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Evolution Vs. Creationism


JesusFreakGS

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Okay, I am not trying to start a debate here. I will try my best not to argue if someone replies and disagrees with me. This is only something interesting I read in a book that I am sharing with you. Okay, here goes. It's called the Anthropological Arguement. I found it in the book Letters From A Skeptic by Dr. Gregory A. Boyd and Edward K. Boyd. This is the jist of it: We humans live in an environment that suits our basic needs. We are hungry, and there is food. We are thirsty, and there is water. We are tired, and there is the ability to sleep. The reason our needs are fulfilled is because whatever created us, whether it be evolution or God, understood those needs to be able to provide for them. Now, of course evolution or the big bang or nature itself would understand those needs, because nature has those needs also. We got that far. But that environment also has to be able to provide for our needs as far as our personhood goes. We are people: that means we have the ability to be happy, be sad, love, and to hate. We have the ability to form morals and ethics. Now, whatever created us would have to able to suit those needs also. Evolution and random natural occurrences don't have the ability to be happy, be sad, love, or to hate. They don't have morals or ethics. Therefore, they don't understand those needs. Only a personal, loving force could have created us. No random occurrence could have created us, because then we would be outrunning nature itself by having personhood. The effect cannot outrun the cause. What do you all think?

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We are hungry, and there is food. We are thirsty, and there is water. We are tired, and there is the ability to sleep. The reason our needs are fulfilled is because whatever created us, whether it be evolution or God, understood those needs to be able to provide for them.

The above is one of your statements.  My only problem with it is as follows.

 What place do you live that you think it is so easy as to just be hungry and someone would be fed?  I see alot of hungry people everyday.  I even see thirsty people everyday.  What of them?  Are they somehow excluded from these basic things because of something they have done?  Or do you even think that it is possible that life sometimes throws curve balls at certain people, to which they just cannot recover?  I would really like to know, because, it seems to me, that they are forgotten, even by such a holy person as yourself.  People die every day, from lack of the basic staples that we all need in order to live.  What are your thoughts on that?

        Reese  :-*

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Thanks for your response. When I made that statement, I was speaking generally. Look at our environment in a wide perspective. We are hungry, and there is food: I meant that we are biological life forms that need food to survive. The environment provides food: vegetation, fruits, animals, and grains. When I said "there is food" I meant just that... there is food in our environment for us to eat. I did not say "there is food for everyone." I merely meant that the environment has the capability to provide those things for us. I understand what you mean, and I just want to clear that up for you. :)

                      Adam

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Oh, and I did not forget about poverty in the world. I am very much aware of the fact that people go hungry every single day. I feel very sorry for them, as you all probably do also. Life didn't throw them a curve ball, it's just that any sort of reality is going to have poverty of some sorts... which is sad because, if one believes the Bible, then life would have been perfect if humans had made the choice to do good, not evil.

                                     Adam

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Ok, I understand, but also I must add, that I think that it is that life throws a curve ball, when you actually go out in the world and find out how hard it really is too just live, then you will realize that.  Not to be harsh with you at all, I am not, just the way it is.  A person can not help but to be simply born into the life of which they are born.  Among wars, or just an impoverished enviroment.  I don't really feel sorry for the people that don't have enough to eat.  I feel sorry for the people that feel sorry for them;  I think they deserve a certain level of respect, even more than the average person.  To be hungry, is probably the worst torture that anyone can go through, since, as you say, it is all something that we are born to do.

 I was raised Catholic, I have made that known before, and I found alot of flaws with any sort of 'organized' religion.  I would like to hope that there is a God out there, but, any God that I imagine them to be, would surely not care whether a person was born into a situation, or even found themselves in a situation that they couldn't rise above.  I have seen many people put atleast 10% or more into the church, every week.  Surely God would not want people to do that, just so their church was the fanciest on the block, or to be sure that the priest had freshly pressed silk robes to wear to each Mass.  My 'higher power' doesn't care if I am alone when I pray, and surely doesn't care if the homeless person next to me made some bad decisions.  We all do.

