[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Creation (Page 1 of 8)
Posted: 11/25/2006 7:10:31 AM EDT
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ok, well i started the evolution thread in the GD forum, and now i wanna hear from creationist about why y'all believe in creation. i for one believe in it for 2 reasons: 1) the bible 2) the lack of solid evidence from evolution. i want something i can touch, not hypothesis' and lab experiments |
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There are two parts for me. The Physical The more I learn about science and the universe we all live in, the more I find it increasingly difficult to conclude that we are the result of randomness, chaos, and chance. Especially when we take a look at something (anything) specific in nature. Take the blood system in our own human bodies, for example. There are 60,000 miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries inside the average adult human being. Imagine that! 60,000 miles inside our bodies! We breath air into our lungs, the aveoli lining our lungs (there are 300,000,000 aveoli per lung) separates oxygen from the air and sends it into our red blood cells while simultaneously expelling carbon dioxide. Wholla! Respiration! There is just too much incredibly intense organization and complexity that exists in every single organism, from the single cell paramecium to human beings to the blue whale, for me to conclude that it all is the result of rocks slamming together 4.3 billion years ago. Additionally, all the "evidence" of evolution that has been presented to me by science teachers, textbooks, journals, magazines, periodicals, books, websites, professors, tv shows, movies, and documentaries appear to be anecdotal and not convincing. There is no solid proof that evolution took place. Could evolution be true? Yes, but the evidence marched out to the public so far is weak, anecdotal, and all of it can be explained by more than just evolution as the reason for its existence. The Spiritual D. James Kennedy once put it this way: "Each person is born with the light of creation and the light of conscience. That's enough to condemn everyone in the world, not for what that person doesn't know and hasn't done, but for what he or she does know and has done." I think it is likely that deep down in every individual's soul we all know that the world to just too complex to not be the result of some serious engineering by a vastly higher intelligence, spirit, God, or whatever you want to call it. I can't prove it, I just think there is so much to explain that cannot be explained by randomness and evolutionary models. Also, the fact that human beings are so far above the rest of the animals of the earth in intelligence, reasoning, self-awareness, learning ability, and creativity is something that cannot be explained by evolutionary models. Human beings are clearly dominators of the earth, so why is that, if not made purposely so for the bidding of a higher power? The fact that human beings have a concept of religion, morality, right and wrong is completely unique from the rest of life on earth. Why would we have an awareness of the spiritual realm if it serves absolutely no purpose? Why do we have a deep, built-in fear of spirits, ghosts, demons, devils, scary dreams and so on. I maintain that we are hard-wired to fear God, which leads some to reject the idea of a God in the first place. They KNOW that IF there is a God who will judge their thoughts and actions, they would not be found "innocent". Why have such a fear if there is nothing to fear in the first place? This kind of questioning is important because if there is no God, then we have nothing to fear. If there is a God, we have him to fear. To me, the world makes much more sense if there is a God, a Creator of the universe. |
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Science will tell you that man evolved from apes or monkeys. If thats true, then why are there apes or monkeys around these days?hock.gif |
Not to hijack the thread but I can answer this...... We did not evolve from the modern monkeys or apes that you see today. We evolved from pre hominoids that went extinct somewhere around 200,000 or so years ago. Evolution does not follow a straight line. What I mean is that there is not one line, it is actually more like a tree if you think of it that way with many branches. Modern man and apes come from a similar ancester, but we are not related to each other directly in the evolutionary line, explaining why both are found today. We are very close though, chimps and modern man share somewhere around 98% of the same DNA. |
GOOD! a lot of the problem i see with biblical teachers is they go to biblical schools and have a poor understanding of evolution. i don't understand how supposedly intelligent people can expect a human and a monkey to be on any sort of a direct evolutionary line. now go back a long way and look at the proto-hominid and most folks will consider it. take a probable future evolutionary path say a bee. it will not just get bigger. it will branch and form a whole lot of "good evolutionary" tries before it finds a niche and finalizes into a "evolved" form. so you will have a "super" bee that will become smart and probably not dependent on a queen and hive and you may have other bees sub species that will almost get there and not quite make it to the super bee's level. to say the super bee evolves from a non super bee is like saying a Ford Mustang evolved from a Ford Taurus when in fact they both traced their roots to the model T that is why you have to take it on faith. |
