Are you an evolutionist or a creationist and why

[hawkeye3210]

I am a bit confused here.How can 1 believe in evolution and creation together?If a creator started a process for life,creation to begin then obviously thats creation.Evolution <and i am not sure how to explain this>starts from nothing.Even the simplest things have to have a creator.The car u drive,the comp ur on,your fence,your tv,etc etc etc.

Evolution is the process of things changing or developing (evolving) over time. In order for something to evolve, it must already exist. It's not a competing ideal with creationism how things started.

[hitch0403]

Pretty simple....."In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"

Rev 4:11.....this scripture explains why we should thank the creator for our existence.

I know for a fact <and im sure God feels this way cos we are created in his image>that when my son tells me he loves me cos I am his father <which means life giver>its pretty special.

[BJohnsonPP]

However, I do take exception to your statement that scientists do all the work, and believers just come after the fact and say "God did it". If you actually looked at the history of science...

I'm well aware of the history of science and know that in its infancy, there's a point where it, philosophy, and religion converge (kind of like the singularity in the Big Bang theory). As time goes/went on however, the scientific method is developed, knowledge is gained, ideas are refined, and science stands out as the path to truth and everything else is just guesses and superstition. So, it's not a coincidence that the majority of scientists today are atheists.

My comments were not about scientists though. They were about believers who accept science as a path to truth but still interject god for no reason. I mean, you did it:

I do believe in evolution, the Big Bang theory, and other scientific theories while at the same time I believe in the Christian God. I think these scientific theories are just expressions of the tools that God used to "create" the universe. Math and science has revealed a beauty, simplicity, and power to the underlying mechanics of the universe which I feel is a glimpse at an aspect of God as creator.

(emphasis mine)

You "think" this, you "feel" this, but you have no evidence for this. So, you are, in fact, just tacking god onto the hard work someone else put into ACTUAL research. As far as scientists who are also believers, they do this to themselves. They put actual time and effort into actually understanding the world around them, then, because of their religious beliefs, just throw god in the mix. It makes no sense and, quite frankly, is disrespectful to the work they put in.

[lvstephanie]

I guess what I take exception to is how you made it sound as though there were no scientists that are also believers, which is inaccurate and what I was trying to refute. Also you make it sound as though everything is done after the fact.

After scientist put their time and effort into actually figuring out evolution, believers come along and say "well, god made it all happen".

Those scientists that are also believers always have their beliefs. Their beliefs have an impact in everything that they do, and to ignore their beliefs would be disrespectful to their faith. When they are proposing hypotheses, their faith is also taken into account. For example, if their faith leads them to have an anthropocentric view over the universe, then their fundamental question may be along the lines of "If humans are made in the image and likeness of God, why is their such a variation in the different species on this planet?" which gets refined into more succinct  hypotheses that can be tested in a scientific fashion, like looking at the variability of characteristics within one species, and seeing how certain characteristics lend an adaptive advantage over others in their species. The new information is then reflected in their view of the universe, and may indeed require certain beliefs to be changed or modified.

But even non-believers have a particular view of the universe with certain beliefs of how it works, which may too change with additional research. For example, Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics were unified in the modern synthesis of inheritance leading to the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology. The Central Dogma was held as the common belief of how inheritance occurred: all information for the coding and structure is passed through some form of nucleic acid, and it is this nucleic acid that gets passed along as the genetic information, whether it be passed to future offspring or passed through infection and disease. So when in 1982 Prusiner reported on a protein-only hypothesis for infection in the form of prions, he was largely criticized as being a maverick scientist or discredited as being flat out being wrong. He was in essence defying a long-held belief that the majority of molecular biologists had for their view of their field in science. However as more evidence came out to substantiate his claim, those beliefs in the Central Dogma were changed as a result.

[BJohnsonPP]

I guess what I take exception to is how you made it sound as though there were no scientists that are also believers, which is inaccurate and what I was trying to refute. Also you make it sound as though everything is done after the fact.

I'm well aware that there are scientists that are believers, but they are few and far between. Again, this is no coincidence. There IS a path to truth and religion has shown itself not to be that path. Ken Miller is a Christian and a biologist. He debunked Irreducible Complexity which is a failure of an attempt to debunk evolution by proponents of Intelligent Design. He kept his integrity by putting science first in matters of science and not relying on his faith.

Also, you're taking the word "After" too literally. I simply mean god is tacked to an end of of actual scientific research and discovery. There are no scientific theories with god as a central part of it. Those in the past that did have gods and monsters in them have had them stripped out. There's a reason why, when we had less knowledge, you could find god in everything and now, with more knowledge, "God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on" (Neil Degrasse Tyson).

Those scientists that are also believers always have their beliefs. Their beliefs have an impact in everything that they do, and to ignore their beliefs would be disrespectful to their faith.

If you're in my house, you have to take your hat off. If you think it's disrespectful, don't enter my house.

