The Evolution / Creation Debate
#1
Posted 17 February 2009 - 07:09 PM
I have a saying, there is only one person more naive than a creationist, and thats an evolutionist!
Personally I think they could be both partly right or both completely wrong, anyway thats JMO, I hope to hear from people who disagree with me, makes it more interesting
I had a great big arguement about this subject with a cousin who is a religious fanatic that I can share with you later if this topic shows any interest.
Anyway Im interested to see what Aussies think about it all, thanks in advance for those who take time to vote or make a comment, I look forward to see the poll results.
Cheers
Den
#2
Posted 17 February 2009 - 07:15 PM
I went evolustionist, mainly cos I have more belief in science than religion.
I don't dis the idea of creation but evolution just makes more sense to me and it seems there is a lot more evidence to back it.
Just my 2 cents
#3
Posted 17 February 2009 - 07:46 PM
If you want to engage in a debate on the topic, that's fine, but please set the premise correctly.
Evolution = Scientific Theory
Creation = Belief based on religious dogma
#4
Posted 17 February 2009 - 07:48 PM
#5
Posted 17 February 2009 - 07:55 PM
I understand what you mean by that, but what I meant when I said I 'believe' science more than religion is,
I don't personally study evolution or how we came to be, all my opinions and thoughts on the subject come from what I'm told.
If someone were to come up to me and preach the idea of creation, then someone else came up and preached evolution, I would 'believe' the second person more.
#6
Posted 17 February 2009 - 07:56 PM
I think that by some chance proteins formed in the earths primordial soup, i think these could have possible gotten larger and larger. I think that by some intervention (not saying a god, but something) they formed complex (or simple compared to now) organisms. and from there on it i feel like it was survival of the fittest (ie evolution) that lead to the creation of us and all other lifeforms. I am by no means religious, I just feel like the leap from protein to protazoa a bit far fetched or not very well documented or theorised.
Or you could look at is as I dont totally believe in either. Just my two cents, I do change my opinion on the subject like I change my socks.
If anyone knows some good docos on the subject id like to hear about them too.
#7
Posted 17 February 2009 - 08:03 PM
#8
Posted 17 February 2009 - 08:13 PM
This "on-going" debate is gonna continue till the next millenium when the Sun will blow up and kill everything...
#9
Posted 17 February 2009 - 08:14 PM
Andrea
#10
Posted 17 February 2009 - 08:32 PM
+1 for evolution but i do believe in ghosts and spirts.
as for christianity, god and jesus and the whole creation debate, i reckon if the person who wrote that story was still alive they'd be laughing pretty hard right now.
some other religons have much beter and more pratical belifes and values.
and also +1 for explaining fossils in the bible
#11
Posted 17 February 2009 - 08:43 PM
#12
Posted 17 February 2009 - 08:55 PM
You have to be careful declaring yourself an evolutionist though - Sir David Attenborough has received several death threats for his belief in evolution and not crediting god in his programmes.
See:
http://news.bbc.co.u...ews/7853325.stm
I think you may have trouble keeping this thread on topic Den as there are so many tangents that can be taken with this question
Regards,
#13
Posted 17 February 2009 - 09:17 PM
#14
Posted 17 February 2009 - 09:25 PM
#15
Posted 17 February 2009 - 09:53 PM
thinking too much about this stuff does your head in , i will not dismiss either side i would like to believe their is a higher life form as too much stuff is hard to explain.
i think that things evolve to better take advantage of their surroundings and thats a given , hard parts explaining were the first one came from
i KNOW a few things about life
1.your inner world is a reflection of your outer world.
2.if you believe , thats all that matters
3.you can have anything you want in life...........if............ you help enough people get what they want in life.
areas im struggling
1.why do stupider people get paid more than me.
2.what came first the chicken or the egg
3.where is the matching sock for this one at the side of my sock draw
i couldnt bring myself to vote sorry
cheers
Steve Green
#16
Posted 18 February 2009 - 12:46 AM
Evolution is my belief. I believe in science - Things that can be proven, not stories that can't and when are looked at rationally they are just not possible.
Like Daz said in the era the stories in the bible were written/made up there perhaps was a man named Jesus. As far as what the majority of the stories claim said person did, rising from the dead/parting the read sea just no
Ross
#17
Posted 18 February 2009 - 05:46 AM
Species are evolving all the time and this concept that "evolution" is a slow, non dynamic process that can't be observed happening right now is off the mark. It is not open to debate, it is observable particularly in species with a short life span that produces large amounts of offspring (eg lice, constantly becoming resistant to chemicals). It is not a "theory" but an observable process that begins with adaptation. The response to this is of course, for creationists is but the louse is still a louse. This is where the "theory" comes in, because the quantum leap from microevolution, to macroevolution assumes that over time, evolution can lead to a whole new organism with different DNA from the original organism (eg chimpanzee-human, actually very little difference in DNA) coming into being.
