Evolution or Creation?

[Mr Danksworth]

Methinks someone should stick to mechanics and leave the science to those with more understanding. Mike we have seen your type a few times over the years, and it's always the same. Your type aren't worth answering because nothing that can be said will change your narrow understanding. Viruses evolve, plants evolve, animals evolve, get over it. There are millions of faithful people who have no problem reconciling evolution with their chosen books of myth.

[MechanicMan]

Methinks someone should stick to mechanics and leave the science to those with more understanding. Mike we have seen your type a few times over the years, and it's always the same. Your type aren't worth answering because nothing that can be said will change your narrow understanding. Viruses evolve, plants evolve, animals evolve, get over it. There are millions of faithful people who have no problem reconciling evolution with their chosen books of myth.

I guess im just a lowly Auto Tech incapable of understanding. lol. I fix cars because I love it and have a passion for it, not because I couldn't pass a physics class. I am also a pilot, but with such limited understanding its a miracle I manage to land a plane! Thats fine. Speaking of Myths... life from non life, something from nothing, humans from monkeys.. guess im just to stooooopid to believe in that craziness. Maybe I just dont have enough faith.

[hobbyguy]

While the bible can be an instructive ethical and philosophical book, it should not be taken literally.

Excerpted from a Jared Diamond book:

The 23rd Psalm from various English bibles:

1989:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing
He lets me lie down in green pastures
He leads me to still waters

King James (1611):

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
He leadeth me beside still waters

Middle English (1100-1500):

Our Lord gourneth me, and nothyng shal defailen to me
In the sted of pastur he sett me ther
He norissed me upon water of fyllyng

Old English (800-1066):

Drihten me raet, ne byth me nanes godes wan
And he me geset on swythe good feohland
And fedde me be waetera stahum

These are just some of the english bibles, and don't account for the difference between Orthodox, Catholic, Gnostic bibles etc.

These show the changes in simple verses just since 800, and the difficulties in translation. For example, "geset" when I plug it into an Old English translator, comes up with " a sitting lying in wait ambush insidiae" - which makes no sense to me.

So if you want to be a literalist, which bible? Maybe study Aramaic and try that as closer to "root" meaning? But then, somebody had to translate the Aramaic into English for you to learn the Aramaic - did that scholar get it right? Or is that scholar translating Aramaic to English using a translation of Aramaic into Latin, which was translated from Greek? Who taught that scholar about Latin, and does that scholar properly undertand Latin? It becomes the old campfire whisper game, where you whisper to the person on your left, and they whisper to the person their left, until it finally comes back to you totally changed.

It goes back to what I picked up from D.T. Suzuki: "As soon as you write something down, it begins to lose its meaning.". Too much of language is context and intonation. I can call someone a dufus, and depending on the context (are they friend or foe?) and how I say it, it can be an endearing acceptance of a mistake made, or an insult.

That is not to say that there isn't more to the universe than our very limited intelligence can decipher or understand.

[averagejoe]

2000 year old 10 Commandments.....

From a science website? I thought science proved that we came from monkey's or crawled out of the sea or Africa or big bang or whatever it is this week?


The Cambridge Digital Library has just made available thousands of pages from fragile religious manuscripts for Internet users' perusal, including a 2,000-year-old copy of the 10 Commandments, known as the "Nash Papyrus."

http://www.livescience.com/25483-ancien ... ments.html

[zzontar]

There are millions of faithful people who have no problem reconciling evolution with their chosen books of myth.

This is why the title is misleading as many believe in both. I have no problem believing a plant or animal can evolve, but how it began is a different story. Instead of going by a book of "myths," atheists prefer to go by scientific theories, like how time and the big bang just decided to start one day and how lightning striking an inanimate ball of primordial soup can create life that instantly knows how to survive and reproduce and branch off to become everything from a peach tree to a giraffe. I guess atheists just don't want to believe in anything they consider far-fetched.

[kibbs]

Neither, eternalism, do you believe in your eternal life and we are all a part of it or do you think everything has beginning and an end including the god spirit within you.Its all been here always and always will be.Love your brother and stop being so devisive. Find something we can all believe in like a bicycle.Evolution has its merits ,some people evolve spiritually to.It is no threat or comparison to the power of eternity.creationism is story for people ages ago whose minds were more like children. Some things don't change.the book is a metaphor,that is why the Hebrews have a talmut to interpret it.It wasn't allowed in the hands of the unschooled in case they took it literally.i think they were right.My prayers are with you all who believe we rode the dinosaurs and isolate themselves from the rest of society ,and those without any sacred ritual at all who do not have the comfort of believing that when your body dies your life will continue.

[MechanicMan]

For those interested in the Creation side of this discussion, here is a cool site



http://www.youroriginsmatter.com

Some interesting things on this site!

[Process]

Interesting only if you don't have much of an education on the topic.

[MechanicMan]

Interesting only if you don't have much of an education on the topic.

Exactly why I would point people from Castanet to it!

[Process]

There's always a shell game played by Creationists - even if there was a perfect fossil record, they'd just say, "explain the Big Bang" or "I don't believe organic materials can be started from inorganic materials". This is really a dishonest way to argue - there's always one more question, and never really a point where these folks will address the vast amount of information supporting evolution.

