DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum CREATION

I am not religious.

If this is your belief, then I'm fine. I don't like talking politics/religion because it almost always leads to conflict with me. So, let's just leave it at:

"More power to you."

If you get my meaning

QUOTE-The new testament can be taken much more literally, because the gospel portion of it is words straight from Jesus. (Hence why it's called "gospel") ... QUOTE

So if that's the case, do you take the Virgin Birth, Diety of Christ, and Ressurection literally. If you believe these, what makes creation so hard?



Quote And the second problem with taking all things literally ... is anybody can interpret the Bible anyway they want.Quote

I already said I don't take everything in the Bible literally, but more to the point, I think that interpreting things symbolically opens up more possible interpretations than interpreting them literally. For example, when it says God created the stars, we could interpret that symbolically for heavenly bodies, angels, other gods, (eek!), even the nation of Israel, ( the sun, moon, and stars are used to signify Israel in both Genesis and Revelation, obviously symbolic because one was the content of a dream, and one was found in the apocalyptic book of Revelation, which is identified by the author himself as a book of symbols) etc.

We could even say the creation of the earth symbolizes the creation of non- Jewish races, and the creation of the sun, moon and stars refers to the creation of Israel. ( I know in context of Genesis 1 this is obsurd, but my point is that symbolizing things create more interpretations than taking them literally.

If I speak literally, I mean exactly what I say and there is no hidden meaning. Most doctrinal differences in christianity has occurred because of symbolizing the Bible. Symbolism often has caused great confusion. The key is knowing which passages are literal and which are symbolic. I believe the Bible is literal, unless the type of literature is obviously poetic or figurative, ( Poetry and Apocalypse) , or unless it is clearly identified as symbolic by the speaker. ( Jesus' Parables.) Genesis is clearly a historical book, and the creation account is not identified by the writer as a parable.

QUOTE- What if you believe it was created randomly by a higher power who doesn't watch over us, and didn't ever give our creation more thought than we give the snot we blow from our nose? QUOTE

Sometimes we feel God doesnt care because of the pain we experience in life. That's because we're looking at life from a human perspective, not God's.
If we could see God's purposes we would stand in awe. The Bible compares the suffering of this world to childbirth. I'm not a woman, but I heard that Childbirth is very painful. But in the end, it brings a beautiful child into the world. Romans 8 says that all creation is experiencing birth pangs, but will soon be liberated to the glorious freedom from death and decay.

Whether the earth is eternal, Billions of years, or thousands of years old, this present creation will one day pass away, and there will be a new creation free from sorrow, pain, death, and sin. We live a very short life, but God has a life of endless duration planned for us. Paul said that the sufferings of the present world are not even worthy to be compared to what God has planned for those who love Him. I dont mind suffering for a few years if I can live with God forever.

A few years ago my wife had a miscarriage. What a sorrow that my son died before birth. I will say like David, He cannot come back to me, but I can go to him, because I believe that all innocents automatically go to heaven. Does it take the sorrow away? No, but I do have something to look forward to, for one day I will see him. The soul and spirit are eternal, so we must focus on spiritual things to have any real joy in this world. God Loves Us

Quote- Is it possible to prove scientifically that the universe was created by entirely natural causes?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Quote-Entirely? No. And the Theory of Evolution doesn't even address that question. Merely what we have observed since the first evidence of life 3.5 billion years ago.

I do not claim to be a scientist, and as I've already stated, my goal is not to prove creation or disprove evolution. I do not claim to be smart enough to do either one. The point I am trying to make is two-fold-

One: It cannot be scientifically proven that the world was made by entirely natural causes.

Two; The existence of God and Creation cannot be disproved scientifically either. There is no conclusive proof either way. You may have perceived evidence, but science has been wrong before, and it has often come to wrong conclusions. If we can agree that the way the world was created, (whether by naturalism or supernaturalism), and the existence of God, cannot be conclusively and scientifically proven, then we are in agreement. I choose faith in God over absolute faith in science which is fallible and subject to change.

