two of every species, from elephants to the smallest insect, and put them on a boat, requires defying logic.

That's a popular argument, but I don't think most people that believe in the creation story take the bible anywhere near so literally. That one poll result was most actually believe in theocratic(?) evolution. If Einstein were to go back and try to explain his theories to people 2000 or 3500 years ago or whatever it is, I'm guessing the terms he'd use and how he'd tell the story would make the theory almost unrecognizeable and be dismissed as fantasy.

One question worth asking, before you accept or reject creation, is if creation is true then why didn't we start out more intelligent? Doesn't matter what you believe, why wasn't man vastly more intelligent 5000 years ago than he was? So the "intelligent design" clearly allowed room to grow/learn/adapt...even evolve. Without loss of generality, Adam and Eve could have been chimpanzees which would only invalidate a LITERAL interpretation of the creation story but not the substance.

The simple fact of the matter is, at some point science has to say "it just exists". The primordial soup was just there - it came from nothing and it was created by nothing. In other words, spontaneous....errrr, "existence". There was nothing and then there was something? You either put faith in that, or faith in a superior being.

BGFalcons82;1116307 wrote:All it takes is faith in that there is something bigger and better than momma earth.

You go further than simply having faith that there's something unexplained out there bigger than what we know. You have faith in very specific details.

How did you come to the conclusion that something written thousands of years before you were born was the truth? How do you know you "picked" the right book out of all the other books whose followers lay claim to also being the truth with equal passion?

2kool4skool;1116322 wrote:You go further than simply having faith that there's something unexplained out there bigger than what we know. You have faith in very specific details.

How did you come to the conclusion that something written thousands of years before you were born was the truth? How do you know you "picked" the right book out of all the other books whose followers lay claim to also being the truth with equal passion?

I'm going to sound like a broken record...but here goes. It's all in my faith. I've not disclosed it, yet you seem to know. Interesting. I've looked into several religious philosophies/teachings, including atheism, and there are just so many questions, you know? If it was an easy selection, then we'd all make the same choice, eh? Are we all born to die without a purpose? We're we born to work like an ant colony and labor tirelessly for a queen human? Are we here because the atoms and molecules took millions of years to line up in their current formation? Is this all there is? I certainly don't have the answers and neither does anyone else on the OC. But we all endeavor to find answers as we grow each and every day...right?

How do I know that I "picked" the right path to follow? You know the answer because I've typed it several times already.

BGFalcons82;1116336 wrote: But we all endeavor to find answers as we grow each and every day...right?

What do you do on a day by day basis to find these answers?

How do I know that I "picked" the right path to follow? You know the answer because I've typed it several times already.

You've generically said it's based on "faith." But how did you settle on your specific religious following? Assuming you're Christian(feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) why not a different denomination? Why not Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

You said you did research into each, I'm genuinely curious as to some of the factors that caused you to land on the religion you did.

Cleveland Buck;1115899 wrote:Lincoln started the war by invading Charleston Harbor with his warships and inciting South Carolina to fire on Fort Sumter, where no man was killed or even injured. The response to this was the slaughter of 600,000 Americans, imprisonment of thousands of political dissenters, closing down of opposition newspapers, a dictatorial regime.

supplying American troops in an American fort is not incitement. Already on January 9, 1861 The Star of the West, an unarmed merchant ship, trying to provision Fort Sumter was fired on and driven off Rebel forces. The traitors had already started the shooting. Lincoln lead the Union to the destruction of the most despicable regime to exist in America, a state created for the protection and expansion of slavery.

its great to watch theocrats trying to roll back hundreds of years of scientific advances.

2kool4skool;1116351 wrote:What do you do on a day by day basis to find these answers?

Do you ever read something and when you're done, you want to ask, why or how did this happen? Do you look inward and to science for logical answers for everything or do you ask for help from others so you can understand? Following your faith leads you to the answers you're looking for, 2kool. I don't want to get too preachy and we've strayed from the thread's intent, but I look for guidance from a higher power to help me with things I was not created to understand. Some call this prayer.

2kool4skool;1116351 wrote:You've generically said it's based on "faith." But how did you settle on your specific religious following? Assuming you're Christian(feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) why not a different denomination? Why not Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

You said you did research into each, I'm genuinely curious as to some of the factors that caused you to land on the religion you did.

I think I'd be interested in continuing the discussion if you were indeed genuinely curious. However, your disdain is evident as you chose to bring the Flying Spaghetti Monster into the loop. Methinks you'd eventually find ways to impugn and chastise me than have a discussion. Either way, we're way off topic and I apologize to the OP.

