Evolution or Creation?

[Glacier]

To be perfectly clear, zzontar, the tribesmen in the jungle are no less intelligent than we are. They merely lack to the knowledge we have gained (though the point could be made that they posses knowledge lost to us generations ago).

[SmokeOnTheWater]

To be perfectly clear, zzontar, the tribesmen in the jungle are no less intelligent than we are, they merely lack to the knowledge we have gained (though the point could be made that they posses some knowledge we lost generations ago).

Much happier than most of us I'm sure. Just think of First Nations before we showed up.

[fluffy]

That's an important distinction to be made zzontar, that spirituality and religion are not a package deal. It has been said that organized religion has done for true spirituality much the same that Alpha-Getti has done for Italian cuisine. In many aspects religion has missed the spirituality boat in trying to impose a set of rules on what should really be a deeply personal and unique experience.

The Biblical account of creation is a perfect example of this. The idea that the lifespan of life on Earth as we know it today can be measured in a few thousand years has been dis-proven so many times that it actually takes a conscious and deliberate act of ignorance to cleave to a literal translation of the Bible. Taken metaphorically, like more of a fairy-tale account of the beginnings of time and life, the creation account is a little easier to live with, as is the whole God thing if we leave the idea of the wizened old gent with the flowing white beard and the big "G" on his sweatshirt behind and look at the God concept as merely a metaphorical representation for all the unsolved mysteries that still abound. We could go into how the world around us is coloured by our personal perception of it, and how that perception is coloured by our personal belief system, but that's pretty esoteric stuff and probably worth a thread of it's own. Is the green I see the same as the green you see?

These discussions don't have to turn adversarial, it really doesn't matter much to me what you believe just as what I believe shouldn't really be any concern of yours other than what I offer up for discussion purposes. The important thing is that we stay true to ourselves in what we believe. To follow the ideas of another, as is expected when involved in most organized religions, is not necessarily a bad thing unless you are being asked to go against something that you know in your heart to be true. Just as when you find something that rings true in your own heart, it should be a keeper until something better comes along.

[fluffy]

Just think of First Nations before we showed up.

What, no taxes, no government, and the women did all the work? What a mess that must have been, eh?

[zzontar]

To be perfectly clear, zzontar, the tribesmen in the jungle are no less intelligent than we are. They merely lack to the knowledge we have gained (though the point could be made that they posses knowledge lost to us generations ago).

That's more semantics I'd think, just as you could say most any 10 year old is as intelligent as a rocket scientist, they just haven't learned it yet. A higher intelligence is usually used in reference to knowing more.

[SmokeOnTheWater]

What, no taxes, no government, and the women did all the work? What a mess that must have been, eh?

" Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us. But the Wasichus ( whites ) came, and they have made little islands for the four leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller for around them surges the gnowing flood of the Wasichus. " Black Elk

" You know, you white guys come down here and you don't see anything. Then you write your articles about how poor we are. Well, let me tell you, we're not poor. We're rich people without any money, that's all. You say we ought to set up industries and factories. Well, we just don't want them. How're you going to grow potatoes and sweet corn on concrete ? You call that progress ? To me " progress " is a dirty word.
I've got a warming for you. You can't go on destroying and poisining everything. Our prophecies say there'll be signs of the end of the world : We won't be able to drink water, trees will die from the tops down, babies willl be killed like dogs ... Now it's all happening - only you call it water pollution and acid rain and " legal " abortion. " Chief Corbett Sundown

[fluffy]

Just goes to show the risks in using one man's yardstick to measure another's choices. There are plenty of people running around barefoot and scratching a living from the dirt who are light years ahead of "western civilization" in some aspects. Smart phones and 3D TVs do not make one man more intelligent than the next.

[JLives]

That's more semantics I'd think, just as you could say most any 10 year old is as intelligent as a rocket scientist, they just haven't learned it yet. A higher intelligence is usually used in reference to knowing more.

They very well could be, the definition of intelligence is the capacity for learning, reasoning and understanding. You will find different levels of intelligence in groups of people all over the place. The biology of all humans is very similar still though. We don't evolve as one unit and there are slight variations, it depends on the DNA in the gene pool. 25%-35% of people will never get wisdom teeth (I'm one of them) and it is rising. That's not to say one can be more or less evolved as it's not a goal oriented process.

[janalta]

First of all, to believe there is a force or being that created everything is spiritual, not religious. I'm open-minded about evolution as it's a proven fact things can evolve, but I'm definitely not convinced the variety of life here just happened. A thousand years ago we weren't much more advanced than the tribes that live in the rainforest. Now, a thousand years later, we can fly, even to other planets, we can make things invisible, create artificial intelligence, make genetically altered food, create new species, etc, etc, while the people in the rainforests are still more or less where they were. I'm sure if those tribesman saw the species of fly we created, they would think it was created by a god until they became intelligent enough to acknowledge evolution, without even considering another possibility.

That's in a thousand years, now picture civilizations that are a billion years ahead of us in technology... you honestly don't think they could create what we have here? Then there is extra-dimensional factors to which we know next to nothing about but I believe exist. I'm open-minded to think these are all possibilities, so I'm wondering, what are you more open-minded about than I am?

The existance of some sort of force or being is indeed spiritual.
Those that believe the theory of creation by god that has been pushed for thousands of years by the bible is indeed religious. Many devout religious people, despite the scientific proof, discount evolution without question because that's not what their religious docterines dictate.
I am open to any possibility until such time as it becomes fact.

[cliffy1]

That's more semantics I'd think, just as you could say most any 10 year old is as intelligent as a rocket scientist, they just haven't learned it yet. A higher intelligence is usually used in reference to knowing more.

Intelligence is not necessarily smart or wise. We tend to judge other groups as being backward because they didn't invent smart phones or artificial flight, but are we wise to have done so? Is it wise to jeopardize your life support system (the environment) to make a few high tech gadgets? Is it wise to take from the Earth the resources and space required for the well being of other species? Our society may well be more intellectually intelligent for inventing all these things we find amusing but where is the wisdom that once allowed us to live in harmony with our environment? I think we have forgotten more than we have learned from our cleverness. I think evolution came to a standstill in our culture a couple of hundred years ago, maybe more.

[zzontar]

I know what you're saying, the term "too smart for your own good" comes to mind, however I can also see the possibility of evolving without killing yourself off, it's just not happening here.

[Hmmm]

Variations within species? Yes. Species evolving into totally different species? No, and has not been proven.

[JLives]

Yes, it has. Define proven.

[Hmmm]

Yes, it has. Define proven.

Explain single cell to man. Ok go, and don't forget to include all the variations of plants and animals in between as there would have been countless.

The facts are, there is no fossil record at all that shows gradual changes that lead clearly from one to another. There are of course far stretches of wishful imagination that claims to be true, but regularly is disproved when another theory from another scientist looking for a huge grant or writes a book comes along.

On another note:
I'm not really interest in debating this here, as I already know how many of you feel, and we all heard the arguments before. I just thought I'd jump in for a minute on a whim. Maybe I'll continue but unlikely. Have fun though.

[fluffy]

The facts are, there is no fossil record at all that shows gradual changes that lead clearly from one to another.

True. The oldest known fossil records date back in the neighbourhood of fifty billion years while it is estimated that the first single cell life forms appeared about eighty-five billion years ago. There are a lot of holes in the evolutionary timeline, especially when you start tossing major extinction level events into the mix, and plenty of room for outside influence of any possible description, but not enough holes to discard the theory just yet.