Evolution v. Creationism Debate
Comments
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i'm an evolution man myself, and I get that people believe in creationism. what I don't get are the people that joke about evolution with comments like, haha oh yeah my great grandfather was a frog chuckle, or haha yeah i'm descended from squirrels and monkeys what a joke....only to turn around and say that it's totally obvious and logical that an invisible man in the sky snapped his fingers and made everything so. I understand having faith, but that shit just makes zero sense to me.if you think what I believe is stupid, bizarre, ridiculous or outrageous.....it's ok, I think I had a brain tumor when I wrote that.0
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Yeah, I think you can have faith in some higher power or god or God or like me, just be satisfied with the notion that their are some things in that universe that are mysterious- you can do any or all of that and still understand and accept the empirical evidence that solidly explains the process of evolution in nature. I suppose anyone can deny that evidence as easily they could say that the world is flat or that pink elephants run down Main Street at noon everyday but few will take them seriously.goingtoverona said:i'm an evolution man myself, and I get that people believe in creationism. what I don't get are the people that joke about evolution with comments like, haha oh yeah my great grandfather was a frog chuckle, or haha yeah i'm descended from squirrels and monkeys what a joke....only to turn around and say that it's totally obvious and logical that an invisible man in the sky snapped his fingers and made everything so. I understand having faith, but that shit just makes zero sense to me.
"It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
Edit above- ...or not. It amazes me to discover that 46% of Americans believe in creationism. WTF? Only 15% believe in evolution without any divine intervention? Really?? :-O
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html
46% Americans Believe In Creationism According To Latest Gallup Poll
A new Gallup poll measures Americans' belief in the origin of human beings, and how this belief correlates with church attendance, political party affiliation and education level. The poll was conducted by interviewing a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
Forty six percent Americans believed in creationism, 32 percent believed in theistic evolution and 15 percent believed in evolution without any divine intervention. As the graph below shows, the percent of Americans who believe in creationism has increased slightly by 2 percent over the last 30 years. The percent of Americans who believe in evolution has also increased by 6 percent over the last 30 years while the percent of Americans who believe in theistic evolution has decreased by 6 percent over the same time period."It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
What the hell? 46%?!!!!
The only thing more disturbing that that is the fact that the percentage of people who believe that sort of crazy has gone UP instead of down over the last 30 years. I mean, young earth creationism is simply inexcusably idiotic. It's beyond any sort of reason whatsoever.0 -
the most recent episode of cosmos destroyed the theory of creationism."You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."0 -
CF. Correlated Greek mythology with today's god in middle school. When teacher said the Greeks used different gods to explain nature the light bulb came on.catefrances said:
aah yes the greeks.. those great philosophers,lawyers and fornicators of young boys... the polygod worshippers, whose gods we dismiss as myth and legend... ive always been curious about this.. that one civilisations god/s can be dismissed as myth with one hand as we embrace a monotheistic God with the other. why is this so??? I grew up reading all the polythsistic myths... they fascinated me.. they still do. I never took them as truth as ive never taken, despite a period of agnostic searching when I was younger, the monotheistic God/s as truth.
anyways back to the ignorance thing.... ignorance is simply not knowing... not necessarily disregarding evidence shown. that was the angle I was coming at.. that's why i clarified i didn't mean it in a derogatory way...Post edited by callen on10-18-2000 Houston, 04-06-2003 Houston, 6-25-2003 Toronto, 10-8-2004 Kissimmee, 9-4-2005 Calgary, 12-3-05 Sao Paulo, 7-2-2006 Denver, 7-22-06 Gorge, 7-23-2006 Gorge, 9-13-2006 Bern, 6-22-2008 DC, 6-24-2008 MSG, 6-25-2008 MSG0 -
Yes, this new Cosmos is a wonderful show, I really like Neil's style. It's a shame that he needs to spend time dispelling ridiculous myths though. I'm not sure anybody who is foolish enough to believe the earth is 6000 years old would be swayed by anything he said anyway. You've pretty much already spat in the face of logic by that point, so logical arguments are pointless.
The bit where they imagined what it would be like inside a black hole was immense.0 -
callen said:
CF. Correlated Greek mythology with today's god in middle school. When teacher said the Greeks used different gods to explain nature the light bulb came on.
oh I know the ancients used gods to explain natural phenomena and defeats in war. as a narrative it makes sense to me that the ancients had different gods dependent upon what the heck is was they wanted or were trying to explain.. it just amuses me that monotheistic religionists dismiss them in preference for a single entity. as for myself I do not discriminate...i dismiss ALL gods/goddesses and the powers given them equally.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say0 -
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"It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0
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Choices always were a problem for you.
