Don't Believe In Evolution?....give Us Your Theory Christians

[Legion]

To me, evidence of a life starting process would mean more to me than repeated demonstration of evolution.

Well, as has been said many times, evolution and the original emergence of life on Earth are different things requiring different theories to explain them.

 

But let me ask you End. Do you believe that terrestrial life emerged by natural means? And if you do not believe that then why don’t you?

 

I’m glad you keep coming back End. I like you when you’re not in a fighting mood.

[RationalOkie]

Unfortunately, and with great sadness, I must say that most adults in my area seem to believe all those stories literally and have no problem with them...or at least they say they believe them. I can't speak to what is preached except for what is preached in my parents' church. The preacher there still pounds on the pulpit every Sunday and screams about miracles and Creationism and the evil serpent. All the adults smile and nod and say Amen and then my father (and I would guess many of the other church members do the same) comes home and rants about how "true" all that stuff is. He truly buys every bit of it, hook, line, and sinker. Sigh.

 

The unfortunate part is that he's a pretty freaking smart guy in every other respect. So are a lot of the church members. I just don't get it!!!!

 

This country is changing. It just takes time, several generations in fact. I think we will eventually be the majority if we can somehow keep from blowing ourselves up over religion. I'm going to borrow this from evilbible.com:

In the US, the number of non-religious people has more than doubled from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001; their proportion has grown from just eight percent of the total in 1990 to over fourteen percent in 2001.

This was the greatest increase in absolute as well as in percentage terms among all religious groups.

Source: 2001 American Religious Identification Survey.

 

I'll bet these numbers are much higher now. In 2001 the internet was really just taking off. People are seeking and finding the truth on the internet. The churches, over time, will start to adapt a much more liberal viewpoint. They always have over history and they will continue.

[Guest end3]

To me, evidence of a life starting process would mean more to me than repeated demonstration of evolution.

Well, as has been said many times, evolution and the original emergence of life on Earth are different things requiring different theories to explain them.

 

But let me ask you End. Do you believe that terrestrial life emerged by natural means? And if you do not believe that then why don’t you?

 

I’m glad you keep coming back End. I like you when you’re not in a fighting mood.

 

Hey LR,

 

I can imagine evolution as is described (and comprehended by my misunderstandings thereof), but I feel it would have taken a darn long time to move from nothing to where we are.

 

Yes, I lean towards terrestrial life by natural means, as it would be hard not to, but I have faith that I will know the objective truth through God, perhaps not.

 

The symbolism that corresponds to the what the Bible says......like man from dust.....not too far a stretch from the theories. Celluostic purification of water...it's in the Bible symbolically. The water state/ trinity relationship. In Genesis, it also says animals were before man. Is it just a coincedence that the author got this 50/50 question right?

 

Some of the things we "know", they can't have possibly "known", yet the Bible gets the symbolism/science relationship right everytime IMO.

 

Before someone beats on me for this post, I want to acknowledge very little understanding of physics and biology....so there!

 

 

I could develop an argument for Genesis, but it wouldn't be satisfying to some...

[Guest end3]

Pray for me Hans that I don't keep returning.

 

 

Yeah, there is a serious possibility if you hang around here long enough, we will have to change your tag to an Ex-Christian one.

 

I want to move away from this site Deva, because I have a project I wish to devote time to, not that I am worried about my belief status.

 

It is a mental and physical strain to perpetually disagree with people and then remain "happy". I sometimes need to do something, like the project, to build my own happiness. Don't get me wrong, I have learned alot here, (and have improved my writing and spelling a little ), but I don't know that me arguing is a necessity for anyone other than me and my understanding in life. The reason I say this is I am 99% sure I have not re-converted a soul. After awhile it just is.

[Guest end3]

Unfortunately, and with great sadness, I must say that most adults in my area seem to believe all those stories literally and have no problem with them...or at least they say they believe them. I can't speak to what is preached except for what is preached in my parents' church. The preacher there still pounds on the pulpit every Sunday and screams about miracles and Creationism and the evil serpent. All the adults smile and nod and say Amen and then my father (and I would guess many of the other church members do the same) comes home and rants about how "true" all that stuff is. He truly buys every bit of it, hook, line, and sinker. Sigh.

 

The unfortunate part is that he's a pretty freaking smart guy in every other respect. So are a lot of the church members. I just don't get it!!!!

 

This country is changing. It just takes time, several generations in fact. I think we will eventually be the majority if we can somehow keep from blowing ourselves up over religion. I'm going to borrow this from evilbible.com:

In the US, the number of non-religious people has more than doubled from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001; their proportion has grown from just eight percent of the total in 1990 to over fourteen percent in 2001.

This was the greatest increase in absolute as well as in percentage terms among all religious groups.

