There doesn't seem to be a thread dedicated specifically to evolution, this wonderful way of explaining us and our surroundings. So I created one for intelligent discussion on evolution, creationism and their alleged clash in the USA. Also, you are allowed to freely bash creationism as long as you also include some intelligently designed sentences regarding evolution in your post. I mean, creationists' daily job is trampling on the theory of evolution without bothering to make sense - this way we can fight back and be better at the same time.
Okay, so what do we have? Evolution is at present (and, hopefully, in the future) THE way of seeing our world. It's the only one that has some scientific credibility tagged to it. These days, religions are rightfully required to adjust themselves to science, not the opposite; world-views that blatantly deny evolution, like intelligent design, are running out on their lease of life. I am not a qualified statistician or a seer, I cannot tell whether the entirety of religion is in its death throes, but creationism does seem to hint at something like that. Christianity had been slowly adapting itself to science when that heap of nonsense popped up in the twentieth century.
Now I am not trying to bash anyone just because they believe God created Heaven and Earth, but please look at the facts - the Theory of Evolution, despite its loose ends and controversies, is a working and proven theory. You should get used to it, or it's your loss. I know a lot of scientists are both religious and still they manage to accept evolution. In fact, despite what creationists would have us believe, there is no controversy in the scientific community regarding the evolution vs creation dispute. None at all - the scientists are unanimously in support of what Darwin started. What is happening in America is a bunch of overly religious people have found themselves in a situation where they can legally present their views as hard science and teach it in schools as such.
I guess me, being an European, shouldn't be overly concerned about all that - it'll never happen here. Yet if American children start getting such education, the entire world will be affected and our near future could get fucked up significantly. So I appeal to you all, especially Americans: fight against creationism (cretinism?) and for evolution. It's the only way.
Yes, I didn't actually post any scientific evidence for evolution, nor did I provide any links to sites containing that. What I also didn't do is refer to any specific creationist conspiracies and lies. The Internet is full of both of these things, look it up yourself. Start with Wikipedia, for instance. I do give a link to my current favorite song, "Creation Science 101" by Roy Zimmerman. Enjoy this, and common sense!
Don't be sure. You have no idea what some people think about the theory of evolution. It's validity has been challenged by invoking bananas and peanut butter for heaven's sake. Then there's Stephen Baldwin asking why are the monkeys still here. Someone on Youtube had a good response to that - if Americans came from Europeans, then why are the Europeans still here?
I am a Christian, but I am also an evolutionist and love science (not scientology, science). I believe evolution to be absolutely true and the way to describe the formation of life, and yet I also believe that I was created by God. Evolution and Christianity can coexist peacefully, even in one mind. Evolution describes the way in which God created us, the Bible gives metaphors for life that teach virtues. The stories of the Bible when taken literally as creationism are not intelligent and obviously untrue.
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"Well, looks like the country is stuck between a Kerry King wristband and a hard place..."
I am a Christian, but I am also an evolutionist and love science (not scientology, science). I believe evolution to be absolutely true and the way to describe the formation of life, and yet I also believe that I was created by God. Evolution and Christianity can coexist peacefully, even in one mind. Evolution describes the way in which God created us, the Bible gives metaphors for life that teach virtues. The stories of the Bible when taken literally as creationism are not intelligent and obviously untrue.
I am a Christian, but I am also an evolutionist and love science (not scientology, science). I believe evolution to be absolutely true and the way to describe the formation of life, and yet I also believe that I was created by God. Evolution and Christianity can coexist peacefully, even in one mind. Evolution describes the way in which God created us, the Bible gives metaphors for life that teach virtues. The stories of the Bible when taken literally as creationism are not intelligent and obviously untrue.
I don't mean to start a fight or anything, but does anything actually state that Adam was "human"? Not man, human. Maybe god made Adam as a monkey and humans evolved from there (or something farther back the evolutionary tree)? Like you said, the bible gives metaphors.
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GO THE SHARKS!
"...and as your friend, I am horrified by my actions"
I don't mean to start a fight or anything, but does anything actually state that Adam was "human"? Not man, human. Maybe god made Adam as a monkey and humans evolved from there (or something farther back the evolutionary tree)? Like you said, the bible gives metaphors.