What you need is someone strong to guide you.
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow,
what you need is someone strong to use you...
like me,
like me.[i]Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?[/i]0 -
Christianity wrongly understood or wrongly applied is all of those things - history proves it. All things being equal, any religion with too much power will becomes co-opted (i.e. Buddhists in Shri-lanka ... killing people ... makes no sense given what Buddhism stands for).rgambs said:Christianity is a filthy perversion of morality....subjugation of women, slavery of children, murder of children, rape of children, racism, genocide, children included.. all of these things are done at the express command of God (according to that smut we call the Bible)
Bonhoeffer's book, "Religionless Christianity" does an excellent job of pointing out how when religion itself becomes ingrained across generations, the core truths of it can become hidden. This is the point: if the resurrection is true, then that's the basis for Christian understanding of morality. We give ourselves up for the sake of others. period. If a Christian is the cause of oppression, I question how much they really understand about what they profess to follow. Christians may read the bible, but they should be following Jesus. That means, even when a person has some wacked out ideas about whatever, the way they are in the world should still reflect the character of Jesus - patient, loving, kind, generous etc - and not like what you would expect of the world at large - hate-filled, fearful, angry, violent etc.
Unfortunately, it seems too many Christians with loud voices are also the ones who are propagating messages of hate toward various groups. But that;s the exact opposite of Christianity - which is really about a relationship with Jesus, not religion. I've had too many first-hand experiences (no 'pink cool-aid' either) to deny the reality of Jesus now, and there's quite good evidence for the fact of the resurrection of Jesus (Tim Keller's King's Cross is one secondary source that points to many primary sources).
Peace,
R
I've been a Pearl Jam fan since I was 13 and first heard Ament's opening to Jeremy on the radio. To this day, Pearl Jam continues to inspire and challenge me to not just be better, but to be great.0 -
We're a little off topic here but what you say is interesting, RSR. Throughout recorded history, most if not all societies have had some form of mythology to explain how things came to be, offer a set of moral codes, make suggestions or advice for living and so forth. I don't see anything wrong with that as long as those who chose to strive for those qualities you mentioned- being patient, loving, kind, generous etc.- do so because they believe it is the right thing to do rather than because the dominant mythology tells them to do so.RSR said:
Christianity wrongly understood or wrongly applied is all of those things - history proves it. All things being equal, any religion with too much power will becomes co-opted (i.e. Buddhists in Shri-lanka ... killing people ... makes no sense given what Buddhism stands for).
Bonhoeffer's book, "Religionless Christianity" does an excellent job of pointing out how when religion itself becomes ingrained across generations, the core truths of it can become hidden. This is the point: if the resurrection is true, then that's the basis for Christian understanding of morality. We give ourselves up for the sake of others. period. If a Christian is the cause of oppression, I question how much they really understand about what they profess to follow. Christians may read the bible, but they should be following Jesus. That means, even when a person has some wacked out ideas about whatever, the way they are in the world should still reflect the character of Jesus - patient, loving, kind, generous etc - and not like what you would expect of the world at large - hate-filled, fearful, angry, violent etc.
Unfortunately, it seems too many Christians with loud voices are also the ones who are propagating messages of hate toward various groups. But that;s the exact opposite of Christianity - which is really about a relationship with Jesus, not religion. I've had too many first-hand experiences (no 'pink cool-aid' either) to deny the reality of Jesus now, and there's quite good evidence for the fact of the resurrection of Jesus (Tim Keller's King's Cross is one secondary source that points to many primary sources).
Peace,
R
"It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
True - So that brings us back to the problem of creationsim and creation science. A lot of Christians (I would say mistakenly) believe that the only faithful way to interpret the book of Genesis, as well as other strange things in the bible, is to take them literally. The problem is that we can't force modern criteria for truth onto texts that are this ancient. We can use some modern historical-critical criteria for discerning fact from fiction when it comes to the gospels, because there are sources outside of the gospels themselves that re-enforce some of the most important details (like the death/ressurection of Jesus - I'm thinking of Josephus here) ... But that kind of corroboration just doesn't exist for more ancient writings, so it would be a mistake to use a fact vs fiction framework when talking about Genesis. I mean - there was a talking snake. That should be a big tip-off that something else is going on.brianlux said:Throughout recorded history, most if not all societies have had some form of mythology to explain how things came to be, offer a set of moral codes, make suggestions or advice for living and so forth. I don't see anything wrong with that as long as those who chose to strive for those qualities you mentioned- being patient, loving, kind, generous etc.- do so because they believe it is the right thing to do rather than because the dominant mythology tells them to do so.