When they are proposing hypotheses, their faith is also taken into account. For example, if their faith leads them to have an anthropocentric view over the universe, then their fundamental question may be along the lines of "If humans are made in the image and likeness of God, why is their such a variation in the different species on this planet?"...

This only taints their work. There's no reason to start with that premise when you haven't even proven a god exists. You deal with what you know or what you can know. If there is some unknown that is the linchpin of your hypothesis, you better have a path to finding that unknown or else it's just not science and can be dismissed. The Higgs boson (the god particle) comes to mind. With the god particle, it was thought to exist in 1964, and found to exist after only 48 years. God has had thousands of years and is still only at the "thought to exist" stage.

But even non-believers have a particular view of the universe with certain beliefs of how it works, which may too change with additional research...

It's not "non-believers", it's anyone applying science properly. With your example, you're just restating what has already been said: as time goes on, and knowledge is gained, ideas get refined. Of course that's going to happen, that's how science works. It, however, is absolutely NOT a matter of simply believing as is the case with faith. Whatever information we have at the time determines the ideas we have at that time. When new information comes in, we refine or replace those ideas. The difference with science and religion though, is that science changes with new information, religion doesn't. Scientist can admit that they were wrong or just didn't have enough information to go on, this is not the case with religion. So again, instead of accepting that certain beliefs are unsubstantiated and not useful, they are just tacked on to an end of someone elses hard work.

[Falconer02]

Falconer02,  I got a nice chuckle from your blatantly biased definitions of an evolutionist and creationist.  I believe in the divine creation. I also believe that evolution has occurred and continues to occur.  For me, its not either-or

Allow me to simplify it for you to avoid any biased info-

Evolution- Science.
Creationism- Pseudoscience/mythology.

What you probably don't realize are the huge moral holes such a belief has. You can believe in creation and accept the facts of evolution, but that brings about the obvious problems of an immoral and uncaring deity. Disease is rampant, predators are everywhere, child death rates are horrifyingly large, one is lucky to live beyond 20 years of age, populations actually bottle-neck for a while and we almost go extinct, etc....this happens for 150,000-200,000 years of our current-day homo sapien evolutionary development. To put it bluntly, life is very rough for anyone alive. Then all of the sudden this god appears in the middle east after a barbaric civilization is established only a mere 10,000 years ago. Not in other areas of the world like China-- only this one specific area!

What was he doing for the last 200,000 years? Isn't it peculiar this one god appeared so late into the game? Please explain how you can hold the view of a divine god when you accept the facts of evolution. Because accepting both seems to be an argument for a malevolent or uncaring god.

[vp44]

So the answer is that not even scientists know where we come from since nothing can come from nothing and even GOD doesn't exist because he is not real. (SMMFH). That evolutionist and creationist are saying things but even they do not know the answer.

[vp44]

I am a bit confused here.How can 1 believe in evolution and creation together?If a creator started a process for life,creation to begin then obviously thats creation.Evolution <and i am not sure how to explain this>starts from nothing.Even the simplest things have to have a creator.The car u drive,the comp ur on,your fence,your tv,etc etc etc.

Evolution is the process of things changing or developing (evolving) over time. In order for something to evolve, it must already exist. It's not a competing ideal with creationism how things started.

So how did it exist?

[hitch0403]

There is enuff evil,wickedness,fascination with the occult,spiritism in this world that backs up the scripture "the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one."

The bible is clear that Satan and his hordes of wicked disobedient angels have much control and influence in our world.The weapons of WWII in itself shows that mankind wasnt the only one to have been involved with that massacre.

But the bible holds out a hope and also why God has permitted this.Evolution has NO hope or as the bible also says "let us eat,drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."That is the road broad and spacious off to destruction.

[vp44]

Falconer02,  I got a nice chuckle from your blatantly biased definitions of an evolutionist and creationist.  I believe in the divine creation. I also believe that evolution has occurred and continues to occur.  For me, its not either-or

Allow me to simplify it for you to avoid any biased info-

Evolution- Science.
Creationism- Pseudoscience/mythology.

What you probably don't realize are the huge moral holes such a belief has. You can believe in creation and accept the facts of evolution, but that brings about the obvious problems of an immoral and uncaring deity. Disease is rampant, predators are everywhere, child death rates are horrifyingly large, one is lucky to live beyond 20 years of age, populations actually bottle-neck for a while and we almost go extinct, etc....this happens for 150,000-200,000 years of our current-day homo sapien evolutionary development. To put it bluntly, life is very rough for anyone alive. Then all of the sudden this god appears in the middle east after a barbaric civilization is established only a mere 10,000 years ago. Not in other areas of the world like China-- only this one specific area!

What was he doing for the last 200,000 years? Isn't it peculiar this one god appeared so late into the game? Please explain how you can hold the view of a divine god when you accept the facts of evolution. Because accepting both seems to be an argument for a malevolent or uncaring god.

Maybe he was doing experiments like scientist to see how a world can exist with homo sapiens. I am surprised you didn't give a answer for why was dinosaurs here.