Taken from wikipedia: "In other cases, some creationists who have shown a thorough misunderstanding of entropy, have argued that entropy rules out evolution" In support of evolution: " it is argued that the order produced within cells as they grow and divide is more than compensated for by the disorder they create in their surroundings in the course of growth and division. In short, according to Lehninger, "living organisms preserve their internal order by taking from their surroundings free energy, in the form of nutrients or sunlight, and returning to their surroundings an equal amount of energy as heat and entropy" |
If the pre hominoids went extinct, How could man have evolved from them? |
They went extinct because we are now them......  Edit: I better explain Its not that they went extinct (well they did) its that we stopped finding fossils of them around a certain time period. It has been shown through fossil evidence that Homo sapiens and neandertals existed at the same time. However, it is believed that us humans killed them off due to competition for resources. Homo erectus starts to dissapear around the same time as modern humans and neandertals start to appear. |
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Since I've already seen at least one completely discredited answers I thought I would post this answeringenesis.org 's list of arguments they think creationists shouldn't use enjoy |
thanks |
So you stopped finding fossils, that means they are extinct? It is believed that humans killed off them? Did you pick up these theory's in the public schools? |
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1. Creation is a belief system 2.Evolution is a belief system also. It is so much easier for me to believe that the world we live in , that has order and is so complex, was made by a Creator. where evolution says this world came to be from nothing, through random mutations and millions of years. Even in school or before i became a Christian, evolution did not make sense to me. |
well if you find fossils from X to Y and at Y you stop finding fossils you can take an educated guess that what was leaving the fossils is not around after the Y date. i am not sure what happened to neandertals. maybe they were competitors that could not compete with Cro-Magnon man. maybe the Cros got smart and killed them for religious reasons. the laws of science are based on out ability to study and duplicate theories. when the result of the study is always the same we call the given theory a law. some things we can't duplicate so they stay theories. from a scientific perspective i have a problem with saying it happened because God did it. how do you turn grapes into wine? 1000 years ago we could not say exactly. because we didn't understand why or how yeast works. you just had this theory that if you put crushed grapes and water in a cellar with the lid off and you got wine or vinegar. some cellars made better wine and some better vinegar. why? maybe God liked your cellar. we still have not completely figured out his creation. |
Sorry, Colorado State University. Actually, what I am telling you is pretty much common knowledge for even a beginer level anthropology class; Which I advise you to take if it is a theory you are planning on bashing. At least you would have even a small thread of knowledge about the subject. Also, notice how I said believed to have happend instead of did. It is only one of many possibilities as to what happend to neandertals. And yes I said extinct, How many neandertals have you seen walking down the road lately? Anthropologist have not found neandertal fossils dated after a certain time so that is when they were believed to have gone extinct. Whats so hard about that? Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. |
Hey, at least you learned both and made up your own mind after that. That is more than many can say. I am the exact opposite of you. I went to church as a kid and always thought the teachings from the bible didnt make sense. When I went to college and began to study evolution it made sense to me. 
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Hoodyhoo21 I am not trying to be a smart ass. Jesus changed my life. I was depressed to the point of suicide, After asking Jesus for help He appeared in my life and gave me a new hope for living. He also delivered me from alcoholism, smoking, and some drug use. I do not have the desires to do these thing any more. I attend a church where you will here more of what I just said including people healed of cancer and other infirmaties. And they will all give praise to Jesus of Nazerath. Jesus is to real to me. Jesus was sent from God and only God could do these things So that means God exists. Which means Gods word (The Bible) is true. And in Genesis 1:27 says that God created Man. You will never convince me of anything else. There is nothing wrong with Science however there is to much quessing on things that happened many years ago than truth, and scientists can have biased opinions. And if you read some of the posts in the Religion section there are a lot of non-beleivers that want to steer people away from God. They also want God out of the country, schools ect. Well I am headed for Church. God Bless your Day. |
+1 The whole "God snapped his fingers and everything came to be" explanation made NO sense to me either. Much too simplistic. Like something that some guy came up with 2000 years ago before they understood modern science. I mean, the bible is way off on lots of other things (i.e. it essentially says the sun revolves around the earth in Ecclesiastes 1:4 and 5, Psalms 92, and Psalms 103.) If the bible was actually the "word of god" and not some guy writing a book, it wouldn't have such inaccuracies...And notice how there's never any mention of dinosaurs...  And I've also found that many evolution-bashers don't understand evolution at all. They think that it's a simple as a ape becoming a human, and most of them say "Prove it!" yet they start to stonewall or double speak you when you bring up fossils...
