sororitygurl wrote:
“actually evolutionism doesn't deny the existance of a supreme being! it
actually says something had to give everything a push.”

Exactly

rambill wote:
“still waiting for just one piece of evidence that disproves
creationism.
it dont exist, apparantly.... hmmmmmm
abra is long winded if nothing else.”

There are many differnet ideas of creationism. Evolution and
creationism can coexist peacefully depending on how the creationists
believes.

Like Sororitygurl said, evolution does not disprove the existence of a
god.

Most ideas of ‘creationism’ are religious ideas based on pure faith.
There’s nothing to disprove. You either believe it or you don’t. It’s
no differnet than something like Santa Claus. Can you disprove that
Santa Claus exists?

Now, if your own version of creationism conflicts with the idea of
evolution. Then I guess you have a real problem. Evolutionists don’t
need to disprove your idea of creationism. All they need to do is show
that evolution has occurred and they have already done about as
convincingly as any rational person should require.

So while evolution may be a problem for you, your idea of creationism is
not a problem for them.

In short, I have absolutely no motivation or desire to disprove your
belief in Santa Claus or anything else that you might like to believe on
pure faith.

I will however, offer my support to the growth of intellectual
enlightenment to anyone who is genuinely interested in better
understanding the nature of the real world we live in.

I found something in the philosophy of Emmanuel Kant that might be a
little help here.



Kant asserted that, because of the limitations of reason, no one could
really know if there is a God and an afterlife. But, then again, he
added, no one could really know that there was not a God and an
afterlife. For the sake of society and morality, Kant asserted, people
are reasonably justified in believing in them, even though they could
never know for sure whether they are real or not. Kant explained: "All
the preparations of reason, therefore, in what may be called pure
philosophy, are in reality directed to those three problems only (God,
Soul, Freedom). These themselves, however, have a still further object,
namely, to know what ought to be done, if the will is free, if there is
a God, and if there is a future world. As this concerns our actions with
reference to the highest aims of life, we see that the ultimate
intention of nature in her wise provision was really, in the
constitution of our reason, directed to moral interests only." The sense
of an enlightened approach and the critical method required that "If one
cannot prove that a thing is, he may try to prove that it is not. And if
he succeeds in doing neither (as often occurs), he may still ask whether
it is in his interest to accept one or the other of the alternatives
hypothetically, from the theoretical or the practical point of view.
…Hence the question no longer is as to whether perpetual peace is a real
thing or not a real thing, or as to whether we may not be deceiving
ourselves when we adopt the former alternative, but we must act on the
supposition of its being real." The presupposition of God, soul, and
freedom was then a practical concern, for "Morality, by itself,
constitutes a system, but happiness does not, unless it is distributed
in exact proportion to morality. This, however, is possible in an
intelligible world only under a wise author and ruler. Reason compels us
to admit such a ruler, together with life in such a world, which we must
consider as future life, or else all moral laws are to be considered as
idle dreams… ."

the problem isn't that evolutionism says there isn't a god or a
higher being, the problem is that christians refuse to accept it
because the bible doesn't say that is how it happened, however, if you
choose to believe 1 man and 1 woman had 2 sons, and then some how we all
got here thats your choice, but just know.. thats mean were all
imbreeds! so no more making fun of west virginia! lol

Wow.


Just....Wow.

Where to begin...ok. First of all, science simply explains how, and
religion explains why. Two different answers to two different questions,
so comparisons of validity tend towards the pointless.

What is not pointless is how scientific theory answers those questions.
Science, contrary to the popular belief expressed in this forum, is not
a cataloging of what we know, but rather of what we don't know. By
carefully describing the limits of our ignorance, we can understand and
pursue the threads of what we "know"/understand. Someone mentioned a
philosopher earlier, and philosophy/logic quite adequately describes
this idea. You can never PROVE anything, you can only support it.
However, it only takes one thing to DISPROVE anything.

So as far as the validity of Darwinism, it is a long-standing theory
that adequately describes how we exist physiologically, socially, and
geographically on this ball of dirt and H20 called Earth. Could there be
aspects which are incorrect? Sure. Is it more logical to believe that we
instantly *appeared*, rather than evolved over billions of years...I
don't think so. There IS a significant amount of supporting evidence,
from a number of scientific disciplines. Current genetic science
invalidates the idea of us having a common incestuous pair of
ancestors...and the odds of appearing are far worse than the odds of us
being a statistical anomaly.

Quoting famous people, especially out of context, does not give your
arguments actual credibility. Scientists are CONSTANTLY reevaluating
current theories, refining them, making the definitions more exact. To
use a few isolated arguments to support your disbelief of a generally
accepted scientific theory is to give credence to the likes of the
Flat-Earth Society and DDT opposers.

just to play devils advocate its a only a theory... we have no correct
answer for it so basically its okay everyone you can believe what you
want, because neither one is proven!