Yeah that's a perfectly viable option, I'm not sure how I believe that it specifically happened, Adam could have been a protozoan for all we know. All I do know is how not valid it is to believe that humans were created directly in the modern human form, and how even more terrible it is to form your opinion for or against Christianity while holding such an
assumption.
No offense towards any creationists of course, I just don't agree with them.
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"Well, looks like the country is stuck between a Kerry King wristband and a hard place..."
@ M C Vice: Not to fixate on the "trivial", But the Theory of Evolution doesn't actually state that man came from monkies though. That's a common misconception, the Chimpanzee is genetically our nearest cousin
Totally different species. Obviously we couldn't have come from them, because they would have evolved along with us if that were the case
anyway, here's a nice mentally stimulating documentary I found:
I am a Christian, but I am also an evolutionist and love science (not scientology, science). I believe evolution to be absolutely true and the way to describe the formation of life, and yet I also believe that I was created by God. Evolution and Christianity can coexist peacefully, even in one mind. Evolution describes the way in which God created us, the Bible gives metaphors for life that teach virtues. The stories of the Bible when taken literally as creationism are not intelligent and obviously untrue.
I don't mean to start a fight or anything, but does anything actually state that Adam was "human"? Not man, human. Maybe god made Adam as a monkey and humans evolved from there (or something farther back the evolutionary tree)? Like you said, the bible gives metaphors.
Leading on from the what the author of the first point says (the first quote) and also from what the second author says (the second quote) I would like to summarise my own views on the Holy Bible by quoting one Brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine monk and author:
"We can either take the bible seriously or literally."
I strongly doubt that the many contributing writers to what became the Bible (Old & New Testaments) that we know today (and indeed those books that were excluded from each) intended those writings to be taken literally. Of course, there are historical accounts present in the overall mix; recollections of events as presented and interpreted by certain peoples at certain times, BUT the creation stories are, I feel, just that: stories. That God created the Earth in seven days (in the beginning there was the Word etc...) was almost certainly intended as metaphor. A powerful, life-altering metaphor. But none the less metaphor.
That the Holy Bible has been taken literally has led to the belief that the world began when the bible began and this, as I am sure most would agree, from my looking over the posts in this thread, is just not the case. That we can trace human history back-beyond the the Old Testament is testament enough to the fact. That we can trace the origins of the universe to the moment of the "Big Bang" develops this notion as far as our science allows us.
To tie together all that I am attempting to express here I quote another monk and author, Thomas Merton, when he says:
"God is not someone else."
This short phrase to me, as one who has studied for many years both religion and science (with a mind to their interdisciplinary functions, covering different, though interconnected facets of human existence and experience) has been extremely powerful. To understand God not as separate from the universe, but as the universe itself, and all things therein, seen and unseen, I believe to have been the realisation of all mystics who's lives and works have led to the developments of the worlds great religious traditions.
How about both theories are just theories, and we have no idea where, how and why we are here, and how we came to be?
As Newton's theory of gravitation or Quantum Theory are only theories? How about NOT?
Evolution is a theory that extrapolates using scientific experiments - unlike Creationism that is; "Scientifically [Creationism is] worthless, philosophically it is confused, and theologically it is blinkered beyond repair. The same is true of its offspring, Intelligent Design Theory. But do not underestimate its social and political power." - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
And indeed we should not underestimate the social and political power of people who crawled from under rocks shepherded by annoying religious clergy to pollute our minds and our children's minds via our educational systems, at times using deception and outright lying under oath as they did at the Dover trials.
Our origins are made and will made clearer by the sciences - and sadly humanity will keep being stalled by power hungry clergy.
How about both theories are just theories, and we have no idea where, how and why we are here, and how we came to be?
As Newton's theory of gravitation or Quantum Theory are only theories? How about NOT?
Evolution is a theory that extrapolates using scientific experiments - unlike Creationism that is; "Scientifically [Creationism is] worthless, philosophically it is confused, and theologically it is blinkered beyond repair. The same is true of its offspring, Intelligent Design Theory. But do not underestimate its social and political power." - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
And indeed we should not underestimate the social and political power of people who crawled from under rocks shepherded by annoying religious clergy to pollute our minds and our children's minds via our educational systems, at times using deception and outright lying under oath as they did at the Dover trials.