Thank you for the link. I will read it, and I will review the other posts, but God is as real to me as the physical universe that I see.

Written with Respect and esteem.

QUOTE- The cell does what it's DNA tells it to and nothing more. Quote

DNA- The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. The order, or sequence, of these bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences

Question- If you put a chimpanzee on a typewriter, how many billions of years would it take for him to accidentally type a literary classic.

If I spilled a box of Alphabets, how many times would I have to spill it to form a beautiful poem?

Doesnt it stand to reason that an intelligent design must be made by an intelligent mind?

I find Georges Lemaitre (Priest and Mathematician) quite interesting.


http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0022.html

'A Day Without Yesterday': Georges Lemaitre & the Big Bang
MARK MIDBON

In January 1933, the Belgian mathematician and Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre traveled with Albert Einstein to California for a series of seminars. After the Belgian detailed his Big Bang theory, Einstein stood up applauded, and said, “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened.”

Fr. Georges Lemaitre & Albert Einstein
In the winter of 1998, two separate teams of astronomers in Berkeley, California, made a similar, startling discovery. They were both observing supernovae -- exploding stars visible over great distances -- to see how fast the universe is expanding. In accordance with prevailing scientific wisdom, the astronomers expected to find the rate of expansion to be decreasing, Instead they found it to be increasing -- a discovery which has since "shaken astronomy to its core" (Astronomy, October 1999).

This discovery would have come as no surprise to Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966), a Belgian mathematician and Catholic priest who developed the theory of the Big Bang. Lemaitre described the beginning of the universe as a burst of fireworks, comparing galaxies to the burning embers spreading out in a growing sphere from the center of the burst. He believed this burst of fireworks was the beginning of time, taking place on "a day without yesterday."

After decades of struggle, other scientists came to accept the Big Bang as fact. But while most scientists -- including the mathematician Stephen Hawking -- predicted that gravity would eventually slow down the expansion of the universe and make the universe fall back toward its center, Lemaitre believed that the universe would keep expanding. He argued that the Big Bang was a unique event, while other scientists believed that the universe would shrink to the point of another Big Bang, and so on. The observations made in Berkeley supported Lemaitre's contention that the Big Bang was in fact "a day without yesterday."

When Georges Lemaitre was born in Charleroi, Belgium, most scientists thought that the universe was infinite in age and constant in its general appearance. The work of Isaac Newton and James C. Maxwell suggested an eternal universe. When Albert Einstein first published his theory of relativity in 1916, it seemed to confirm that the universe had gone on forever, stable and unchanging.

Lemaitre began his own scientific career at the College of Engineering in Louvain in 1913. He was forced to leave after a year, however, to serve in the Belgian artillery during World War I. When the war was over, he entered Maison Saint Rombaut, a seminary of the Archdiocese of Malines, where, in his leisure time, he read mathematics and science. After his ordination in 1923, Lemaitre studied math and science at Cambridge University, where one of his professors, Arthur Eddington, was the director of the observatory,

For his research at Cambridge, Lemaitre reviewed the general theory of relativity. As with Einstein's calculations ten years earlier, Lemaitre's calculations showed that the universe had to be either shrinking or expanding. But while Einstein imagined an unknown force -- a cosmological constant -- which kept the world stable, Lemaitre decided that the universe was expanding. He came to this conclusion after observing the reddish glow, known as a red shift, surrounding objects outside of our galaxy. If interpreted as a Doppler effect, this shift in color meant that the galaxies were moving away from us. Lemaitre published his calculations and his reasoning in Annales de la Societe scientifique de Bruxelles in 1927. Few people took notice. That same year he talked with Einstein in Brussels, but the latter, unimpressed, said, "Your calculations are correct, but your grasp of physics is abominable."