In other word, I think it's better to read the Bible literarily rather than literally.
Having said that, I would hope that Creation science can also provide some corrective help to modern science - if by chance creation science folks discover some things through the scientific process, I would hope it would be accepted based on it's own merits.
For me, the truth of Genesis 1 is that the God of this book is above everything else that would set itself up as God. At the time, all the gods of the day are dismantled in one page of poetry as elemental forces, or mere people. This is compelling to me now because of the way we in the west put our hope in all sorts of things. We will laugh at hinduism with their millions of gods, and then drool (or even fight each other) over the latest xbox or kid's toy. That's an extreme example.
On people striving to be something ... yeah I think that's good. But the message of Christianity is, in some ways, a commentary on striving. No matter how much we strive, we're always going to blow it. It's just the way things are. In accepting the grace of Jesus, we not only agree with this, but we place our worth onto Him first. He then is our embodiment of truth, life, joy, peace, etc. His peace becomes ours, his love, ours and so on. It's experiential, but also intellectual. In a sense, we are somehow given a new way to approach everything in life -- I'm trying to summarize both Christian theology and my own experience here. Kind of difficult.I've been a Pearl Jam fan since I was 13 and first heard Ament's opening to Jeremy on the radio. To this day, Pearl Jam continues to inspire and challenge me to not just be better, but to be great.0 -
"literarily rather than literally":RSR said:
True - So that brings us back to the problem of creationsim and creation science. A lot of Christians (I would say mistakenly) believe that the only faithful way to interpret the book of Genesis, as well as other strange things in the bible, is to take them literally. The problem is that we can't force modern criteria for truth onto texts that are this ancient. We can use some modern historical-critical criteria for discerning fact from fiction when it comes to the gospels, because there are sources outside of the gospels themselves that re-enforce some of the most important details (like the death/ressurection of Jesus - I'm thinking of Josephus here) ... But that kind of corroboration just doesn't exist for more ancient writings, so it would be a mistake to use a fact vs fiction framework when talking about Genesis. I mean - there was a talking snake. That should be a big tip-off that something else is going on.
In other word, I think it's better to read the Bible literarily rather than literally.
Having said that, I would hope that Creation science can also provide some corrective help to modern science - if by chance creation science folks discover some things through the scientific process, I would hope it would be accepted based on it's own merits.
For me, the truth of Genesis 1 is that the God of this book is above everything else that would set itself up as God. At the time, all the gods of the day are dismantled in one page of poetry as elemental forces, or mere people. This is compelling to me now because of the way we in the west put our hope in all sorts of things. We will laugh at hinduism with their millions of gods, and then drool (or even fight each other) over the latest xbox or kid's toy. That's an extreme example.
On people striving to be something ... yeah I think that's good. But the message of Christianity is, in some ways, a commentary on striving. No matter how much we strive, we're always going to blow it. It's just the way things are. In accepting the grace of Jesus, we not only agree with this, but we place our worth onto Him first. He then is our embodiment of truth, life, joy, peace, etc. His peace becomes ours, his love, ours and so on. It's experiential, but also intellectual. In a sense, we are somehow given a new way to approach everything in life -- I'm trying to summarize both Christian theology and my own experience here. Kind of difficult.
That's good way to put it, RSR. A friend of mine who follows the Trappist monk philosophy puts it this way- he reads the Bible as a contextualist manner rather than a literalist. I think he made the term up the term "contextualist" but basically he believes much of the Bible is purely story and metaphor. He has a much more highly defined sense of spirituality than I do but he clearly sees that a literal interpretation of many of the stories in the Bible is not at all useful or instructive.
The older I get the more comfortable I am with simply accepting that there is a certain amount of mystery in the universe. I tried being a Christian during the 70's because some of the people closest to me then were strongly into it. Eventually I had to examine my own beliefs and recognize and admit that I could not honestly define myself as a Christian.