Sororitygurl wrote:
“just to play devils advocate its a only a theory...”

But this isn’t true. It’s not just ‘only a theory’. If that were the
case it wouldn’t be a scientific theory, it would merely be a
philosophical theory – a guess.

The scientific theory of evolution is not just a guess. There exist
huge amounts of observational evidence that support it. So it’s not
‘only a theory’

That’s simply not true.

I might point out that they still call Special Relativity a ‘theory’,
but the predictions of Special Relativity have been observationally
observed to actually occur in the universe. Time really dose dilate,
etc. These observations have been experimentally observed to actually
occur. Yet they still refer to it as the ‘theory’ of Relativity. They
will never call it the ‘law’ of Relativity. Thought many physicist
argue that it should be called a ‘law’. It’s basically been confirmed
in its predictions.

So don’t take the word ‘theory’ to mean that it’s just a guess. That’s
far from the truth. It’s a very well substantiated theory.

In fact, I would like to address something that Poet said on this same
issue:

Poetnartist wrote:
“Evolution, as it's known today, is just not possible. There's facts
missing. Important ones. And without them, the theory is so incomplete
that it's an insult to science to call it a theory.”

This is totally incorrect and untrue.

Poet seems to think that the ‘theory of evolution’ is nothing more than
a collection of explanations of how each and every little tiny feature
of everything evolved.

That is not the basis of the theory at all. It’s totally unnecessary to
have a complete explanation of how every little individual feature of
every living organism ever evolved. I seriously doubt that humans will
ever know every detail about precisely how every little thing evolved.

But that’s not important to the theory. You don’t ‘prove’ the theory
of evolution by just collecting more and more explanations of how
individual traits could have evolved. In fact, you ‘prove’ the theory
at all. You don’t need to ‘prove’ it. All you need to show is that it
is overwhelmingly compelling and there is no evidence why it can’t be
true.

The real compelling ‘evidence’ for evolution theory doesn’t lie in the
precise explanations of how individual things evolved but rather in the
explanation of how they *could* evolve via genetics and DNA. And by the
overwhelming fossil records that life continually and progressively
become more complex over the eons. That’s has basically been ‘proven’
by the observational evidence in the fossils themselves.

The observational evidence shows that the further back in time we look
the more primitive the life forms are in the fossilized record. If
that’s not compelling evidence that evolution has definitely occurred I
don’t know what is.

Couple that with our understanding of how DNA and genetics works and we
have a *complete* theory of evolution. So to say that evolution theory
is incomplete is to simply display a complete misunderstand of the
fundamental basics of the theory. It’s about as *complete* as a
scientific theory can be.

In fact, there is much more scientific evidence that supports the theory
of evolution. There are observations made in the field of chemistry
that explain why and how molecules naturally come together to form
primitive ‘cells’ and how natural processes like osmosis, would
naturally change the chemical make up of the solutions within those tiny
orbs. I mean the evidence for evolution is just never-ending and
continues to accumulate. The theory is being supported more and more
with each passing day, and no observational evidence has yet
contradicted it. Poet’s uneducated inability to understand it hardly
qualities as contradicting evidence. And that’s not intended as a
personal insult. It’s perfectly clear that Poet is not well educated on
the theory.

Also, there is no competing theory that agrees with the observed
evidence. Creationism isn’t a competing ‘theory’ to begin with, and
even if it were, it doesn’t agree with the observed evidence and fossil
records, at least the Christian dogma version doesn’t. This is why
Christians are so anti-evolution.

But most of them are fanatical radicals who not only argue against
‘evolution theory’, but they will even argue against the observational
evidence! Many of them won’t even accept that fossils exist, or they
will argue that God put them their to fool us, etc.

In short, they will do ANYTHING to salvage their superstitious dogma
over accepting observational reality.

Sounds as bad as people who claim that the earth is still flat and that
we never went to the moon, etc.

Fanatical radicals. Choosing dogmatic superstition over observed
reality.

The theory of evolution is not ‘just a theory’, it’s a mountain of
observed fossil records and scientific explanations based on our
intellectual understanding of how DNA and genetics.

To say that it’s ‘just a theory’ implies that some philosophers just
made it up as a wild guess.

It’s a well-established, complete, and sound explanation of
well-understood biological principles and observational fossil records.