Source: 2001 American Religious Identification Survey.

 

I'll bet these numbers are much higher now. In 2001 the internet was really just taking off. People are seeking and finding the truth on the internet. The churches, over time, will start to adapt a much more liberal viewpoint. They always have over history and they will continue.

 

 

RO,

 

Just picking on you about the OK thing....absolutely nothing personal. I have a good buddy from OK...

 

The question I have for you....does it not say in the Bible that the pendulum will sway away from Christianity? Do you think the writers knew that trends come and go, and just put that in there to cover the bases?

[Legion]

I can imagine evolution as is described (and comprehended by my misunderstandings thereof), but I feel it would have taken a darn long time to move from nothing to where we are.

Well End many biologists believe that it has taken roughly 3.5 billion years for “nothing” to transform into the variety of life we have on Earth today. That’s a darn long time in my opinion.

 

Yes, I lean towards terrestrial life by natural means, as it would be hard not to, but I have faith that I will know the objective truth through God, perhaps not.

Someone recently pointed out to me that none of us know the objective truth. Science constructs models in order to make the objective world comprehensible to our subjective selves. In plainer language, we can only test our imaginations against nature and see if it fits.

 

And now for a haiku…

 

Only imagined

Never experienced

Snow

[Ouroboros]

Damn it!

 

You see End3. My prayers don't work for crap!

 

(No. I'm quite cool having you here. So maybe God didn't listen because I didn't mean it? )

[RationalOkie]

....does it not say in the Bible that the pendulum will sway away from Christianity? Do you think the writers knew that trends come and go, and just put that in there to cover the bases?

 

No, I think more and more people are waking up. More and more people are coming out of the dungeons. After I came out to my family I discovered five more family members felt the same way but didn't want to be ostracized. My wife is close to admitting it, she's been reading Ehrman and David Mills. I don't sit around and argue with my family members about it either. Each has come to it on their own, like I did. That's my point, it's just happening all over the place and I think it's because of the Internet. We aren't going to go backwards to the dark ages. The human race, in spite of itself, is EVOLVING.

 

Now, imagine two generations from now...five generations....fifty....and on.

[Guest end3]

No, I think more and more people are waking up.

 

Waking up to what RO?

 

More and more people are coming out of the dungeons.

 

Are you saying that prior generations were in the dungeons.....The Greatest Generation?.....the fathers that brought us here?

 

 

After I came out to my family I discovered five more family members felt the same way but didn't want to be ostracized. My wife is close to admitting it, she's been reading Ehrman and David Mills.

 

Ostracized for what RO? Were you previously ostracized?

 

I don't sit around and argue with my family members about it either. Each has come to it on their own, like I did. That's my point, it's just happening all over the place and I think it's because of the Internet. We aren't going to go backwards to the dark ages. The human race, in spite of itself, is EVOLVING.

 

And your point?

[RationalOkie]

No, I think more and more people are waking up.

Waking up to what RO?

 

Waking up from the delusion that is religion.

 

More and more people are coming out of the dungeons.

Are you saying that prior generations were in the dungeons.....The Greatest Generation?.....the fathers that brought us here?

Yes! I'm an Ex-Marine that's served in the Gulf. Your comment reeks of self righteous indignation, as if I wouldn't understand. As if I don't have the right to question our grandfathers. B.S. I can say that I earned the right to free speech and not many can.

 

 

After I came out to my family I discovered five more family members felt the same way but didn't want to be ostracized. My wife is close to admitting it, she's been reading Ehrman and David Mills.

Ostracized for what RO? Were you previously ostracized?

Still am. Christian dickheads like my Father-In-Law, Brothers-In-Law, Sisters-In-Law, All the family on my mothers side etc..

Atheist are the most hated group in America.

 

I don't sit around and argue with my family members about it either. Each has come to it on their own, like I did. That's my point, it's just happening all over the place and I think it's because of the Internet. We aren't going to go backwards to the dark ages. The human race, in spite of itself, is EVOLVING.

 

And your point?

Just made my point!

[florduh]

And your point?

 

Oakie can speak for himself, but his point is hard to miss.

 

Humans continue to evolve, physically and mentally. Our survival depends on rational thinking now more than ever before. More and more people are questioning the formerly unquestioned articles of faith, and seeing that they don't make any sense in the real world. Superstition and fear no longer serves in holding together a society. It has become a deterrent to peace and progress. Many have doubts about their traditional religions but are still hesitant to openly talk about it since they fear getting flak from family and friends if they do so. Current religions must evolve with society, or ultimately they will vanish as so many already have.

[Antlerman]

Here's an extract from a statement put out by the Botanical Society of America regarding the Evolution Deniers, the Creationists. It is by far one of my favorite quotes that succicintly summarizes the problems of this religious thinking into the discipline of science. Complete quote here.