"No matter how much we strive, we're always going to blow it."
This seems is so true that it may be a universal truth. I like the idea of grace and the idea that Jesus symbolizes grace but I'm not sure we really know much about the man- even to the point of accepting the idea that he may be a fictional or mythological character (I don't profess to know either way). The idea of grace still seemed important to me so as I fell away from any kind of participation in organized religion I began to find other ways of seeing and finding grace in several other ways. I believe the earth bestows grace- just the fact that we are still here despite our abuse against our home planet- to me that seems hugely like grace. When I screw up and my cat rubs up against my leg anyway I believe she is bestowing grace upon me. Music certainly seems like a source of grace to me and friends and family very much so- especially when I think of the ones who have stuck with me despite some periods of time in my life of failing them (and myself) miserably. And because of their grace I fail less often- at least I hope so."It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
I may have posted these links in other threads but they fit here too.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvmnxn_dawkins-answers-why-he-refuses-to-debate-creationists_news
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuStSHFTcZs
Post edited by PJfanwillneverleave1 on0 -
Excellent video. You can't argue with someone who holds thise beliefs. My scientist brother is one of them.PJfanwillneverleave1 said:I may have posted these links in other threads but they fit here too.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvmnxn_dawkins-answers-why-he-refuses-to-debate-creationists_newshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuStSHFTcZs
By The Time They Figure Out What Went Wrong, We'll Be Sitting On A Beach, Earning Twenty Percent.0 -
The only debate I can logically muster is the one about how to get the nutjobs to shut the hell up and fuck off.
I can't believe that modern day society can result in these people having such an influence or a platform. It's fucking terrifying.Post edited by PJ_Soul onWith all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata0 -
The Dawkins video is interesting. I think the entire debate is a red herring (especially for anyone who calls themselves a Christian). I'm glad Dawkins won't give into it - but other Christians should not shy away from it as an 'in house debate'. I've hand some fantastic conversations about creation/evolution with friends - and we've both come away from it richer and more appreciative of each side.
But it's not the job of any Christian to berate, oppress, belittle or condemn people. For example, it's one thing to challenge a friend on their ideas or behaviour you disagree with, and to do it gently and humbly. It's quite another to make a commercial about it, stage a protest rally over it, or make sarcastic comments about it all over the internet. That's an adventure in missing the point. For a Christian to be an oppressive jerk negates part of the heart of Christianity (grace). This makes a Christian politician quite a paradox.
Switching gears, as a book it's very easy to point to any one place in the Bible and use it to support bad attitudes and medieval mindsets. But as a put-together collection, the Bible contains an overarching narrative which climaxes in Jesus dying in the place of all the people who wanted him dead - even forgiving them as they were killing him. That's the explicit, ultimate example Christians have, and we fail miserably at following it most of the time.
But I don't expect grace from the public. To (partially) quote 'the little Zen companion', Christians in the west get all the "shut the fuck ups" they deserve. Of course, that's a partial metaphor. Like any family, Christians have their fair share of 'weird uncle Boris' ". But it's not necessary to paint us all with one brush, or throw the baby out with the bathwater. Does this ring true? -- It's often the loudmouths who have the least understanding.
I submit that it is the same in Christianity as it is anywhere else. If you want to know what Christianity is really about, seek out the quiet, unassuming, gentle Christians, not the loud obnoxious ones. How their beliefs are held is the difference. They might still believe the earth is 6,000 years old, but they understand that this particular belief isn't central or even important. Their beliefs are more like individual springs on a trampoline than a house of cards. A spring or two might break, and that's ok for them. You'll know house of cards theology when you see it because if you disprove one small thing, it crumbles the entire belief system. As a result, 'house of cards' Christians can be impossibly opinionated.Post edited by RSR onI've been a Pearl Jam fan since I was 13 and first heard Ament's opening to Jeremy on the radio. To this day, Pearl Jam continues to inspire and challenge me to not just be better, but to be great.0 -
Your entire post I was reading until I came up to the 6000yr old thing. It is simply impossible to have a reasoned debate with someone who truly believes the earth is 6000yrs old.RSR said:
How their beliefs are held is the difference. They might still believe the earth is 6,000 years old, but they understand that this particular belief isn't central or even important. Their beliefs are more like individual springs on a trampoline than a house of cards. A spring or two might break, and that's ok for them.0
) Funny as hell! 
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