It was Einstein's own grasp of physics, however, that soon came under fire. In 1929 Edwin Hubble's systematic observations of other galaxies confirmed the red shift. In England the Royal Astronomical Society gathered to consider this seeming contradiction between visual observation and the theory of relativity. Sir Arthur Eddington volunteered to work out a solution. When Lemaitre read of these proceedings, he sent Eddington a copy of his 1927 paper. The British astronomer realized that Lemaitre had bridged the gap between observation and theory. At Eddington's suggestion, the Royal Astronomical Society published an English translation of Lemaitre's paper in its Monthly Notices of March 1931.

In January 1933, both Lemaitre and Einstein traveled to California for a series of seminars. After the Belgian detailed his theory, Einstein stood up, applauded, and said, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."

Most scientists who read Lemaitre's paper accepted that the universe was expanding, at least in the present era, but they resisted the implication that the universe had a beginning. They were used to the idea that time had gone on forever. It seemed illogical that infinite millions of years had passed before the universe came into existence. Eddington himself wrote in the English journal Nature that the notion of a beginning of the world was "repugnant."

The Belgian priest responded to Eddington with a letter published in Nature on May 9, 1931. Lemaitre suggested that the world had a definite beginning in which all its matter and energy were concentrated at one point:

If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time.

In January 1933, both Lemaitre and Einstein traveled to California for a series of seminars. After the Belgian detailed his theory, Einstein stood up, applauded, and said, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened." Duncan Aikman covered these seminars for the New York Times Magazine. An article about Lemaitre appeared on February 19, 1933, and featured a large photo of Einstein and Lemaitre standing side by side. The caption read, "They have a profound respect and admiration for each other."

For his work, Lemaitre was inducted as a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium. An international commission awarded him the Francqui Prize. The archbishop of Malines, Cardinal Josef Van Roey, made Lemaitre a canon of the cathedral in 1935. The next year Pope Pius XI inducted Lemaitre into the Pontifical Academy of Science.

Despite this high praise, there were some problems with Lemaitre's theory. For one, Lemaitre's calculated rate of expansion did not work out. If the universe was expanding at a steady rate, the time it had taken to cover its radius was too short to allow for the formation of the stars and planets. Lemaitre solved this problem by expropriating Einstein's cosmological constant. Where Einstein had used it in an attempt to keep the universe at a steady size, Lemaitre used it to speed up the expansion of the universe over time.

Einstein did not take kindly to Lemaitre's use of the cosmological constant. He regarded the constant as the worst mistake of his career, and he was upset by Lemaitre's use of his super-galactic fudge factor.

After Arthur Eddington died in 1944, Cambridge University became a center of opposition to Lemaitre's theory of the Big Bang. In fact, it was Fred Hoyle, an astronomer at Cambridge, who sarcastically coined the term "Big Bang." Hoyle and others favored an approach to the history of the universe known as the "Steady State" in which hydrogen atoms were continuously created and gradually coalesced into gas clouds, which then formed stars.

But in 1964 there was a significant breakthrough that confirmed some of Lemaitre's theories. Workers at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey were tinkering with a radio telescope when they discovered a frustrating kind of microwave interference. It was equally strong whether they pointed their telescope at the center of the galaxy or in the opposite direction. What was more, it always had the same wavelength and it always conveyed the same source temperature. This accidental discovery required the passage of several months for its importance to sink in. Eventually, it won Arno Penzias the Nobel Prize in physics. This microwave interference came to be recognized as cosmic background radiation, a remnant of the Big Bang. Lemaitre received the good news while recovering from a heart attack in the Hospital Saint Pierre at the University of Louvain. He died in Louvain in 1966, at the age of seventy-one.

After his death, a consensus built in favor of Lemaitre's burst of fireworks. But doubts did persist: Did this event really happen on a day without yesterday? Perhaps gravity could provide an alternative explanation. Some theorized that gravity would slow down the expansion of the universe and make it fall back toward its center, where there would be a Big Crunch and another Big Bang. The Big Bang, therefore, was not a unique event which marked the beginning of time but only part of an infinite sequence of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.