[vp44]

There is enuff evil,wickedness,fascination with the occult,spiritism in this world that backs up the scripture "the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one."

The bible is clear that Satan and his hordes of wicked disobedient angels have much control and influence in our world.The weapons of WWII in itself shows that mankind wasnt the only one to have been involved with that massacre.

But the bible holds out a hope and also why God has permitted this.Evolution has NO hope or as the bible also says "let us eat,drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."That is the road broad and spacious off to destruction.

Really and the Dinosaurs had witchery and such.

[hitch0403]

Hey VP...did dinosaurs have mistletoe too?

[Falconer02]

So the answer is that not even scientists know where we come from since nothing can come from nothing and even GOD doesn't exist because he is not real. (SMMFH). That evolutionist and creationist are saying things but even they do not know the answer.

This is incorrect- scientists have plausible theories as to where life originated from, however they do not state that these scientific theories are exactly where we came from. In short, they have ideas with some evidences leading to these theories, but claim that they could be incorrect. Creationists say they do have the answer (through mythological beliefs) without stating any convincing evidence at all.

Maybe he was doing experiments like scientist to see how a world can exist with homo sapiens. I am surprised you didn't give a answer for why was dinosaurs here.

I didn't want to bring up dinosaurs because those life forms support evidence of evolution and it's an entirely different subject (just wanted to focus on humans).

Well let's say you're right then and this god was just doing experiments for hundreds of thousands of years. I'm not sure how you can argue that that isn't extremely cruel treatment to the test subjects. Why would an omnipotent and omniscient being need to do experiments?

[BJohnsonPP]

Maybe he was doing experiments like scientist to see how a world can exist with homo sapiens. I am surprised you didn't give a answer for why was dinosaurs here.

I don't see why an omnipotent and all perfect god would need to do experiments.

Also, no one knows how life started but the only people with plausible ideas on the subject are scientists. As with all of their theories, there's a point of first hypothesizing and gathering data before they can say anything definitively unlike the religious who claim 100% with zero evidence.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people are so full of doubts". - Bertrand Russell

I'll stick with the wiser people who currently say "I don't know" while actually trying to figure it out instead of the "fools and fanatics" that are so certain of themselves.

[lvstephanie]

Maybe he was doing experiments like scientist to see how a world can exist with homo sapiens. I am surprised you didn't give a answer for why was dinosaurs here.

I don't see why an omnipotent and all perfect god would need to do experiments.

I completely agree. If god is omniscient and omnipotent (by definition) then there would be no need to experiment. This too begs the question for the existence of older life forms (like the dinosaurs) for the creationist view that life exists in much the same form as when God created that species... If God created life on this planet whole cloth (instead of having life evolve from one species to the next), then it seems to stand to reason that God would have just created humans right away instead of creating some other life form that existed before humans walked the planet.

Also, no one knows how life started but the only people with plausible ideas on the subject are scientists. As with all of their theories, there's a point of first hypothesizing and gathering data before they can say anything definitively unlike the religious who claim 100% with zero evidence.

I think this may be in part for some of our disagreements... Not all religions claim to have a definitive answer to everything, nor do all believers have a fixed view of the universe. I think it comes down to another statement of faith...

If your faith is that God is absolute truth and the Bible is the actual word of God, then it stands that the Bible must also be absolute truth. People that hold this as their beliefs will then maintain the veracity of the Bible's account vs. scientific theories, since the Bible is true whereas science is just the accepted understanding of how the universe operates based on the best evidence that we flawed humans can come up with.

If on the other hand your faith states that the Bible is the inspired word of God that too was written by us flawed humans, then neither the Bible nor science can state what the absolute truth is. People that hold this as their faith can therefore accept the claims that science has made as probably being closer to the truth (since the writers of the Bible didn't have the knowledge that we do today) and thus can change their beliefs just as a scientist does when shown additional evidence that opposes their previous vies of the world.

As such, the Roman Catholic church (to which I belong) which believes the Bible is the inspired word of God, has undergone several changes in its view of the universe as new scientific evidence is presented. From viewing the Earth as the geocentric, anthropocentric, flat world of only a few thousand years in age; we now accept that the globe is much older, ellipses the sun, and is not the center of the universe neither in terms of physical space nor in it's importance. I will agree that there are times when this change in the view of the world is extremely slow (as evidenced by the apology that the Catholic church gave for its trial of Galileo some 300+ years after the fact), it still doesn't mean that religion cannot change with the times.

Now I will grant that in this discussion your statement is probably a more accurate depiction since the whole tread is about evolution vs. creationism, and those religions that tend to hold to the Bible being literal fact will believe in the account given in the book of Genesis of our planet's (and species') origins. Therefore, those that hold to the truth of creationism as stated in the Bible tend to be more immutable in the face of scientific evidence again because their faith professes that the Bible is always true whereas science is the work of humans and can therefore be fallible.