Our origins are made and will made clearer by the sciences - and sadly humanity will keep being stalled by power hungry clergy.
They are still theories last time I checked. Our periodic table is still theoretical, math is an abstract concept, and so on and so forth. Finite knowledge, finite mind cannot comprehend this reality, and this reality is another construct of our minds in this time and space, and time is an abstraction, and space is limitless, or so we think.
Intelligent Design Theory makes more sense, than the random Big Bang, proverbial swamp of human existence, evolution from primates...I have no problem believing that we were created by something, but I have a problem in assuming that that something is still here.
Science has been changing, therefore it is constant, it is not frozen in one spot. But science is the other coin of faith, and I think that creationism and scientific research actually have more connecting points, only, both faiths like to fight each other.
They are still theories last time I checked. Our periodic table is still theoretical, math is an abstract concept, and so on and so forth. Finite knowledge, finite mind cannot comprehend this reality, and this reality is another construct of our minds in this time and space, and time is an abstraction, and space is limitless, or so we think.
Intelligent Design Theory makes more sense, than the random Big Bang, proverbial swamp of human existence, evolution from primates...I have no problem believing that we were created by something, but I have a problem in assuming that that something is still here.
Science has been changing, therefore it is constant, it is not frozen in one spot. But science is the other coin of faith, and I think that creationism and scientific research actually have more connecting points, only, both faiths like to fight each other.
"I have no problem believing that we were created by something" - me too. By God's random whim and arbitrary will ":lol:.
"reality is another construct of our minds" Your'e equivocating the word "theory" - without quantum theory computer chips that run your computer would not exist.
On the other hand God explains nothing and is a sueless concept as far as 'concrete' reality goes.
Science is based on repeatable experimental evidence - it is reliable and based on cross-cltural publiclly open evidence, and in any case - creationism isn't science.
They are still theories last time I checked. Our periodic table is still theoretical, math is an abstract concept, and so on and so forth. Finite knowledge, finite mind cannot comprehend this reality, and this reality is another construct of our minds in this time and space, and time is an abstraction, and space is limitless, or so we think.
Intelligent Design Theory makes more sense, than the random Big Bang, proverbial swamp of human existence, evolution from primates...I have no problem believing that we were created by something, but I have a problem in assuming that that something is still here.
Science has been changing, therefore it is constant, it is not frozen in one spot. But science is the other coin of faith, and I think that creationism and scientific research actually have more connecting points, only, both faiths like to fight each other.
"I have no problem believing that we were created by something" - me too. By God's random whim and arbitrary will ":lol:.
"reality is another construct of our minds" Your'e equivocating the word "theory" - without quantum theory computer chips that run your computer would not exist.
On the other hand God explains nothing and is a sueless concept as far as 'concrete' reality goes.
Science is based on repeatable experimental evidence - it is reliable and based on cross-cltural publiclly open evidence, and in any case - creationism isn't science.
So in your mind the scientific method is without a fault and it is infinite, and has the ability to explain everything. Interesting.
No, it is as I wrote it, we construct our reality, because we are conditioned for this reality, and everything subjective, therefore, everything is relative.
No. Again, something that is stuck to the inner part of your skull projecting on other people.
"because we are conditioned for this reality, and everything subjective, therefore, everything is relative."
I don't want to even try and make sense of this and of it's implications because it so typical that's it's simply annoying and nothing more.
No. Again, something that is stuck to the inner part of your skull projecting on other people.
"because we are conditioned for this reality, and everything subjective, therefore, everything is relative."
I don't want to even try and make sense of this and of it's implications because it so typical that's it's simply annoying and nothing more.
For starters, you did not represent me; you represented an shallow stereotype and a strawman.
"So in your mind the scientific method is without a fault and it is infinite".
False. It is a fallible human social activity (please refer to Helen E. Longino).
"everything subjective, therefore, everything is relative." -except your statement which is soundly objective on that matter of fact.
In this context (of religious fundamentalists) it's one of the worst apologetic tactics; "Everything is relative; hence GOD!".
For childish trolls - I doubt this is apparent ("But of course it is").
It's like speaking to I'll-play-along-with-the-Rabbi orthodox Jews that try and convert secular Jews with dialectical tricks the've learned was at the Yeshiva - only in English.
מחב"ת.