 

This demonstrates the

scientific uselessness

of creationism. While creationism explains everything, it offers no understanding beyond, “that’s the way it was created.” No testable predictions can be derived from the creationist explanation.

Creationism has not made a single contribution to agriculture, medicine, conservation, forestry, pathology, or any other applied area of biology. Creationism has yielded no classifications, no biogeographies, no underlying mechanisms, no unifying concepts with which to study organisms or life.

In those few instances where predictions can be inferred from Biblical passages (e.g., groups of related organisms, migration of all animals from the resting place of the ark on Mt. Ararat to their present locations, genetic diversity derived from small founder populations, dispersal ability of organisms in direct proportion to their distance from eastern Turkey), creationism has been scientifically falsified.

 

Is it fair or good science education to teach about an unsuccessful, scientifically useless explanation just because it pleases people with a particular religious belief?

Is it unfair to ignore scientifically useless explanations, particularly if they have played no role in the development of modern scientific concepts?

Science education is about teaching valid concepts and those that led to the development of new explanations.

 

Creationism is the modern manifestation of a long-standing conflict between science and religion in Western Civilization. Prior to science, and in all non-scientific cultures, myths were the only viable explanations for a myriad of natural phenomena, and these myths became incorporated into diverse religious beliefs. Following the rise and spread of science, where ideas are tested against nature rather than being decided by religious authority and sacred texts, many phenomena previously attributed to the supernatural (disease, genetic defects, lightning, blights and plagues, epilepsy, eclipses, comets, mental illness, etc.) became known to have natural causes and explanations. Recognizing this, the Catholic Church finally admitted, after 451 years, that Galileo was correct; the Earth was not the unmoving center of the Universe. Mental illness, birth defects, and disease are no longer considered the mark of evil or of God’s displeasure or punishment. Epileptics and people intoxicated by ergot-infected rye are no longer burned at the stake as witches. As natural causes were discovered and understood, religious authorities were forced to alter long-held positions in the face of growing scientific knowledge. This does not mean science has disproved the existence of the supernatural. The methodology of science only deals with the material world.

 

Science as a way of knowing has been extremely successful, although people may not like all the changes science and its handmaiden, technology, have wrought. But people who oppose evolution, and seek to have creationism or intelligent design included in science curricula, seek to dismiss and change the most successful way of knowing ever discovered. They wish to substitute opinion and belief for evidence and testing. The proponents of creationism/intelligent design promote scientific ignorance in the guise of learning.

As professional scientists and educators, we strongly assert that such efforts are both misguided and flawed, presenting an incorrect view of science, its understandings, and its processes.

(emphasis mine)

I will argue that viewing life as having some divine will guiding or supporting it is a way at looking at the world that doesn't need to violate knowledge or compete with science as a tool. Nor does it, or should it, even have to attempt to reconcile itself with science. It would be better for them to not try. Seeing God as designing the cosmos is like painting an image of something with an artist's brush. The artist is the one perceiving the thing and interpreting the thing in an aesthetically pleasing way to him, and there is no requirement for art to be technically accurate. On the contrary, if it were technically accurate their humanity behind it becomes unexpressed. It seems for the Creationist however they have only room for one way of looking at something to exist. It is either this, or it's that. Never both. And as such they have nothing.

[Guest end3]

No, I think more and more people are waking up.

Waking up to what RO?

 

Waking up from the delusion that is religion.

 

More and more people are coming out of the dungeons.

Are you saying that prior generations were in the dungeons.....The Greatest Generation?.....the fathers that brought us here?

Yes! I'm an Ex-Marine that's served in the Gulf. Your comment reeks of self righteous indignation, as if I wouldn't understand. As if I don't have the right to question our grandfathers. B.S. I can say that I earned the right to free speech and not many can.

 

 

After I came out to my family I discovered five more family members felt the same way but didn't want to be ostracized. My wife is close to admitting it, she's been reading Ehrman and David Mills.

Ostracized for what RO? Were you previously ostracized?

Still am. Christian dickheads like my Father-In-Law, Brothers-In-Law, Sisters-In-Law, All the family on my mothers side etc..

Atheist are the most hated group in America.

 

I don't sit around and argue with my family members about it either. Each has come to it on their own, like I did. That's my point, it's just happening all over the place and I think it's because of the Internet. We aren't going to go backwards to the dark ages. The human race, in spite of itself, is EVOLVING.

 

And your point?

Just made my point!

 

Jimminy F. Crickets, guy, I am thrilled you have discovered it's all a delusion perpetrated on humanity for the last 2000 years...and that you went to war to justify what, your new found non-delusional belief?

 

Tell me again how post creation evolution has anything to do with creation itself....or am I misunderstanding the OP...

