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So there are two big camps of belief: evolution vs creationism. Which one is true?
Well, one thing that we all know is that no one knows for sure how life started. What we have is beliefs, suppositions, logical deductions based on observations...
We can imagine how particles came together to form something intelligent over time. But how can anyone imagine that these particles came out of absolutely nothing? How can nothing be formed into something over time? I don't think it's possible. This means that there was always something.
For believers, where did God come from? For non believers, those who believe in big bang, what caused big bang? It couldn't have happened if there was nothing there.
So, believers have to say that God always was. Unbelievers have to say that something always was (whatever it was that started life)
Sounds the same to me.
We all believe (or at least we should if we are smart enough :-)) that there was always something.
So what we are really arguing about is: was there an intelligent god who created our planet or was there just forces and rules/laws which made out planet come to exist?
I think that both are hard to believe. But which is harder?
Believing in a God... well, there seems to be no evidence of him, he is not speaking to us... so it's hard....
But if you try to believe that the earth came about from some particles and forces... think about it! How much time would have to pass before each particle randomly forms something coherent? And then think about how many things we have which have randomly come together. Think about dna and its complexity. How much time would have had to pass before all this complexity RANDOMLY formed from something way too simple? If you really think about it, I don't think that earth was here long enough for this to have happened all by itself, by random chance.
So, maybe there was an intelligence behind building the earth? We don't need to go to extremes and say that this intelligence created the earth magically out of nothing and in no time. We could assume that since we do observe evolution to some degree, that the intelligence used the evolution technique to have the earth come about.
So, some intelligence has programmed the earth to come about, has programmed the evolution into it, has programmed things in such a way that complex things would arise from more simple things. Maybe no one can create a perfect something out of nothing. Maybe evolution is the only way to go. But not a random evolution, but a guided one, a programmed one.
This would explain how the earth and people (in this complexity) could come to be here in a relatively short time and why we can observe some signs of evolution.
One more thing I would like to say, something I heard and really like (quoting someone): "without cooperation, there is no complexity". Cooperation among living things must have been in-programmed. More complex cells came about because some more simple ones came together. Cities were born because people got together and decided to cooperate. The only way we can produce anything complex is when we get together (put our heads together so to speak). Take any company which produces a product and observe how this product would not be possible without cooperation. This earth will reach higher stages of development much quicker once all come together and cooperate.
Last edited by LoveWisdom; 07-07-2013 at 05:35 PM..
Definitely. I personally believe something (whether it be God, or what have you) created the universe, supplied it with the building blocks of life, and allowed evolution to take over.
I think even most atheists will agree that a God/Creator is a possibility and virtually all intelligent people, despite their religious beliefs or lack thereof, acknowledge evolution as a fact.
And I believe the consensus among the pocket-protector/laboratory crowd dates the Earth as some 4.-something billion years old.
Plenty of time for randomly, or God-strewn particles to cozy up to each other when environmental conditions became suitable.
I sometimes like to take the Garden of Eden metaphor a step further and muse about us being some alien kid's science project: Seed a planet, check it out every few millennia, make notes regarding changes and hope for a B+.
Seed a planet, check it out every few millennia, make notes regarding changes and hope for a B+.
And if intervention is worth the effort, send a prophet or administer a miracle. Keep an eye (an ear) on incoming customer service requests (aka prayers).
And if intervention is worth the effort, send a prophet or administer a miracle. Keep an eye (an ear) on incoming customer service requests (aka prayers).
There's a few different ways you could run with that storyline, yeah.
There is a mountain of evidence that supports evolution. Unfortunately there is no evidence at all to prove that creationism is based on fact. Therefore it's a myth.
I suppose that Evolution and creation theory are incompatible, and yet I suppose that some kind of (intelligently planned) creative aspect could still be present.
The question I ask is why should we suppose there is when there is no good evidence for it and..
why is it so important that we should be asked to suppose so?
It seems clear to me that we have someone desperately clinging to a Bible - derived faith and wants to bolster it by selling it to as many unbelievers as possible as is using all possible gaps for god to do it, in this case, the remaining gaps in evolution -theory where god might still be able to get his invisible fingers into the works.
I think even most atheists will agree that a God/Creator is a possibility
Anything is "possible", but if one God is possible, so is two, and so is three, and there are so many numbers that are possibilities (including zero) that the probability of one is exceedingly small, until you realize that if there is a God, it is almost surely a pantheist God, rather than a henotheistic God as evident in ancient Judaism, or an anthropomorphised God such as in Christian belief. Pantheism (especially anti-anthropomorphism) solves the inherent inconsistency between science and religion, where it exists in current evolution vs. creationism contexts. Of course, it also belies creationism itself, at least in a anthropomorphised sense, but it can support a creation narrative featuring at non-anthropomorphised God.
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