         Reese :-*

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Well I must say that you make a good point, Teresa. I am beginning to realize why feeling sorry for the people who are just in the wrong situation in life really isn't the only way to treat them. They do deserve much respect for having to go through that. And about "organized religion"... I understand that many religions out there put up a stereotypical, hypocritical picture of themselves by being formal and all that. But not all "religions" are like that. Christianity, for example, isn't a religion, it's a relationship. It's as simple as that, and there is no need for all that junk that you mentioned is part of the Catholic church. Now, I don't understand how the points you mentioned have anything to do with what I originally said. In my view, the Anthropoligical Arguement makes a good point about God's existence... now, it's up to you to decide whether or not you give him the love he deserves... maybe in your view a God shouldn't deserve anything from us because of the things that he lets happen... if that is the case, I urge you to find Letters From A Skeptic by Dr. Gregory A. Boyd and Edward K. Boyd... it has some info dealing with why an All-Powerful God would let bad tings happen and such. But, if any of you can, could you please respond to the points I made in the original thread? Thanks!  :)

                                  Adam

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That is very nice of you, to think of them as actual people, with feelings..  I am glad that you got my point.

 I am not quite sure if you were getting sassy with that post, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you weren't.  But as to loving God, and thinking that he deserves my love, you leave that up to me, you holy roller, you!! :-*

 Honestly, the way you described it too me, I can live with that, and I think you have a very good outlook on it.. I wish that more people would form their own opinions, I respect you for that.  You are very wise, to be but 14.  But, you shouldn't get so defensive about religion.  I get jumped all the time, because I have my own beliefs, and I certainly wasn't jumping you, sorry if I came across like so.  I allow everyone their own beliefs, and I expect the same in return.  Know where I am coming from?  Well take care.

         Reese

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Thank you for the compliments lol. Sorry if I seemed a bit defensive... I am really used to defending my faith against older people, and I guess I should try to lighten up lol. Well, all the best!  :)

          Adam

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Adam

You are walking on ice with this thread, and warned anything resembling a religious nature could provoke undesirable debates(ARGUMENTS), which doesn't belong in a forum like this, and could be considered offensive by others. But you stated: "The reason our needs are fulfilled is because whatever created us, whether it be evolution or God, understood those needs to be able to provide for them".

Perhaps humans, like animals, ADAPTED to their environment. Just a thought.

Homer[glow=color,strength,width]

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Adapting into something that not even Nature itself could be? That seems a little strange... the effect can't outrun the cause.

                       Adam

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Adam,

That is not what I meant. It's accepted by religious and non religious people that nature(jungle,deserts,forests,etc, plants and animals) were here before humans. So when humans arrived, and the debate whether it's creation or evolution is irrelevant with this, humans had to ADAPT to their respective environments. Those that didn't simply perished. As the Earth ages, it's environment changes, and as the environment changes, all that dwell on the Earth must either move to a more desirable location(prolonging the inevitable) or adapt to new environmental conditions. To not due this is to perish as a species. Nature is cruel, and only the strong and smart will survive. Take care Adam.

Homer[glow=color,strength,width]

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Consider the lilies of the field....one of my favorite biblical support verses!

The creation of ALL by ALL allows for ALL to exist.

Creation is change in motion...the body of a human is born, it dies, molecularly there are changes all the time in creation.  CHANGE IS CREATION IN MOTION. There is nothing bad, nothing good in the process...it just keeps on going...cause and effect, ebb/flow and so on.  Humans evolved and were genetically engineered to house a soul-entity and this is where, I believe, the confusion began.

Religion has for the most part slipped away from the universal pattern of the Creator and fallen into uses and abuses, political controls and laws that made by those who would use the spiritual quests of its followers for their own greed.

In many cases religion has nothing to do with God.  But, those who still see religion as a path to understanding their spirituality and ascension on the soul-level.  Understanding who we are as humans, animals who are part of the natural ever-changing scheme of things as well as soul-entities who are also evolving but on a path of ascension.

Think of it this way.  From the moment of conception and birth the human container is deteriorating, continuing on the molecular level of change...it is changing, but on a deteriorating level, while the soul-entity does not "change" per se, but ascends without the limitations of time, space or molecular changing.  It is essentially the energy of creation itself, a constant!

The soul-entity is truly birthed when its container, is mother--its birthing agent--dies.

Is this clearly stated?

-lori  :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I do not believe in creation, but that is because I am Athiest.  I do believe in evolution.  I think everything evolved from something.  I dont think that one day or six or whatever it was God pulled out a magic wand and poof there are humans and the poof there is land and poof there are animals.  That thought to me is quite rediculous.

Jamie

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Well, I typed this nice long reply to your post, but then I deleted it because I knew there is no need for it and I'd just get yelled at for it. I only ask one thing: How does your view of "everything has evolved from something else" stand up against the Anthropoligical Argument in my original thread?

