Creation vs. Evolution

[snydley]

Originally Posted by C1ay

they are arguing with nothing more than faith, the same mentality children use as proof of Santa Clause. Perhaps they will learn someday that faith is an obstacle to the pursuit of truth.

Does not any other theory of how the earth was created require some sort of faith in something? I claim that I have faith in a God that created the earth and everything in it, I do realize that there is faith involved in that statement, but is there not also faith in the statement that the earth was formed from a combination of gases and other particles? Where did these things come from? I say that God has always been, that takes faith. But if you say that faith plays no role into the equation, then where did everything come from?

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by snydley

Does not any other theory of how the earth was created require some sort of faith in something?

Your discussion ranges from cosmology through astrophysics to theology. There is very little biology in it, so maybe you meant to post this in the theology forum? Creationism is not a science and it does not belong in the biology forum.

I claim that I have faith in a God that created the earth and everything in it, I do realize that there is faith involved in that statement, but is there not also faith in the statement that the earth was formed from a combination of gases and other particles?

Well, so what?

The main difference would be that we can observe planets being formed around other stars. As far as I know there is no evidence of any new gods being formed outside of any universes?

Where did these things come from? I say that God has always been, that takes faith. But if you say that faith plays no role into the equation, then where did everything come from?

How does faith ever *cause* something? What role do you assign to faith in the "equation"? (Which equation, by the way? The card house?)

[Tormod]

Moving this to theology.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by snydley

Does not any other theory of how the earth was created require some sort of faith in something? I claim that I have faith in a God that created the earth and everything in it, I do realize that there is faith involved in that statement, but is there not also faith in the statement that the earth was formed from a combination of gases and other particles? Where did these things come from? I say that God has always been, that takes faith. But if you say that faith plays no role into the equation, then where did everything come from?

You are equivocating. Having faith that the airplane will not crash or that gravity will make the rock I throw hit the ground is not the same as faith that a purple unicorn shat everything into existence.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Tormod

How does faith ever *cause* something?

Well, there's always stonings, burning at the stake, wars, genital mutulation, and countless others which seem to be the direct result of faith...

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by snydley

Does not any other theory of how the earth was created require some sort of faith in something? I claim that I have faith in a God that created the earth and everything in it, I do realize that there is faith involved in that statement, but is there not also faith in the statement that the earth was formed from a combination of gases and other particles? Where did these things come from? I say that God has always been, that takes faith. But if you say that faith plays no role into the equation, then where did everything come from?

First of all, Darwin's theory of evolution IS NOT a theory about how the Earth or the Universe formed. It is simply about the mutation of species as a result of natural selection. It has absolutely nothing to do with cosmology.

As for those that believe some event like the Big Bang lead to the development of our Universe and the Earth as we know it, they have a solid body of scientific evidence that is observable, measurable and testable to suggest the theory matches our observations. It is just a theory though, it is not the Law of the Big Bang. Belief that it could be responsible for the Universe does not rest on faith alone but instead on the observable evidence. Even today we can observe the birth of stars and know for a fact that they form as matter coalesces and condenses as a result of gravity.

The God and creation theories have no observable or testable evidence to support them. They are only supported by faith which in and of itself is not evidence of anything. You could have all the faith in the world that there is a Leprechaun sitting in a chair orbiting Neptune and it would not make it true. If you wanted to prove it was true you would have to set your faith aside and observe Neptune directly and hunt for the Leprechaun. You could try to design tests to test for the presence of things orbiting Neptune and you could refine your tests to try and narrow down exactly what types of things were in orbit around Neptune. In the end you should be able to produce physical, reproducible evidence of the Leprechaun in order to persuade others to believe as you do without asking them to simply believe because of faith.

Faith is a tricky thing. Sometimes it is effectively unquestionable. I have faith that the Earth's gravity will keep me from drifting into space. My faith in gravity is based on my lifetime experience in gravity. At other times it is ridiculous. Someone gets hit on the head with an acorn and all of the sudden they have faith that the sky is falling. For them, faith is a mental disorder that prevents them from seeing the truth.

Now, you have told us that you believe in a creator and creation. What evidence can you offer to support that belief?

[Thunderbird]

Originally Posted by C1ay

Faith is a tricky thing. Sometimes it is effectively unquestionable. I have faith that the Earth's gravity will keep me from drifting into space. My faith in gravity is based on my lifetime experience in gravity. At other times it is ridiculous. Someone gets hit on the head with an acorn and all of the sudden they have faith that the sky is falling. For them, faith is a mental disorder that prevents them from seeing the truth.

