Creationism Vs Evolution - where do we come from?

[rooster]

Has anyone seen a website about diving? I left it around here somewhere?

[Janos]

Originally Posted by rooster

Has anyone seen a website about diving? I left it around here somewhere?

Probably best to avoid the "Non-Diving Section" then.

Laters,
Janos

[nigelH]

Originally Posted by ahar

Hmm, the thread does seem to have moved towards the religion or not, rather than creationism or evolution - remember the two are not mutually exclusive.

That was my problem with it from the start. I don't see a contradiction. I also have a problem with religion, usually used to describe a formal body with organisation and set rules, as distinct from a personal belief in a God.

I'll make no secret that I am more akin to the Fundamentalists than the Humanitarians but I get into more scrapes arguing theology than I ever will physics. I put down my case in my first post to this thread that there is more to us than a lump of biomass and I develop it by reasoning that is what is of value and I must value it in all people.

With a good dose of University Physics (this is what I make my living doing) plus an interest in archaeology and some paleontology I am not too happy with some of my colleagues who take the hard line on Genesis 1 but, frankly, it doesn't have moral implications so I'm not bothered. I am convinced there is a God but I don't push the matter because you don't convince people that way. I am also convinced that he made and orders the world but again, same problem. You will never prove or disprove God with physics although there are interesting questions about why, if God is infinite, does both time and space quantise? Is this a rounding error?

I'd go on but I have to be in a swimming pool in less than three quarters of an hour and I'm giving somebody a lift so I don't want to be late.

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by ahar

Not strictly true, see Judges Ch21 or virtually any of the other old testament books (except Proverbs, Psalms or Song of Solomon) and you'll find wars santioned by God. However, outside this I fully agree with you.

No, very strictly true mate: go back and read the Biblical passage you proffer and you'll find no mention or evidence whatsoever of any religious war (prompted by God or otherwise) or anything like it - any violence contained therein (relatively none, for the Bible) was commanded and instructed by man in the furtherance of either individual or family inheritance and offers us no religious undertones at all. What you can read in it are customs of the time to do with 'taking a wife', but nothing to do with religiously instructed wars.

And as for "wars sanctioned by God..."?!! Out of interest, on precisely whose authority do you make such a pronouncement? On what source material are you making or basing that conclusion?

And even if it were true, all it would do is simply underline the whole basis and need for the New Testament (turn the other cheek etc.) - as an urgent balance to the excesses and carnage ('eye-for-eye-tooth-for-tooth' bollocks) of the Old Testament. The more eyes come out, the blinder Man becomes - and then there's no opportunity for either side to see the wonder of God or the miracle of science - i.e. to which ever school of thought you might subscribe.

Originally Posted by ahar

But I digress....

Yes. You do...

Originally Posted by ahar

I have never found any biblical justification for creationism - there is no context in Genesis, and it does not describe the mechanisms of creation.

No it doesn't mate, you're right - so called 'Creationism' was born of the Bible-belt Baptist-wallahs (how many strands?!) of the deep south in the US - an all too worryingly large number of whom have now found their way into the Bush cabinet and, with their Neo-Con brethren, continue to conduct world traffic.....no small bitter irony that the US Constitution proscribes a link between church and state! Oi vay...

The above Bible-belt wallahs decided (largely through being ignorant and pandering to the equally as under-developed masses in their immediate catchment area/congregation) to take the '7 Day Model' from Genesis and treat it literally. It is largely agreed (outside of Creationist circles) that Genesis is an analogy - with the implicit message behind it being that if God so wanted to derive all things known and unknown in 7 days, then He could.

I personally do not hold with the theory that God knocked the gaff together in a calendar week, then sat back with a brew, a fag and a copy of the latest John Grisham novel when he was done. The scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in the "it took a wee bit longer than a week" camp. That doesn't prove that God wasn't there (where ever that is) before Big Bang. Christians believe that God has always been 'here' and there (omnipresent and all that) and always will be (eternal) - regardless of the state of Man.

And who's to say or prove Man isn't God's latest comedic-experiment from his devine chemistry set? We could be the umpteenth-millionth such gig that The Big Guy knocked-up in his efforts to amuse himself? Can anyone truthfully say we arn't??

Is Man/Are we 'special' - in terms of have I seen any wombats, pandas, ants or other non-humano derivatives invent the internal combustion engine or find a cure for Small Pox, then yes, we are. Are we the pre-eminent race/species on the planet? In the areas we are in, I would say yes. Is that pre-eminence sometimes matched with an unparalleled ability for self-disctruction and that of other species, environments and habitats? Alas, absolutely.

Originally Posted by ahar

Remember that Genesis is fundamentally an ancient Jewish religious text, written by people making sense of the world around them.

Precisely! Even had they had the terminology and vocabulary for the geology and fossil-cataloguing we have today at their disposal, as with the periods of The Renaissance, The Medici, Caxton, Luther, Thomas More etc. it was only ever gonna be the clerics and courtiers who were the educated amongst the masses. Judea goat-herds were not known for their fluency in rock-strata or determining glacial moraine deposits. It therefore, with an ill-educated populace, made sense - in their eyes - to reduce everything to massively simplistic terms. And, after all, when you're a shepeard in Biblical times, are you gonna argue the toss with the man in the fancy threads from the Temple? Probably not. If he tells you that the gaff was tanned together in not much longer than a test match takes to provide two innings-a-piece, then who are you to argue?

Originally Posted by ahar

Can you imagine 3rd Century BC people understanding evolution or the geophysical processes that have scuplted the earth? I have always believed that science and religion are not mutally exclusive, in fact they complement each other.