BGFalcons82;1116368 wrote:I think I'd be interested in continuing the discussion if you were indeed genuinely curious. However, your disdain is evident as you chose to bring the Flying Spaghetti Monster into the loop. Methinks you'd eventually find ways to impugn and chastise me than have a discussion. Either way, we're way off topic and I apologize to the OP.

FYI gravity is far from proven. It works in most mathematical models but falls apart at the quantum level. So our current theory of gravity is invalid because it doesn't hold up under all scrutiny, is that what I am to understand from all of this?

Mooney44Cards;1116059 wrote:Different strains of influenza appear every year. This is evolution. The strongest strains of influenza that are the most resistant to drugs survive and live on, the weak strains die. This is the case with almost all microorganisms. It alone is proof enough that evolution is a fact. Good luck trying to refute that.

What you just gave evidence of is micro-evolution. You still haven't proved macro-evolution.

Mooney44Cards;1116145 wrote: There is a lot of evidence that evolution is a thing. No it can't be proven, but there are hints. There is no proof of creationism. Nor is there one single shred of evidence that should lead us to believe that is true. Not even a hint.

That is factually not true. Micro-evolution is observable fact. Macro-evolution has little evidence at all as a matter of fact. The fossil record does not in fact back up macro-evolution with much evidence. However, there is some evidence of creationism, but I've gone over it a hundred times on here there is no sense in rehashing it. I did NOT say proof, I said evidence...big difference.

So if you're advocating that we should be skeptical of evolution until more evidence comes around, I can't say I disagree. But if you're saying we should discount evolution because we can't prove it, then I suggest you point me towards a different theory that has more evidence than evolution. Until then, you're just being a contrarian.

Seriously, a theory where there is more evidence than evolution? Come on...theory of relativity, string theory, gravitational theory, and I could go on. String theory has the least direct evidence of all of those and it still has more evidence than macro-evolution. And you know what? String theory is NOT accepted as "fact", where the theory of evolution is...

2kool4skool;1116295 wrote:If you logically look at things, one can see a case based on existing evidence that evolution is a reality. Can it be proven? No.

But coming to the conclusion that a guy in the sky created two people who ****ed a lot and populated the world 7,000 years ago or whatever it's supposed to be, and that at some point a guy collected two of every species, from elephants to the smallest insect, and put them on a boat, requires defying logic.

You do realize that statistically the likelihood of evolution is less than all the things you just made fun of?

jmog;1116400 wrote:You do realize that statistically the likelihood of evolution is less than all the things you just made fun of?

Fascinating. Could you run the numbers on the statistical likelihood of a man collecting 16 million animals, getting them on a boat, then getting them to cohabitate in the same environment and live through it.

Mooney44Cards;1116381 wrote:FYI gravity is far from proven. It works in most mathematical models but falls apart at the quantum level. So our current theory of gravity is invalid because it doesn't hold up under all scrutiny, is that what I am to understand from all of this?

Here's the difference. Gravity is something that is a law on the macro (classical scale) while a theory on the quantum scale like gravity. Look up the law of gravity and you will find Newton's Classical Law. Look up gravitational theory and you will be lead to the quantum theoretical ideas of how gravity works. The fact that it exists is a law or fact on the classical level and there is observable evidence of it working. The only theory in gravity is what causes it to work at the quantum level.

It really shows your scientific ignorance if you are comparing gravity to evolution theory. Gravity on the macro-scale is observable and fact. The cause of gravity on the quantum level is non-observable (yet) and still a theory.

Evolution on the micro (species/family level) is observable and fact. Evolution on the macro (kingdom) level, as in bacteria to humans has little evidence, is non-observable, and is a theory.

2kool4skool;1116404 wrote:Fascinating. Could you run the numbers on the statistical likelihood of a man collecting 16 million animals, getting them on a boat, then getting them to cohabitate in the same environment and live through it.

Where did you come up with 16 million? Seems like a very high number...coming from someone who has researched this topic, the "dis gon b gud" is right back at ya.

What's interesting is the mathematical nature of, well, nature. Was our mathematical system just that robust or did we just get lucky? One things I'm thinking of is how often Pi appears in mathematical descriptions of the real world. The natural log is another. How many things in nature follow normal distributions.

Now, it's not proof obviously. But when one sets out on far less ambitious projects, you tend to have a very structured, mathematical approach. Sure, this is just the result of describing patterns in nature, which just happen to be repetitive. But these magical forces that spring into existence...why would they follow patterns? Look at how often very complex and refined formula fail to describe what so much work has been invested in attempting to describe? Look at how very difficult it is to replicate outcomes in complex systems. And yet our WORLD repeats patterns?