However, there are always advances on the other topics too - but most just don't know about them. In graduate school I was pals with a physicist/cosmologist/mathemetician who was mathematically modelling processes that occurred nanoseconds after the Big Bang. How much of a fantasy is the Big Bang if you can distill processes backward to it, and model what happened so close to ground zero??

There are also advances in astrobiology - and some interesting and compelling studies have found that:
1. Meterorites are composed of many things
2. One type of meteorite contains complex organic molecules - showing that extremely ancient (pre-Earth) processes in the universe produced the complex organic molecules needed to kick start life (both on Earth, and potentiall other planets). Here's a link that should be readable by most: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_chondrite So, maybe life didn't begin solely as a result of what happened on Earth, but was merely fertile ground where the seed was (accidentally) planted. That's definitely a game changer, isn't it?

[Process]

Exactly why I would point people from Castanet to it! [/quote]

A lot of people here are better educated on this topic than you.

[Process]

This shows plainly that production of organic molecules occurs/occurred commonly - nothing special at all. No Hairy Man in the Sky needed.

There's always a shell game played by Creationists - even if there was a perfect fossil record, they'd just say, "explain the Big Bang" or "I don't believe organic materials can be started from inorganic materials". This is really a dishonest way to argue - there's always one more question, and never really a point where these folks will address the vast amount of information supporting evolution.

However, there are always advances on the other topics too - but most just don't know about them. In graduate school I was pals with a physicist/cosmologist/mathemetician who was mathematically modelling processes that occurred nanoseconds after the Big Bang. How much of a fantasy is the Big Bang if you can distill processes backward to it, and model what happened so close to ground zero??

There are also advances in astrobiology - and some interesting and compelling studies have found that:
1. Meterorites are composed of many things
2. One type of meteorite contains complex organic molecules - showing that extremely ancient (pre-Earth) processes in the universe produced the complex organic molecules needed to kick start life (both on Earth, and potentiall other planets). Here's a link that should be readable by most: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_chondrite So, maybe life didn't begin solely as a result of what happened on Earth, but was merely fertile ground where the seed was (accidentally) planted. That's definitely a game changer, isn't it?

[Process]

What rubbish. BTW, I've got a car and some time - let's go find a Garden of Eden site. You know, where dinosaurs and mammoths lived together. Or, show me the site on a map. Such a detailed myth MUST be true, and since Creationism is really the scientific view, it must be based on observations. So, let's have it - give me a straight answer as to where we can see such a site, where vegetarian T Rexes lived with vegetarian sabre toothed cats. Don't try to distract with more Creationist BS - deliver the bodies - show me the evidence. You guys keep criticizing evolution for having imperfect evidence, but present NOTHING, because my friend, you wear no clothes. Don't reply to this unless you have a lat/long or UTM location and depth below the surface. Don't reply to this, and don't come back without an answer.

For those interested in the Creation side of this discussion, here is a cool site



http://www.youroriginsmatter.com

Some interesting things on this site!

[zzontar]

I can see adaptations happening in the evolutionary process, but something like queen ants laying certain eggs that will be workers or fighters, or future queens which sprout wings to get them far away to start new colonies where they then shed their wings... come on, how could that ever take place through evolution, or did one ant mutate to do that one day? I can see us having gradual changes like height or eventually not having toenails, but I think no matter how long we wish for wings or 4 hands or eyes in the backs of our heads, it's not going to happen.

[MechanicMan]

What rubbish. BTW, I've got a car and some time - let's go find a Garden of Eden site. You know, where dinosaurs and mammoths lived together. Or, show me the site on a map. Such a detailed myth MUST be true, and since Creationism is really the scientific view, it must be based on observations. So, let's have it - give me a straight answer as to where we can see such a site, where vegetarian T Rexes lived with vegetarian sabre toothed cats. Don't try to distract with more Creationist BS - deliver the bodies - show me the evidence. You guys keep criticizing evolution for having imperfect evidence, but present NOTHING, because my friend, you wear no clothes. Don't reply to this unless you have a lat/long or UTM location and depth below the surface. Don't reply to this, and don't come back without an answer.

The burden of proof is not on me... I have never claimed I can prove creation. I simply answered the OP by stating what I believe to be true. Then I posted that there are scientists who hold that view while not thinking it destroys their credibility as scientists. Then I posted links of interest addressed to those interested in the creation viewpoint. My view is not the one taught all over the world as FACT when even NON creationist scientists ADMIT IT IS NOT FACT, but THEORY. I know I cannot prove creation,and never claimed I could, so I owe you NOTHING. I know you CAN NOT prove evolution. But since you believe your myth to be a FACT, the burden rests with YOU. I now demand your evidence. Show me PROOF that fish were at one time something other than fish. Proof that cats were once not cats...proof that humans have ever been anything BUT HUMANS! Show me the fossils that even Darwin said future archeology would discover proving this... guess what, the future is here and still NO PROOF. Do I believe evidence pointing in favor of the Biblical account exists, yes. But still not proof. Do I believe Science leans in favor intelligent design? Yes. Can I prove it? NO. I have a belief system and world view, and so do you. As of Dec 14th 2012, they both require faith to believe and NOT FACT.