Hellobee Boards

@runsyellowlites: Um, no, not at all. Set the big bang into motion, and god has done his/her part.

Evolutionary theory does not say what you says it does. A more accurate definition would be, "Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations." There is convergent evolution (the eye of the octopus and the human eye) and divergent evolution. Changes in genes are random. It's not that you and I descended from a monkey. That is simplistic and fallacious. People have to simplify the theory into a caricature in order to have their rebuttal work.

Mutations occur randomly and those that are beneficial stick around by increasing survival of individuals with it. It's a simple, elegant, and fact based system.

I know that I will never convince someone on the religious right that what I'm saying is true. Even if it is. I've seen people that don't understand that the changes of the industrial revolution have led to the warming of our planet. I am in awe that people believe that dinosaurs co-existed with people. I continue to ache for the literalists who somehow simultaneously think that genesis is literal yet the dictums of Leviticus pertain to gays but not to owning slaves or multiple wives. It simply does not compute for me. The mental gymnastics boggle my mind.

When you deeply understand science and you explore science for yourself (not just the talking points from a religious leader), you can clearly see the truth in the science and places where science has yet to explain (origin of the Big Bang).

I take no position on telling people whether there is a god or not. There is no way to know that objectively without faith. The belief in god requires faith. That is the basic tenet of religion. However, when there are facts in front of us, I think it behooves us to acknowledge the facts. I cannot respect denial of facts. People can either reconcile their religion with the facts or continue to spin tall tales that Jesus rode a dinosaur. The facts speak for themselves.

@Mrs. Jacks: WORD.

@Mrs. Jacks: well said. Thank you.

@MsLipGloss: I just looked at that link you posted and wow! Just wow! My favourite bit was Question: How old is the universe? Answer: God says x,Y,z and man says a,b,c. God has been around forever and man has not so we should believe God! I also particularly enjoyed the picture of penguins in the garden of Eden! Maybe its not as thorough as I'd hoped....! It looks like a fun day out though!!

@runsyellowlites: Can I ask you, as a creationist who has clearly made the effort to read up on the theories, what do creationists believe about the rest of the universe? So God created Earth in 6 days - did he create the other planets too? Is there a meaning to the rest of the universe according to creationist explanations?

@runsyellowlites: I just wanted to say, while you and I may not see eye to eye, I do appreciate your thoughtful responses to all these questions

@runsyellowlites: I agree with mrsscb, I'm grateful to you for being upfront and answering questions about this!

@Mrs. Jacks: exactly. Thank you.

I believe in both. God created the universe and humans evolvedfrom primates. Although I don't God is grotesque if He turned out to be a silver back guerrilla I wouldn't be surprised.

@mrbee: Exactly. No matter how you slice it belief in a Big Bang and subsequent inter-species evolution requires faith to believe.

@Mrs. Jacks: You are awesome. That is all.

@photojane: Oh, that's a good point. I always took it to mean "light" and "darkness" as substances of their own, with God Himself being the source of the light. Or something like that.

@FarmWifeGina: You could totally be right. I definitely over analyze. My thought process is that if God was the light from the beginning, what is the purpose of the sun? He didn't need to create the sun to light the earth, if it wasn't the original source of the light. I don't know. haha!

@mrbee: I'm not making any sort of reference to the amount of faith it takes for a person to believe in anything... only that evolution from practically nothing requires faith. And, just as an aside, there are plenty of Christian scientists who have used scientific evidence to support creationism.

@mrbee: Again, my point was only in reference to the statement that "Evolutionary theory is a scientific explanation, not a matter of faith." I disagree.

And, you believe that secular scientists don't view their findings in the scope of their worldview? I've seen bad science across the board.

@Mrs. Jacks: You are fabulous.

And yes, evolution.

@mrbee: By secular I simply means non-Christian. And, I simply do not believe that having a Christian worldview negates any scientific findings regarding creationism. A non-Christian (secular) scientist is seeking ways to prove inter-species evolution in the same way that a Christian scientist might be seeking to prove that that sort of evolution is not possible.

But, honestly, I have no intentions or desire for a back-and-forth... I was just agreeing that both ideas require faith.

@MEWTILL Not all mammals grow their young in their bodies, there are 2 in Australia that lay eggs (Sorry, I just had to correct that).

I just have to start by saying that I think evolution is correct, I am agnostic, and I know the universe is 13.77 billion years old.

That aside, Science itself is also subject to evolution but not because of random mutations but because our understanding of the physical world is constantly improving. This is the beauty of science, and a good example of this is the "big bang theory" and its relation to string theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_string_theory). Parts of string theory actually suggest that the big bang was one of many bangs that happend. There are a set of ideas that are the core of string theory that are accepted by most physicists but the edges are constantly being re-written and discussed.

I think part of the problem that we see in this country is that we are re-hashing the place of religion in our world compared to science. This was done several hundred years ago by a guy named Copernicus (some of you may know of him), and later Galileo. They were both jailed for their comments about how the earth rotates around the sun and not the other way around... The church took their statements as blasphemy. The thing is, these men, as well as many scientists today, believe in God. They just understand that religion is there to explain the un-explainable and science gets the rest.

Most people may get upset about this, but there are areas that science will never be able to explain, like what was there before the "big bang", or if there was actually intelligent design behind it all. What science can do is help us understand the physical rules that the universe is governed by (and these rules constantly change).

Life is no accident. I do not believe in god, but I also cannot say he does not exist. But I also think that life on this planet was a matter of probabilities. Even if it the chances of life happening on a planet on its own were 1 in a hundred billion, there would still be millions of planets out there that have life....

@Mr. Jacks: Really?! Wow - I didn't know that! I'm going to go look them up, that's really cool.

@Mrs. Jacks: Gah, I should have remembered the platypus! It's only the coolest animal ever!

Mr and Mrs Jacks please dont bring marital bickering into an evolution discussion. For the way Im told it is women have evolved to always be right.