                              Adam

                       

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How does it stand up??  Well the fact that I DONT BELIEVE IN GOD might be how.  If I dont beleive in something how can it be???  Why dont you answer that.  Instinct is also something we were evolved into having.  The fact that a person knows they are hungry and therefore they eat means absolutely nothing to me to prove that God made it that way. And what your saying about whatever created us must have morals and ethics just like us that also means if we look at it in your point of view that he is barbaric.  He allows there to be starving people all over the world and by him giving them the  hunger and thirst and letting there not be enough food or money he is torturing them.  Now that sure sounds like a good guy to me.  Can I be a follower please please please.  

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::sighs:: Once again, I began to type an answer to your points, but I realized that it wouldn't help. I could certainly answer your questions, but: Number one - No matter what I say, you'll keep on believing you are correct, which is very respectable. And Number Two: If I give answers now, you'll respond with a bunch of stuff and then I'll respond and it will be the same as what happened before... and that kind of thing doesn't belong in this forum. I am not backing out of a debate, because I would certainly be able to bring up some points against what you said, but I am merely stopping this right here and now. Don't think you've won, though. In the end, I think you will be unpleasently surprised at the out-come of this thing called life. Until then, God bless you.

                            Adam

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I think that is a good idea.  We will just be going back and forth and get nothing solved.   :P

I havent won either.  Your right.  Neither of us have.  But its not the right place to be yelling at each other about whose wrong and whose right.

Talk to you later. :)

Jamie

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Wow, I'm impressed Adam. I'm glad you found the most appealing way out of this debate. Don't be offended, it's just that I know the topic of religion you started not to long ago has been a very heated subject...and always will where ever we go.

  With regards to that thread without going off topic to much...creation vs evolution. I think I agree with the adapting theory. That we (humans)were put here after natural life started.Humans were not the first thing to hit this rock. Which means that WE had to adapt to the natural resources available and not the other way around.

Does this make sense...?

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I'm not saying NATURE had to adapt to US. WE of course had to adapt to IT. We have to use the resources Nature provides. But let's face it: Nature itself couldn't have told us what physical needs we have. So when we came into existence, we had certain needs in order to survive: We need food, water, warmth, etc... I'm not saying that Nature gave us what we needed so we could survive, I'm saying that the only reason we could be surviving right now is if Nature provided the necessary resources for us. The same should apply to our personal needs. Right now, we're surviving partly because we have a substantial amount of love and morals. If we had no love or morals among our human society, we'd all be dead in a matter of years I think. So we're surviving on our personhood as well as our food, water, and resources. We are here right now, surviving on the things mentioned, and that could only be so if something was providing those things for us. Does Nature have the ability to love or hate, to have morals or ethics? I don't believe so. That implies that there has to be something else giving us those parts of the human psyche. There has to be something else, something with personal characteristics, in order for us to be here right now. Now, I can't rule out the CONCEPT of Evolution...: for all I know, that could have been God's way of creating us. But the general theory of Evolution doesn't make sense to me. Please respond.

                           Adam

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I know you are going to dread me responding to this, but I just have to.

 Does Nature have the ability to love or hate, to have morals or ethics?

 That is something that you wrote, and I would like to respond to this first.

 NATURE, too me, is all things natural.  It is everything living and breathing, and yet everything that does not.  I know of alot of different spiritual practices that base all they think around, nature.  It gives life, and yet takes it.  Why can't things be just that simple?  Why does it have to be that things all have a clear and concise plan for being?  

 You know, I also noticed that you said to Jamie, that you had to stop the debate because she would continue thinking she was correct.  Would you not do the same?  Are you correct, because you have majority vote on the subject?  I don't think so.  If you want to be allowed your opinion about religion or anything else, then you have to allow the same to other people.  Do you think 'GOD' would somehow send Jamie to a fiery etenity because she chose to think outside of the box?  And, do you ever think that maybe you need to do some research on the origins of Religion?  I have, and in many cultures that was their very first Government.  Ages and ages ago, people rode the heels of religions INSTEAD of Government.  So don't you think it possible for the true meaning of anything that is that old, to get lost in the mix or forgotten?  I think shame on you!  Shame on you for forcing your views on anyone then when they reject it, you damn them to an eternal life of sufferage.  Which, that is what you are doing, by even thinking for a minute that there is hell to pay for forming your own thoughts.  I don't think Jamie is going to be sorry for anything.  My 'GOD' would respect anyone that questions anything that doesn't feel right.

 How, in a world where religion is the MOST corrupt force, can you trust anything to be right or wrong?  Just because someone makes you believe that things are right and wrong, doesn't mean that behind their closed doors, they aren't partaking in the same carnal sins.  We all have skeletons in our closets, some just hide them better than others'.