[Deva]

I want to move away from this site Deva, because I have a project I wish to devote time to, not that I am worried about my belief status.

 

I was just picking at you End. You seem to still be a believer judging from what you just posted on this thread, for sure.

 

It is a mental and physical strain to perpetually disagree with people and then remain "happy". I sometimes need to do something, like the project, to build my own happiness. Don't get me wrong, I have learned alot here, (and have improved my writing and spelling a little ), but I don't know that me arguing is a necessity for anyone other than me and my understanding in life. The reason I say this is I am 99% sure I have not re-converted a soul. After awhile it just is.

 

What have you learned here, End3, other than spelling and writing?

 

Yes, you haven't reconverted anyone here that I am aware of.

[RationalOkie]

End Said - ...snip "that you went to war to justify what, your new found non-delusional belief?"

 

Nope, we Atheist don't go to war for religion...just oil.

 

 

End Said - Tell me again how post creation evolution has anything to do with creation itself....or am I misunderstanding the OP...

 

Hell, maybe I'm misunderstanding the OP. I don't know what 'post creation evolution' means. Clarify.

[RationalOkie]

End... The post was for the 'Christians' to tell us THEIR theory. I'm not defending a theory here....that's the OP.

[Guest end3]

What have you learned here, End3, other than spelling and writing?

 

We look many places for acceptance, fellowship, love. We get hurt by lack of honesty and miscommunication et.al. We re-associate in an attempt find the first three. We do not have complete understanding yet for humanity's need to search/look/understand. Oh, yeah, and if there in fact is a God, than His job is infinitely tougher than mine......I can't even make a hippo.

 

Yes, you haven't reconverted anyone here that I am aware of.

 

I thought for sure Ms. D, since you have been privy to all of my time here, that you are just "in the closet" obout your re-conversion......Catholicism of course.

 

Have you also noticed that Hans uses a capital G in God every now and then?

[Deva]

I thought for sure Ms. D, since you have been privy to all of my time here, that you are just "in the closet" obout your re-conversion......Catholicism of course.

 

Have you also noticed that Hans uses a capital G in God every now and then?

 

LOL End3 this is why I like having you around here -- best laugh of my day

Yeah I am in the closet, to some people, like my whole family, but it isn't about Catholicism, you can bet on that!

[Ouroboros]

Have you also noticed that Hans uses a capital G in God every now and then?

Yes I do, because it's a name referring to a specific concept of a god, and not just "god" as a concept in itself. God with little "G" is like any god. God with capital "G" is to mean the mono-theistic god, or even an all-encapsulating concept of all-existence (more like naturalism, panentheism or philosopher god).

 

It's like jeep and Jeep.

 

If I have converted to anything, I think it's to the whatever-I-feel-like religion. It's definitely the best one.

[Guest end3]

End... The post was for the 'Christians' to tell us THEIR theory. I'm not defending a theory here....that's the OP.

 

Here is how I see it....that the creation is different than an evolved creation. I am not denying an evolved creation.

 

I know that is not the OP verbatim, but I think it was a logical path. I really don't know how Christians can deny evolution in an "evolving creation" sense.

[Guest end3]

Have you also noticed that Hans uses a capital G in God every now and then?

Yes I do, because it's a name referring to a specific concept of a god, and not just "god" as a concept in itself. God with little "G" is like any god. God with capital "G" is to mean the mono-theistic god, or even an all-encapsulating concept of all-existence (more like naturalism, panentheism or philosopher god).

 

It's like jeep and Jeep.

 

If I have converted to anything, I think it's to the whatever-I-feel-like religion. It's definitely the best one.

 

Don't try and cover it up buddy....see you in Heaven!

[Legion]

Do you have no comments on my truthful, relevant, and kind post post for you End?

 

I feel so unappreciated.

[RationalOkie]

End... The post was for the 'Christians' to tell us THEIR theory. I'm not defending a theory here....that's the OP.

 

Here is how I see it....that the creation is different than an evolved creation. I am not denying an evolved creation.

 

I know that is not the OP verbatim, but I think it was a logical path. I really don't know how Christians can deny evolution in an "evolving creation" sense.

 

Fair enough and yes, I accept your apology.

 

I kid...I kid...

[Ouroboros]

Don't try and cover it up buddy....see you in Heaven!

 

FYI, You will find me in the throne room, dressed up as Jesus.

[Guest end3]

Do you have no comments on my truthful, relevant, and kind post post for you End?

 

I feel so unappreciated.

 

I am with you LR, both you and I put out the distinct difference in the question, yet both of our concise opinions were dismissed for lack of a real anwswer....did you hear that Okie....lack of a real answer.....oh, and I am delusional, I forget.

 

how was that Legion?