When word of the 1998 Berkeley discovery that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate first reached Stephen Hawking, he said it was too preliminary to be taken seriously. Later, he changed his mind. "I have now had more time to consider the observations, and they look quite good," he told Astronomy magazine (October 1999). "This led me to reconsider my theoretical prejudices."

Hawking was actually being modest. In the face of the scientific turmoil caused by the supernovae results, he has adapted very quickly. But the phrase "theoretical prejudices" makes one think of the attitudes that hampered scientists seventy years ago. It took a mathematician who also happened to be a Catholic priest to look at the evidence with an open mind and create a model that worked.

Is there a paradox in this situation? Lemaitre did not think so. Duncan Aikman of the New York Times spotlighted Lemaitre's view in 1933: "'There is no conflict between religion and science,' Lemaitre has been telling audiences over and over again in this country ....His view is interesting and important not because he is a Catholic priest, not because he is one of the leading mathematical physicists of our time, but because he is both."

This is why I wrote this story. All this effort all of you have spent on whether it is literal or is science is more important. The whole point is that what is REALLY important is WHY we are here. You've all spent so much time and have not really talked about what is truly important, the morals and values inside the stories of creation.

And we now know that the universe is expanding rapidly, about 74.2 kilometers per second per mega parsec. (IE fast)

Are you saying that Genetic mutations and natural selection caused simple life forms to develop into higher lifeforms?

Quote- ToE does not state that life sprang forth to look like some early bacteria even, but got it's start as something less...

Quote- Evolution as we understand it doesn't occur in leaps and bounds or all at once, but slowly, needing hundreds of thousands of years for advanced animals with small changes in gene frequencies in a population and maybe some random mutation to make a completely new species.

How did you get from something less than a bacteria to an advanced animal? Mutations and natural selection? And where did the little bacteria come from? The evidence that you cited, are you saying that that is scientific evidence that life sprang spontaneosly from non living matter? Where did the matter come from? And what caused the Bang? Evolution can not even begin to answer the question of the origin of life or even the origin of matter and energy. Can eternal matter be proven scientifically.

And what is evolutions answer to the purpose of life? If there is no God, no life after death, nothing but mindless matter driven by blind chance, we are most miserable. I live, I love, I dream, then I die, the people I love die, and everything Ive worked for decays and passes away. No wonder so many people feel hopeless and nihilistic. No, my friend, life is much better than that.

Obviously you are very intelligent and I commend you, but Tenn was right. How we got here is not the most important thing, the important thing is why we are here, and the reason we are here is to know the one who created us, to love Him and be loved by Him. I never set out to prove creation, my point has always been that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to disprove the literal truth of the Bible. If you follow the threads of my posts you will see this is largely true, though several times I did allow myself to be sidetracked. With that I will end my part in this discussion.

Peace to you.

Quote:

---

How did you get from something less than a bacteria to an advanced animal? Mutations and natural selection?

---

Yes, among other phenomenon like founder effect, genetic drift, and niche creation. I encourage you to rent an evolution text book from the library and read about it. It's only an affront to belief if you put it there.

Quote:

---

The evidence that you cited, are you saying that that is scientific evidence that life sprang spontaneosly from non living matter?

---

Yes, but i guess it depends on your definition of life. Again, this is on my blog, so read there if you want a more full explanation. But on two separate occasions, scientists have taken what is thought to be the type of environment that was present in early earth times and have created amino acids, the building blocks of proteins that are coded from DNA, and recently RNA, which is one side of DNA with slightly different coding. So inert molecules that are present, through 2 different methods, have produced early forms of recognizable genetic material. That genetic material has been shown to be able to act in an evolutionary manner ala "survival of the fittest."

Quote:

---

Where did the matter come from? And what caused the Bang? Evolution can not even begin to answer the question of the origin of life or even the origin of matter and energy

---

Again, ToE doesn't even touch on this. If you want the answer, ask a physicist. As for the origin of life stuff, look above.

Quote:

---

And what is evolution's answer to the meaning of life?