Again, in full accord with all the above!

Originally Posted by ahar

The bible has to have common sense applied to it - if you think it should be taken literally in every case then have a flick through Deutoronomy and Leviticus. These were rules for living used by an ancient people, some are religious rules and some are practical rules, e.g. not weaving two different cloths into the same garment (other wise it will shrink at different rates when washed). No more jackets with silk linings for you!

Aye, ergo parables.

Precisely - even down to the eating of pig's meat (pork). In those days swinebeast were considered lower than whale-shit and filthy beasts and hence not eaten. They lay around in their own filth all day and ate all kinds of shit, so how could their meat be wholesome, nutricious or safe to eat? Or so the thinking went.

Of course today we now know diferent - pigs are actually one of the cleanest animals around and them covering themselves in shit was to cool themselves down in the heat of the Holy Land day.

Originally Posted by ahar

As for wider debates about religion and the existence of God, I'll keep out for now except to say that I go to Church and believe in God - in the end it's a matter of faith

Faith indeed. You've either got it or you haven't.

And I believe that there are scientists who believe in either God or a god: when Oppenheimer saw what he had done, his heart broke and he quoted:

" . . . I am become death, destroyer of worlds.
[Often quoted as: I am become death, shatterer of worlds.]
- after 1st nuclear explosion, citing the Bhagavad Gita (...Death, the shatterer of Worlds)"

And some of you won't have missed the overt irony of Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist, being incapable of explaining himself in even loosely scientific language when he came to expressing his feelings at witnessing the affects of what he'd invented/produced. He had to revert/convert to spiritual lanaguage to do his feelings justice - and he was never the same again.

Do I believe in God? Yes. I have to: I can't think of any other rational reason to explain the apparently randomly precise comedy which makes up our lives. And science just comes nowhere near explaining it.

[Garf]

Originally Posted by Mr T.

Do I believe in God? Yes. I have to: I can't think of any other rational reason to explain the apparently randomly precise comedy which makes up our lives. And science just comes nowhere near explaining it.

But surely this is why so many people believe. They feel a need to explain existence, or their own mortality, or infinity, or some concept which they struggle with or require explanation for.

For the record I used to be a believer, and visited Church on a weekly basis without fail. Things change.

[Ali_Mc]

I believe God created the world. As mentioned before in this thread, Science can go some way in explaining certain questions, but I believe there is a greater design. It is not only something I want to believe, but it is something I believe I believe. (get your head round that one!)

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by Garf

But surely this is why so many people believe. They feel a need to explain existence, or their own mortality, or infinity, or some concept which they struggle with or require explanation for.

There's certainly a grain of truth in your assertion.

Originally Posted by Garf

For the record I used to be a believer, and visited Church on a weekly basis without fail. Things change.

Is that last a scientific analysis, or a religious one?

Be interesting to talk about the extenuating, external and other pressures which brought themselves to bear and brought about the changes and over what period of time.

Take it easy mate.

[Janos]

Sorry - Ahar's right up there ^^^ when he says it's not a religious or not debate so I'll not try and turn it into one. Apologies.

Originally Posted by Mr T.

Be interesting to talk about the extenuating, external and other pressures which brought themselves to bear and brought about the changes and over what period of time.

Personally I was a Catholic (like the rest of my family) at an early age. As I got older I became less and less convinced of the existance a Christian God. At University I used to have huge theological debates when I got home from the pub with a fella a few rooms down from me. He was a physicist and a bit of an evangelical Christian. After about 8 months of this I became I dyed in the wool atheist and he is now a Vicar!

Debating the issue (and we had some great debates) killed off my faith but made his stronger. We both saw the light in our own ways...

Laters,
Janos

[chrisch]

OK, one last attempt to get back on topic (sorry Janos!).

The existance or non-existance of some type of supreme being is not the issue, it whether you accept evolution and that we therefore are just one of a number of ape species evolved from a common ancestor. Or that the world was "made" by the god of the old testament.

Since there is 600 million years of physical evidence to prove the former its a non-issue.

If you wish to believe in a god or god-like being that's fine. It's just not the one described in said book.

Chris

[Bantam]

Originally Posted by Ali_Mc

I believe God created the world. As mentioned before in this thread, Science can go some way in explaining certain questions, but I believe there is a greater design. It is not only something I want to believe, but it is something I believe I believe. (get your head round that one!)

Is it by sheer bad luck or by design that the distance between inhabited planets (we're not alone - we just don't know it yet) is so far that any communication would take such a long time that we'd end up never knowing if life does exist elsewhere? Just taking the fact that we're here (as are the other living things) means that there must be life in a similar form elsewhere. There's current limits however you look at it;
1: We can't travel faster than light (logically or physically)
2: The distance between places where life may exist is so great we would have to travel faster than light to get there (or fold space a. la. wormhole or something like that).
3: Because light travels so slowly even if our nearest inhabited planet could see us through a very powerful telescope, they'd see dinosaurs.

As said by Moray - we're hung up on an anthropomorphic (i.e. human like) view of god - this stems from the bible where in Genesis is says that we were made in god's image.

But God may not be what we think it is.

However, who is to say that god does or does not exist. Just because we don't have empirical proof doesn't mean there's not something there.

Also, an interesting point recently was made in a TV drama, and although it was a drama (and I'm paraphrasing), it's point was valid;

"We can unravel DNA, know pretty much all the secrets of life, and want to travel through space, yet we've huge issues on our planet which need sorting out and we put the fun stuff first beyond sorting out our own back yard. "