All species could have been created, and then began evolving in the micro sense. For macroevolution, there does require a certain amount of scientific "belief" or "faith" that this process could really occur based on what we can see happening right now, and on fossil records etc. I think you would have to say there is enough evidence to support this process.
Evolution is only rejected by some creationists because it is a way of explaining how complex and non complex organisms could have come into being aside from being "created" by an outside force of some kind (whatever you believe that to be).
The terms are not mutually exclusive. They can co exist.
There is only one constant in the universe, and that is change
Regards,
Donna
#18
Posted 18 February 2009 - 12:05 PM
Due to the human condition of conformity the mainstream of scientists once believed and argued that the Earth was flat to the death of opposition in some cases, so could evolution be a flat Earth theory? with our way of thinking I believe its quite possible, though that doesn't make me immediately think of the other popular option on the table, intelligent design/creation, the answer could potentially be a mixture of old and new possibilities. Scientific theories like clothes fashion change with the progress of time, generally the shifts in our beliefs and innovations are made by the individual who is initially ostracised, while the mainstream follow and push ideas that are in trend simply because they lack the mental power or courage to question others or the wisdom and discipline to question their own beliefs.
I believe Religion is unfairly judged by science simply because Religion relies on things that cannot be measured by science such as spiritual feelings of connection, love and faith, and if it cant be seen or measured with the primitive tools of today's science they will refute its existence, unless of course your a virus, or the chemistry of water crystalisation patterns, you see scientists can believe in many things without seeing them! scientists believed in bacteria long before they could see them, so why do scientists think its rediculous for other institutions to feel, suspect and believe in a divine creative being before it is seen?
I think both Religion and evolution seems to be accepted by people who don't really want to question it, and science just like creationists rely mostly on "faith" and weak evidence that evolution is the answer, and just like religion people seem to just "follow" and regurgitate the evolution theory as was shown to them.
I recently watched a documentary about the evolution of man and they stated that due to the area in which mans ancestors were living and evolving being abundant in seafood and freshwater allowed us to develop and increase our brain size and the abundance of food and water gave us more time for recreation that allowed us to develop our cultural skills while our brain evolved. Well if that's the case there should be crocodiles flying space ships to Mars! Look at crocs, they've been here for millions of years longer than us, they laze about for 95% of the time, they don't have to look for water, they have food on tap, yet they have retained a brain the size of a pea and well their cultural and social skills aren't that advanced from last time I checked, you wont find a crocs playing a guitar around a fire or chatting about astronomy.
Science likes to argue that the croc its already perfect? maybe science should worship crocodiles as their God?, but to me I'm sure the croc can be majorly improved, for example to evolve to handle colder temperatures and expand outside of its cramped and limited tropical habitat range, get a larger brain to avoid violent and deadly confrontations between each other, but no, they have stayed basically the same for millions of years.
If evolution is true why has man a relatively new species on the planet come to a point where he can look at the night sky to ponder and question his own origins? where other animals that have been on the planet for millions of year longer than us have remained with a brain the size of a pea?
I think I have a reasonable understanding on micro and macro evolution and to cover this would be a huge rant so I'll just say I'm not convinced.
Where science believes similarities between animals shows proof of evolution I would argue that it in fact is proof of a creator, just as one can tell a Picasso painting from the work of da Vinci without even looking at the artists signature, all creators have a pattern or style to their work that is reflected from one creation to the next.
I think humanity is still in the dark ages and I'm not finding any quality answers to the big questions, so I'm not 100% committed to any theory just yet, I do have some beliefs from a young age that we are a small part of a greater creation or being, and electricity is a force that connects all life and matter, all animals are in a way an electrical machine. Our biggest flaw is that we gather our thoughts through the perspective of our tiny little eyes in a universe sized beyond our visible perception
Look at any solid object through the most powerful microscope and there are gaps and holes everywhere both in the atoms and between them, but when we view this object from our much larger eye perspective it all looks solid and connected. I was reading that Neutrinos are so small they can pass through your body and solid matter without touching a thing, when I think and compare this in our visual scale to me the Neutrino seems like our space ships flying between the planets. So I wonder what does a human body look like from the perspective of a neutrino? Now Imagine what the universe would look like if your eyes were a trillion x trillion kilometres in diameter and you were looking at the universe from a distant corner or from the outside, beyond the edge? From such a distant and big eyed perspective our planets/stars/galaxies could look connected, so what you could now see perhaps appears solid. Religions tell us that God is all around us, could this just mean that we are actually part of this divine being?
#19
Posted 18 February 2009 - 12:55 PM
for once i agree with you (mostly)
#20
Posted 18 February 2009 - 01:14 PM
There should be a law that states that no two people are allowed to believe or agree on the same human origin theory, and before any child can graduate school they must create their own individual theory, that would give us billions of new theories, then we'd at least have a chance for one person on the planet to be right about where we came from, which is probably more than what we have today!
Cheers
Den
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