---

LA please read this part. If you read nothing else, please read just this. This is the part you're hung up on. Your approach is very normal for someone who has gotten their evolution education in the church. However, as I've been trying to explain, what they've taught you there regarding it is completely wrong not just in the mechanisms, but also in what it's role is in science.You can't seem to shake this "Evolution is to non-believers as Religion is believers" thing. Evolution is based off of decades of religiously-benign research and observation. Science makes no predictions about the status of God because if it's observed in nature, there must be a reasonable explanation. One that doesn't need the hand of God or some magical intervention to work. Evolution is not a belief system because it is rooted in fact that had been observed and corroborated time and again by many avenues of study ranging from earth sciences to genetics and everything in between. It's not belief driven because belief implies something that is potentially unbelieveable, miraculous, like religion. ToE makes no mention of an afterlife, big bang, or meaning of life because it isn't meant to explain any of that, and was never meant to even broach the topic in any way. It's only goal was to explain what happened AFTER life arose on this planet. You see what I mean? You're approaching evolution like you would Islam, Judaism, or Hindu.Your comparison of ANY religion or belief system to evolution is a comparison of apples to oranges. Religion deals in the soul and the afterlife, whereas evolution attempts to explain how organisms change and adapt over time. How is that even comparable?

Well answered, Draft. A few questions and observations.

Quote- Science makes no predictions about the status of God because if it's observed in nature, there must be a reasonable explanation. One that doesn't need the hand of God or some magical intervention to work.Quote

Can belief in something beyond science, ( llke God and miracles) be reasonable? Is'nt it reasonable to say that we cant explain everything scientifically?



QUOTE ToE makes no mention of an afterlife, big bang, or meaning of life because it isn't meant to explain any of that, and was never meant to even broach the topic in any way. It's only goal was to explain what happened AFTER life arose on this planet. You see what I mean? QUOTE

Many proponents of evolution say that the world was made by random natural causes without intelligent design, or say that the existence of God and creation is a myth. Can they prove this? That is what I mean when I talk about it being a belief system. If they merely study the way life developed on earth, I will call it science, but when they make unprovable claims like " the world was created randomly by entirely natural causes", then it becomes highly speculative. Unless they have some sort of proof or evidence that this is definitely how it happened. This is my problem with what is commonly called the theory of evolution.

QUOTE You're approaching evolution like you would Islam, Judaism, or Hindu.Your comparison of ANY religion or belief system to evolution is a comparison of apples to oranges. Religion deals in the soul and the afterlife, whereas evolution attempts to explain how organisms change and adapt over time. How is that even comparable? QUOTE

And many evolutionists argue against creationism and the existence of a creator. In so doing, are they not comparing evolution to a belief system.
If you want to say that the supernatural will not be discussed because it not within the realm of science that's one thing, but it seems to me that people are categorically denying the very existence of the supernatural. That is what I have an issue with.

Quote:

---

Can belief in something beyond science, ( llke God and miracles) be reasonable?

---

I'm sure some die-hard atheists would disagree with me, but I don't find it to be unreasonable to hold to a belief system.

Quote:

---

Is'nt it reasonable to say that we cant explain everything scientifically?

---

At this point in time, no we can't. But that doesn't mean that certain revelations won't happen.

Quote:

---

Many proponents of evolution say that the world was made by random natural causes without intelligent design, or say that the existence of God and creation is a myth.

---

You did it again Remember evolution isn't a belief system, but a well tested explanation of how life on this earth changes over time. Your statement should read like:

Many proponents of atheism say that the world was made by random natural causes without intelligent design, or say that the existence of God and creation is a myth.

Quote:

---

Can they prove this? That is what I mean when I talk about it being a belief system.

---

No they can't. And my edit of your sentence above still holds. Atheism is a belief system same as christianity, islam, judaism, etc. There is no proof that a God or gods don't exist. The only thing is that atheists don't have a manifesto like Bible or Quran. Religions wrongly use evolution as that manifesto for atheism when the comparison is actually a poor one.