Maybe you shouldn't think about things like that? You'll never know anyway, just like we'll never be able to prove whether or not there are aliens, a god, etc. Don't go there with your mind; don't ponder impossible questions. It will only drive you crazy. Just accept god like the rest of the sheeple and then you won't have to think about it. God made everything. End of story. See how easy that is to believe? Just listen to what others tell you is the "word of god" and never question it. |
Not very tactful but that about sums it up.  If you approach the question with an open mind you will see that evolution is a theory that tries to explain how these things could have happened based on real-world physical principles that we all know to exist. The Bible and religion have no interest in proving anything in any way, it's either the Bible way or the highway. Also, creationists tend to be so skeptical of scientific evidence unless science discovers something that might support their theory (flood-related or something like that) then they cling to it as evidence of their correctness. Quite a double-standard there. |
I am not sure what ape you are refering to? I believe you are talking about the pre hominoids so I will answer it that way. If not, let me know. The reason I am cofused is because pre hominoids are not actually apes if we are being technical, they only look like are modern apes of today. Basically, its hard to tell. Yes you are correct in that they had to of evolved from something else. Something else that was what we would say less advanced biologically. The problem is that it was soooo long ago it is hard to piece together because the fossil record is scarce. From what I understand it would probably look something like are modern monkey. It was not bipedal and had a tail. Again, this is only a theory but it seems to make sense. The reason that only one species of pre-hominoid evolved into humans is because of the way evolution works. Diffrent species arise because of certain condition that are placed on a certain population of that species. In our case homo erectus. At some point in time a population would have faced conditions that forced them to look like us modern man. Now, this would have taken place over hundreds of thousands of years, it was not over night. Some examples I can give are things like learning to cook food. Learning to use colthing. The food is a good reason that are jaw size shrunk compared to erectus. The clothing accounts for the loss of hair. These are but a SMALL example of the changes we went through. The modern apes would have arisen in a very similar way only from a diffrent ancester. From what I understand Homo erectus and neandertals are from the human line of evolution, and are not part of the modern monkey and apes. They most likely are an off shoot of earlier ape like beings. They would have evolved in the same way as I explained the humans did, only they had diffrent traits selected for. Hope this explains at least a little.  Edit: the reason we find more fossils of the pre hominoids is because they started to develop a culture so they (at times) performed burials. Thus making it easy to recover fossils. The modern ape and monkeys ancester did not, thus, their fossils are scarce, and thus, the lack of puzzle pieces. |
i'm confused; if it took hundreds of thousands of years for them to, like your example, learn to cook food, what sparked the need for learning to cook food? it would seem, to me, that if they needed to adapt and cook food to survive, then hundreds of thousands of years wouldnt work. |
Cooking food was a learned behavior. Once they started to eat softer food and such. It would take many many years, hundreds of thousands to actually lose their big jaw muscles. The reason is because it has to be taken out of, or suppresed, in their DNA. The males and females who started to adapt the weaker jaw muscles would have been selected for and mated. As to why they were sleceted for, that is unknown. Edit: as to why they cooked food it is unknown. Perhaps it tasted better and they learned to like it that way. |
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The 'problem' as far as I see it with the 'evolution vs. creation' thing is that there is no significant difference between the 'sides' on the actual origin of all things. I know that there are more than two 'sides', but essentially it breaks down to this: The Evolutionists say that the universe arose from nothing, all by itself - that whole 'big bang' thing - and that life arose all on its own from base elements, etc., all by itself without any creator. Life and the Universe arose from nothing. The Creationists say that the universe, and life itself, was created by an Intelligent Designer. When you ask them who created the creator, though, they say that 'He always existed.' Who designed the designer? Nobody. He arose from nothing. Life and the Universe arose from the creator who arose from nothing. No difference at all in the ideas. Shane |
Actually, only a small part of our DNA is actually used. That is relative to its actual size I mean. Much of it is inactive or dormant due to evolutionary events....... This was not made up at all. |
if i have no physical evidence which i can touch concerning either of the theories, then i will believe in the one that has effected my life and the lives of those around me. |
I see what you mean. Another major diffrence that you touched on but that I beleve is a big one is that science tries to explain the begining chemically using laws we have observed in our time here and through observations. Like creationism says that god was always here, science says that subatomic particles that make up atoms were always here. Science just doesnt by that some Person started it all. |