Now, you have told us that you believe in a creator and creation. What evidence can you offer to support that belief?

I have always had trouble understanding why people use faith when referring to the historical, this makes no sense, in that we have records to study and debate about what did happen and what did not, and why.


Faith to me means looking forward and picking a path to an unformed future and haveing hope that knowledge will triumph over ignorance. Good men will triumph over the bad, the world become better, because the good men do have more power than the evil men do.

My life will get better if I do good.
Believing this way even when historically you know bad can still happen. This is what gives faith its power. So many religions have perverted faith into the world will end in fire and if you don't believe in the bible as history and god of supernatural stories you have no faith. Bullshit. The church is not about faith, its about fear. Except mine of course.

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Well, there's always stonings, burning at the stake, wars, genital mutulation, and countless others which seem to be the direct result of faith...

Well yeah, just like guns kill people.

I should probably have rephrased. Since when did faith represent a physical force, and how can it have had any effect on the creation of the world (there were no people around IIRC).

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Tormod

Well yeah, just like guns kill people.

I should probably have rephrased. Since when did faith represent a physical force, and how can it have had any effect on the creation of the world (there were no people around IIRC).

Damn, you're good.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by snydley

Ok. Lets start off with probability. What is the probability that something as complex as the earth could have just formed out of nothing? That is a number that I don't believe anyone has found.

There have been many estimates of this number, so much so that it has a standard symbol, . Well known ones include:

• Frank Drake and colleagues, 1961:
• Charles H. Lineweaver and Tamara M. Davis, 2002:

Though the detail and ultimate accuracy of these estimates are varied and questionable, their existence is documented fact.

A major difficulty in making such an estimate in a constructive fashion – that is, reasoning from basic chemical and proto-biological models – is that there are several very different models describing very different sequences of events. The major classes of models are:

• ”Replicator first“, AKA: RNA first. These models are summarized well by a quote from Dawkins’s ”The Selfish Gene“: “At some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator. It may not have been the biggest or the most complex molecule around, but it had the extraordinary property of being able to create copies of itself.” The argument then proceeds that, regardless of its evolutionary fitness, the Replicator, by virtue of being dramatically more common than random, unique molecules, became the basis of all terrestrial life.
• ”Metabolism first“. This model was discussed in The metabolism first model of the origin of life thread. It proposes that nearly any naturally occurring compartments allow cyclic chemical reactions to grow in complexity until they store information. The most successful information storing proto-organisms were the ancestors of modern RNA.

Although to my knowledge no clear scientific consensus yet exists regarding these two classes of models, my personal suspicion is that the metabolism first models is correct, and will, as biological modeling grows in quality, become the better scientifically substantiated and accepted of the two classes.

Originally Posted by snydley

So the chances of the earth forming from nothing and becoming what it is today, the chances of the human eye evolving into what it is today, the chances of laws such as gravity being like they are, or the fact that the earth is just so positioned that life can actually be sustained, or that if any one element would be off just a touch, if the gravity wasn't just right, if the tilt of the earth wasn't just so, then none of us would be here, none of these could have just happened or evolved, because the chances of these happening are so great that it is not possible.

I believe this conclusion is incorrect. Currently, however, we lack the capability of making and testing models of adequate detail to either negate or affirm it. Until such a scientific capability exists, however, at least one source of empirical data likely to become available in the next few decades appears to me to have the potential to negate several of its underlying assumptions: the search for extraterrestrial life in the solar system. As future unmanned, and possibly manned space missions gather more data, we may discover evidence of past and present life on planets with conditions very different than Earth, demonstrating that life is capable of appearing in a wide variety of conditions.

Originally Posted by snydley

There had to be someone greater than us fine tuning every detail so that life can actually exist. That is the only possible explanation.

Please review hypography’s site rules, noting that, statements of the form “x is the only possible explanation” are often the beginning of a series of posts leading to a violation of

9. Do not endlessly show us that *your* theory is the *only* truth. And don't follow this up by making people look stupid for pointing out that there are other answers, especially if they provide links and resources. It will get you banned!

Arguing that you theory is possible is OK, provided you back up you claims using links and references, but insisting that no other is possible, is not.