Quote:

---

If they merely study the way life developed on earth, I will call it science, but when they make unprovable claims like " the world was created randomly by entirely natural causes", then it becomes highly speculative.

---

Sure it's highly speculative, but the explanations are rooted in testing, observation and fact. Some things are just ideas that can never be 100% proven, but because they're plausible means that they shouldn't be tossed aside casually and scoffed at.

Quote:

---

And many evolutionists argue against creationism and the existence of a creator. In so doing, are they not comparing evolution to a belief system.

---

Again, atheists argue against the existence of a God. And you're right, atheism is a belief system.

Evolutionists argue with creationists for a few reasons. The first being that they have no scientific way to test their hypothesis, so saying that God created the universe in seven days is just relying on the bible as a source of pure fact that can't be corroborated. The second reason is that creationists want their idea put on a pedestal next to evolution in science classrooms and given the same amount of weight. Now remember, the important part here is that creation by God can't be tested or discovered through observation. Why should something so unscientific, again it's unscientific because it doesn't or can't adhere to the scientific method, be taught in a science classroom? Should the Bible have a small section explaining evolution as a viable alternative to creation in it too? Should pastors have to learn about evolution in theology school? The answer is a resounding no. Theology is the study of religion, not science. Science is the study of the observable, not religion. They literally never cross at any point on their line. The apples and oranges comparison comes to mind again. Those are the two reasons evolutionist and creationists are at odds.

The fallacy of strict fact-based thinking is that of coming to a conclusion, very possibly even a wrong one, based upon currently known facts, while the actual truth may be staring us right in the face.  
 
On a deeper level, is the dilemma of insisting upon knowledge of the facts before being willing to accept the truth. 
 
An example of this dilemma is the light switch on my wall. When I flick the switch, the light comes on. I know that to be the truth, while I know nothing of the facts behind it. Using the fact-based line of thinking, in order to make use of the light, I would have to first search out and analyze all the facts.

First I would have to know the mechanical workings of the switch. I'd have to know the wiring involved within the wall of the house. I would have to have all the facts concerning how the electricity gets to my house from it's origin and I would have to know the details of the origin of the electricity itself.

If I then compiled all the facts, but had a lack in the complete and total understanding of any part of them, I may come to the conclusion that it is impossible by the innocent act of flicking a switch that it would produce light. Given the facts, and my understanding of them, it simply could not happen. Yet, when I flick the switch the light comes on.

This is just an example of how the facts can get in the way of the truth. Sadly, this can happen to the degree that I refuse to flick the switch at all because I know, through my own understanding, that it can't work. I need to know more. So I commit myself to a life of darkness when in truth, if I flick the switch the light will come on.

Much of our problem is that we insist on possibilities that fit within the scope of our own knowledge and understanding. Where we feel we may lack in knowledge and understanding we look to science to fill our void. Science is, after all, an endeavor to uncover the facts behind all things it studies. While looking to science for answers, we sometimes accept it's theories, (proposed explanations whose status is still conjectural), as highly possible, even probable, because those theories fall within our ability to "make sense" of them. So even though a theory is not proven, (otherwise it would be a fact), we sometimes latch onto it believing that to likely be the truth. We do that because it makes sense to us. Us, who in reality, know very little about anything at all.

Still we argue.

All too often we attempt to squeeze what God knows into a box that is exactly the same size of our own knowledge. In other words, "How can a universe be created by a mere thought from God? I can't understand that, therefore, God cannot have done it."

TENN, you did a wonderful job of writing your findings and it shows that you've been thinking on this for a long, long time.

This is why I hate analogies. People use these off the wall, irrelevant comparisons to draw up crazy conclusions based on the clever manipulation of language (but never facts).

But, to use your own analogy with the light switch, I think it is supposed to go something more like this:

Faith: I have faith that when I hit this light switch, god is lighting up this room. I have absolute faith this is true because I have been told this since I was a little kid.

Of course the alternative is what you spent a great deal of time analyzing, in the wrong context: actually gathering facts/understanding and applying them in a logical way.