but wouldnt saying "they're dormant from evolutionary events" be based upon the FACT of evolution. evolution still being a theory leads to the conclusion that either 1) science has not found the answer to why we only use a small portion of the DNA 2) the statement of changes coming from evolution are wrong 3) evolution is wrong and there is an alternative theory which is correct. |
Many Archeological finds have proven the Bible correct. |
I see what you are getting at, but evolution can be seen and observed in DNA. It has to do with allel shifts or something like that. Also, evolution as it appears and observed is not a theory. It is only called that by creationist who refuse to accept it for one reason or another. It IS a theory when talking about the origin of life. The mechanism that evolution follows is actually well known. |
this is TRUE.... though i feel like i'm gonna get flamed like a steak because i can not offer any specific finds. but i know many of them deal with the Flood of Noah and fossil records |
can you observe evolution? if it occurs over hundreds of thousands of years, hypothetically you could setup some kinda on going scientific community to watch and study life for all those years. but really if its occurs so slowly, can it really be observed? |
They have not proven the bible correct, only that certain events mentioned in the bible happend. On the flip side, if a group of guys were writing the bible many years ago and there was a giant flood, they would mention that. Archeologist coming along and seeing that there was a flood doesnt prove the bible correct, only that whoever wrote it witnessed this flood and mentioned it. |
We will never be able to prove there is a God? You missed my earlier post in this thread about how Jesus delivered me from alcoholism, smoking, drug use and commiting suicide. Theres blinders on your eyes! |
while being a christian i believe that was God's work, i think what he means is scientific evidence; math formula, scientific method, etc. i could be wrong though |
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HoodyHoo21. I have not studied anthrpoloy? is that the correct name? So I do not know all the different names given to different species of monkeys, apes, pre hononoids etc. So I just lumped them together and called them apes. from now on I will call the ones that you say evolved into humans as pre hominoids. Is that correct? you wrote
Sounds like you don't believe it yourself. If you did you would not call it a theory. When I went to school a theory was called an educated guess. And a guess can be wrong! Another question If evolution happened? Does it still take place today? or did it stop many years ago. If it stopped, what is the scientific reason that it stopped? Seems to me that if evolution took place, it would continue on today. then humans and animals would still keep evolving in to something else? |
Yep, the term anthropology is correct but only when talking about humans and their ancesters. Pre-hominoids is correct The reason I said only a theory was in regards to the history of our modern monkeys. It is my idea that I stated so I made sure to call it a theory because about that topic I am not sure. Absolutly, evolution still takes place. The reason you cant see it is because it takes so long. 200,000 years is a long time, and even your whole life time is nothing but a snap shot in time as far as evolution is concerned. Some biologist these days study and raise insects because they have such a fast gestation time that they can get many generations fast. Thus speeding up evolution if they control the conditions they want. Everything is still evolving but actually human evolution has slowed. The reason for this is medical treatment. Things that happen to us now that would have prevented us from mating many years ago now dont stop us from mating. Things like diabetes and such. Not that it is a bad thing. |
HoodyHoo21 wrote;
Ok, does science believe the flood happened? Then where did all the water come from? |
Yep, they believe the flood happend. They just think it was from natural causes and not from some god causing it to happen. |
Just to correct one point, if something/someone always existed it/he didn't arise at all. Please note the word always, which means without beginning or end. The creation started at a certain point in time, but the creator did not. He was always there. IMHO |
doesnt that just prove microevolution? |
I thought it was named the Theory of Evolution, and that the short term things we can observe were called natural selection. I know some of this is basically semantics, but isn't the proper name Theory of Evolution? |
In a sense I guess it does. It is infinetly more difficult to PROVE what I guess we would call macro-evolution because it is so hard to recover fossils that are 1.2 million years old. We cannot say it doesnt exist though only that the evidence in support of the theory is harder to find. |
Yes, it IS refered to as a theory but it is relative to what you are talking about. For the discussion we are having micro-evolution is not a theory, while macro is more of a theory then fact (depending on what scientist you talk to) because the evidence is harder to find. Natural selection is the method or mechanism for evolution. Edit: I found the actual definition of evolution: "In biology, evolution is change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the allele frequencies of genes. Over time, this process can result in speciation, the development of new species from existing ones." |
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