My point being, maybe everybody is wrong, who really knows, right?

 Peace,

     Reese  :-*

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Since this is primarily just a creation vs evolution, one can keep the religious/non-religious contents at bay for a while.

In a previous thread(that is now locked), I have stated hard evidense, all of which are scientific evidense in the creation theory. That is not to say that I have proved any kind of religious God, just that all existense has had some sort of beginning, or creation. As I previously stated, the ones that can't understand this CHOOSE to not understand because it goes against whats been ingrained in their thought process. As far as the Charles Darwin theory goes:

If several species are capable of surviving on Earth, is it proper to say that anything is acting on these species? Does rain act on the corn to cause it to grow, or is the corn (the genome) merely responding to one of many effects which are necessary for it to survive. Darwin and Darwinists would have you believe that the rain specifically occurs for the purpose of selecting the corn; if this is so, what of the vast majority of the water which runs away to the ocean? Under normal use of language and logic, we are speaking of cause and effect. What is the cause of the survival?

The cause of survival is the fact that the genome, which is the only thing capable of acting, either does or does not have the potential, or capability to survive, under the conditions. One of Darwin's fallacies is in giving natural selection a capability for acting and thus treating it as a cause rather than an effect which is all that it can be. This is a mistake, a cause/effect reversal. Darwin has placed the cart before the horse. It must be concluded that "evolution" is caused and directed by a biological characteristic of which we are currently ignorant. Mankind does not know a cause of evolution.

Of course it follows from this understanding of the logic involved in the process,  that natural selection can not be the cause of evolution, as even eminent Darwinists believe. In like manner, natural selection cannot be the cause of the origin of species. A further reading of Alfred Russel Wallace (Darwin's compatriot in his theory of evolution) would be also useful, as Wallace believed the true cause of evolution was unknown and was, in effect, Created.

It must be concluded that the real "cause" of evolution, would be the mechanism which provides the change in the genome from which the "selection" is made. Darwin's theory assumes that infinite variability is present in the genome, and further that an "effect" (natural selection, or survival of the fittest) can somehow enhance and develop a wholly new characteristic. And while great strides have been made in biological science, there is still no theory which explains, much less proves, the phenomenon of what is called evolution.

Darwin's theory of Evolution contains 2 defects, either of which is fatal to the theme:

1) A claim that the "origin of species" is caused by "natural selection" is a fallacy.

2) The cause of variation in a species cannot be determined, or initiated, by an effect.

As might be expected, a fatally flawed theory does not work.

Homer[glow=color,strength,width]

Edited by Homer
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Once again, I have been victim to the stereotypical views on "Religion". I have tried to explain my stance on this whole thing, but no one has acknowledged it whatsoever. It's not fair to me that you automatically think you know all my beliefs and everything. You immediately think of me as just another one of those religious hypocrites. You made LOTS of statements in your post that I REALLY should clarify. But it would be no use. I'm not going to try it anymore, because we all obviously have VERY different views on the underlying nature of reality. Many people here choose to believe that, overall, Humans are basically allowed freedom in EVERYTHING, and that there are no consequences in life. I, on the other hand, choose not to fall victim to childish naivete. You belive we were created by Nature and random chance: Nature is both good and bad - it gives us beauty and inspiration, but it also gives us disasters and death. If you accept that, why is it so hard to believe in a Creator that allows both good AND evil? Is it because God is a personal being, and allowing evil is just wrong? In that case, the only reason there is evil is because God gave us free choice. There were two choices: MAKE us be good little robots that do whatever he wants us to do, or give us freedom to do what we want, which includes bad things also. You ask, "Why would a God allow suffering and punishment?" And I say, "What's the difference between that and your creator, Nature?" (That's a rhetorical question by the way) Now, I am done talking about Religion in this forum. I had started these threads before, and now I feel sorry that I did. I've alredy been stamped off as a Religious person, despite my numerous attempts to explain that I am not Religious, and that I really try not to be judgemental. Sorry if I WAS judgemental of any of you. All the best!

                           Adam

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Somewhere in the forum, where it was understandable you all were talking about adaptation, well, humans have never adapted to nature, we are MAKING nature. Do you call building cities adaptation? We are making nature so that we can live the easiast way (it doesn't works everywhere). Since the first humans walked on Earth, they started to change it, a lot of animals do the same. The build homes, and are changing nature, the humans have such a big influence on Earth's nature that we are not changing it locally, like animals, but we are changing it globally, we are even changing space! There is no adaptation, we MAKE nature.

Odin Supreme  8)

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