1000...10,000 years from now...Will we not be able to at least create the conditions for a planet Earth and life on it to exist or evolve? Would that not make us god-like viewed from the perspective of today, much less 3000 years ago?

Just thinking back to that Simpson's episode where Lisa created life in a petri dish...Joking aside, it's an interesting philosophical question: Could we be some supreme being's science experiment? Science and creation would converge, and both would be correct.

jmog;1116407 wrote:Where did you come up with 16 million? Seems like a very high number...coming from someone who has researched this topic, the "dis gon b gud" is right back at ya.

It was from the estimate of species(8-9 million) and doubling that since he collected two of every animal.

If you would prefer, change it to any number you would like and run the numbers on the statistical likelihood of Noah collecting every existing species at the time, and getting them on to a boat in which they all lived simultaneously in the same ecosystem.

FYI macro-evolution has been observed both in lab settings and in nature.

2kool4skool;1116412 wrote:It was from the estimate of species(8-9 million) and doubling that since he collected two of every animal.

If you would prefer, change it to any number you would like and run the numbers on the statistical likelihood of Noah collecting every existing species at the time, and getting them on to a boat in which they all lived simultaneously in the same ecosystem.

Well, if you actually knew how it was described in the Bible, it NEVER said 2 of every species of animal. It said 2 of ever "kind", which has been widely translated more recently (since modern animal classifications) as a "family". In other words you would only need 2 canines, 2 felines, etc. You would NOT need two of each species. This is due to the fact that micro-evolution would, over time, create all of the species we have today from 2.

Even the most liberal estimations there would only need to be 8000 different "kinds" of animals on the ark, creating 16,000 total animals on the ark.

What's the point of continuing this discussion if you don't even understand the basics of either side of the coin?

I mean I could keep going on about the average animal size, the size of the ark as described in the Bible as well as how all of these 16,000 animals could easily fit physically in said ark.

Does any of that matter though? Either way you will still act all high and mighty like your IQ is so much higher than mine since I ACTUALLY believe in such a story. The problem is, I know that not to be the case.

2kool4skool;1116415 wrote:FYI macro-evolution has been observed both in lab settings and in nature.

You just ruined your whole argument...by definition macro-evolution takes millions of years, according to evolution humans have been on the planet for <1 million years...but somehow we have observed macro-evolution?

Come on...

jmog;1116430 wrote:You just ruined your whole argument

Just wanted to separate this first part. I love when people preface their argument with things like this lol.

by definition macro-evolution takes millions of years, according to evolution humans have been on the planet for <1 million years...but somehow we have observed macro-evolution?

Come on...

You can observe something scientifically without standing there and watching it take place. We've observed dinosaur fossils, but Paleontologists weren't standing there taking notes and measuring the T-Rex as he wandered across the plains.

Palaeotheres evolved into Equus as its' habitat changed to an open grassland. That is an example of macro-evolution. Scientists didn't take photos in real time and create a cool flip book cartoon. But it's been observed.

jmog;1116429 wrote:I mean I could keep going on about the average animal size, the size of the ark as described in the Bible as well as how all of these 16,000 animals could easily fit physically in said ark.

Please do. Also include how they all survived in the same ecosystem.

jmog;1116429 wrote:Either way you will still act all high and mighty like your IQ is so much higher than mine since I ACTUALLY believe in such a story. The problem is, I know that not to be the case.

I don't know or think my IQ is higher than yours. There are many intelligent people who believe in just about everything. There are correlations between IQ and Religiosity, but it doesn't exclude intelligent people from being a part of either group.

I want to hear the "evidence" for creationism. The fact that you don't want to re-hash it or whatever is just a bit too convenient.

2kool4skool;1116448 wrote:Just wanted to separate this first part. I love when people preface their argument with things like this lol.



You can observe something scientifically without standing there and watching it take place. We've observed dinosaur fossils, but Paleontologists weren't standing there taking notes and measuring the T-Rex as he wandered across the plains.

Palaeotheres evolved into Equus as its' habitat changed to an open grassland. That is an example of macro-evolution. Scientists didn't take photos in real time and create a cool flip book cartoon. But it's been observed.

Please show me a fossil of a half palaeotheres and half equus, and THEN is is observed. Until then it is just a theory that they evolved into what we know now as horses.

If they can not produce a fossil that is half way between the two then it is not observed macro-evolution.

Mooney44Cards;1116476 wrote:I want to hear the "evidence" for creationism. The fact that you don't want to re-hash it or whatever is just a bit too convenient.

Not that hard, this website, political forums, search function.

I've talked everything from radiometric dating techniques to plate tectonics to the fossil record to information theory to quantum mechanics/light speed/distant starts.

It has been discussed ad nauseum on this site and the previous site, look it up.