Sure, every little detail of precisely how every little thing has
exactly evolved has not been fully explained. But that doesn’t imply
that the theory itself is ‘incomplete’. Not at all. There are no major
roadblocks to discovering all the precise little explanations for every
little thing that ever evolved. The only thing that would damage the
theory is if something absolutely denied it. But thus far nothing has
been found that even remotely denies it. And in light of the fossil
record, it’s highly unlikely that anything will come along to deny it.
The fossil records aren’t going to suddenly all disappear. I mean,
anything that could possibly toss a wrench into the theory would still
not deny the fossil records that show that life became progressively
more complex over eons of time. That record is here to stay.

I mean, when people talk about the theory not being ‘proven’ what
exactly do they need as ‘proof’.

To me the biggest irony of all, is that the people who scream the
loudest about wanting ‘proof’ are the people who argue against evolution
theory based on unsubstantiated dogma that they will even admit
themselves had absolutely no proof at all and must be accepted on blind
faith.

Why do they demand so much ‘proof’ from modern intellectual discovery,
and so little proof from ancient superstitions? There’s something
really wrong with this picture.

Well said Abra! While I don't always agree with what you have to say, I
must give credit where credit is due. While not everyone can meet our
standards, we should expect them to be consistent in their
value-systems. What's good for the goose is good for the gander and all
that.

If we evolved from apes, then why are apes still apes? Even Darwin said
it was only a theory on his deathbed.

Prime mover effect is the best ideology. Things move because something
else moved first. The wind blows, the leaf falls from the tree.. so on
and so forth. What put that first grain of dust into the void to make
what we are today? It could not have just magically appeared.

Good thread.

Have you ever really LOOKED at some people? Who's to say that while a
percentage of the population evolved, another percentage didn't. Keep in
mind that Darwinism doesn't exclude the non-evolution of a species, it
just explains how other species would have likely evolved.

Fair enough Tomokun

I just don't see how people who are still living in deserts or a tribe
in the rainforest still appear to look human. I have yet to see a human
being that looked "ape-ish". Wether or not times have evolved with
technology, nature still continues to take its course. Creationism has a
stronger stand with me than evolutionism. Just my thoughts anyway.

first of all one who took up a page of the forum, you can type as much
as you like for as long as you like. Evolutionism is not a definite.. it
is a THEORY there is reason it is called a a THEORY because we cannot
prove for sure, yes there have been with darwin observing the finiches
some observations and data taken about short term evolutions but there
is no way that we can stay around long enough to observe how it actually
happens. Evolution has taken years and years, and for some of you we
did not evolve from monkeys, we evolved from a common ancestor!!! but
rest assure it is not exact and i would suggest that before you spout
off like that you take a look or even for example call up a local
professor at a university!

and let me just say i don't appreciate how some people in this part of
the forum are making incorrect judgements against others in the forum,
you have no idea how " blind " they are, because you are wrong... to
suggest a theory is the truth, let me quote from elizabeth fiorenza "
what you say depends upon where you stand" and " truth is constructed"
that stands true for every person in this room every thing that you have
in your head has been told to you, without being told about 2 plus 2,
and whatever god you choose to believe in etc, you probably wouldn't
have known it so respect others in knowing that we all have a different
of opinions because no one stands in the same spot!

You'll have to pardon me, I've been expressing my American
freedom to destroy my body with alcoholic chemicals

I'm not talking about people looking ape-ish, however, there are people
with skulls similar to that of some ancestors. Also, it might be more
appropriate to say that some apes look man-ish. Coco the gorilla who was
taught American sign language is able to communicate in this unique
language with some 6k+ words. Impressive for a human, even more
impressive for a "lower species." While it doesn't talk about animals
having anything in common with humans, what is interesting is that Coco
didn't identify with other gorillas. She referred to these "mute"
brothers and sisters as animals, because they were incapable of "higher"
communication. She actually identified herself with her human
handlers...which seems to point out that maybe the difference between us
and "dumb" animals is just our ability to communicate. Considering that
they often make more of an effort to understand us than we do them, I
have a hard time convincing myself that we are necessarily superior.
Maybe we're just different?

was that directed at me sorority girl? Just curious?

roll the rock up the hill let it roll down,roll the rock up the hill let
it roll down,roll the rock up the hill let it roll down, roll the rock
up the hill let it roll down, roll the rock up the hill let it roll
down,roll the rock up the hill let it roll down,roll the rock up the
hill let it roll down, roll the rock up the hill let it roll
down,Sisyphus new all the answers.roll the rock up the hill let it roll
down,........... i hope this topic never never ends im so
unenlightend box on reguardless

no not you trice

Ok, then who?

Surley not the incredible, edible Tomo?

dont ask me im still unenlightened

OK, I have a question here. For you people who believe in evolution
over creation...What do you think happens when you die? Just curious as
to whether you even believe in an after life. Do you think that your
"being" just rots away like some dead animal beside a road and that's
the end of it? Really curious as to your thoughts about this.