Well answered again, Draft. I already said that if we could agree on two points... and it looks like we agreed on them. The two points were 1. The existence of God cannot be disputed scientifically and 2. The universe cannot be scientifically demonstrated to be created by entirely natural means.

We are evalutioned aliens living in a planet that our ancestors deemed desirable.

QUOTE Faith: I have faith that when I hit this light switch, god is lighting up this room. I have absolute faith this is true because I have been told this since I was a little kid.



How about do I have faith that someone actually made the light switch and light bulb, or do I believe they just happened by accident. Maybe the light bulb evolved from a candle?

Right, but my secondary motive was to also give you untainted, correct, information about what ToE really is and what it means to many scientific fields. I also wanted to set straight any misconceptions you may have had such as saying that it's comparable to religion when it actually makes no such mention of anything theological. Hopefully I helped in that way to show that ToE isn't at odds with any type of religion.

I see your point. I guess my beef is with atheism, ( as you said) and naturalism, ( in case I'm using the wrong word, the view that the universe was shaped by entirely natural means) more than anything. And while I know that things evolve in some senses, I still don't believe that one "kind" evolves into another kind, ( forgive me if the word "kind" is being used wrongly), or that man descended from the primates, but we can agree to disagree on that if that's the view you hold.

Thank you for your posts, and the manner in which you presented your case in a non-argumentative way. I have appreciated these discussions.

Over toad. I'm sorry, I meant to say that the important thing is why we were created, (not why we are here).

As far as your second point, a statement doesnt have to be scientifically proven to be true. I could tell you that my name is Bob and I am 6 feet tall, and that may or may not be true, but you would never know for certain if it was true or not unless you met me in person . Another example is that things like love or freedom of will cannot be scientifically proven but that does not mean they are not factual or do not exist.

My believe is that in the Bible God tells us who He is, because we cannot see Him. I believe that the Bible to be His Word, and I accept it as such, ( that's faith). The object of my faith ( God ), and my spiritual belief system, ( the Bible) cannot be scientifically proven, but that does not mean they are not factual.

And just because we cant prove something doesnt mean that we cant know it. Supernatural non-material things are known in ways that are different from natural, material things.

Thank you for your interesting post.

Quote:

---

I don't understand what you are implying here. Are you implying that I think the accounts of creation in the Bible are inadequate? If so then you are mistaken.

---

You misinterpreted my point. When you describe a complex process to a child you dumb it down, you simplify so that they may understand, you make a story out of it, etc.

Genesis is an accurate, simplified story of the evolution of a solar system. You can squibble all you want about what a day means, plug in a billion years, however, the description literally does describe what our scientists believe would be the sequence of events leading to life, and the evolution of life, on a planet.

Have you ever considered the possibility that a much more advanced species from another region of this vast, and I mean vast, universe of ours, provided the information contained within Genesis, or the bible for that matter? Didn't Ezekial see a wheel? The description, if I recall, was erily similar to the Apollo lander...

Quote:

---

As far as your second point, a statement doesnt have to be scientifically proven to be true.

---

That's true, but a fact, once proven, is always fact. Remember, fact (or truth) has the same meaning in science as in laymen.

Quote:

---

Another example is that things like love or freedom of will cannot be scientifically proven but that does not mean they are not factual or do not exist.

---

Which is a whole different can of worms. Ideals exist. But most sciences makes no prediction about them, how they come about, etc. (Well, some do, it's called evolutionary psychology and it's not exactly science, more sociology). You can't prove an ideal like freedom by science because, technically, it's all in our head and made up by us because of learning and changing over generations. At best we can only hope to catalog. So no, we can't prove ideals, but that doesn't make science or discovery through scientific means any less powerful.

I'm not saying you're wrong Hel, but I got my information from here. Mind reading that and telling me why? As I've said before, I'm no physicist, so I can only state what we currently know and a general why we know it. I can't offer any constructive criticism as to why something might not be correct.