Evolution or Creation

Discuss.

[Edited to unlock. -- JG]

 

Well, I personally don't think creationism makes any sense. There are no facts supporting it, only opinions stated in a book. Saying that one guy created the universe seems to me like something early humans came up with because they didn't know how to explain it better. Evolutionism is backed-up by facts, and makes much more sense, at least to me.

 

I guess I've never seen it as the huge divide that people argue about. I think G-d created life to evolve.

 

I am an evolutionary creationist. I look at it this way: God, or whatever name you want to call him (Allah, Shiva, Jehovah, YWHW) has always been and will always be. That entity is all things, including a force for creating. From it, came all of the universes that are and that will be. Every so often, a restart is needed -> Big Bang. The being guides the creation of worlds and stars, animals and plants and higher forms of sentinent beings. It consciously evolves them over time.

I can justify it by thinking of "Inherit the Wind." In it, the length of the first seven days was discussed, and it was stated the first day could be 25 hours, could be 25 million years, or could be one second. There is no way to know. Our physical record can still mesh with the tall tales of the Bible, a work tainted by man's hand, in my opinion.

 

The account in Genesis mentions "evening and morning" when it refers to day, so I think it actually does refer to a 24-hour period.

Personally, I believe that the world was created around 6,000 years ago with "apparent age", meaning that the world and universe appear older than they really are. I mean, just think...what would a day-old layer of dust look like? I think it makes sense that if the world was created, it would have to be in an "already-established" form making it seem older.

 

Why does that make sense? It doesn't to me. Of course, I never understood the concept of buying pre-ripped jeans either.

 

I feel that Evolution and Creation go hand-in-hand. If you look at the Judean-Christian story of creation, it follows exactly the order of things in which the animals were created that we have found by science. I'm not sure about this next one, but I'm pretty sure that each of the major extinctions fits in with the Creation story as well (in terms of "and there was evening, and there was morning", etc). Also, if one thinks about it, G-d might have created Evolution first, and then used it as a tool to create other animals, ie changing the environments in which the living things lived to change them to what G-d wants them to be.

--Mr. P

 

That is almost like saying evolution is a tangible thing for God. But I have to agree. There is too much depth to the Universe for it to be simple chaos theory (I know it isn't simple, but odds are against creation).

 

I believe the Earth is roughly 6000 years old.

I do not see how this is illogical any more then assuming a skilled architect built the Sears Tower.

 

I am torn. I do not believe in creationism, nor do I believe completely in evolution. I see apparent flaws in both. I'm currently exploring the topic further.

 

I... must respect your view (2 posts up, the 6000 year old earth), but that seems VERY illogical to me, an evolutionist.

But I think that God (or the Force) created/started life (wherever it started - possibly not even earth!) for the purpose of evolving.

 

i believe that God created evolution. i know people for who evolution has proved that there IS a God... for me it does as well. there had to be SOMETHING that created the first sexual reproduction, and SOMETHING that made the water creatures think about land, and SOMETHING that made the apes say, "hey, i can think!"

i think that these things are all signs that there IS a higher power... that nature by itself couldn't do that.

 

I am a young-earth creationist.

 

A young-earth creationist? Pardon me, but I do not know that term.

 

A young earth creationist is someone who believes the Earth is only about 6,000 years old.

 

I'm a Darwinian. When in college, I had a class from a Jesuit priest where I had to describe my personal religion. It came down to evolution and nature. I wrote 14 pages on it.


I think that it is very hard to reconcile creationism with facts as presented to us in the fossil record and in the nature around us.

 

Great points, everyone.

I'm leaning evolutionist. I do believe there's some divine being that caused the spark that created Earth and the other planets, but life continued on its own from there.

I have no idea on how old the Earth is, but I think it's more than 6,000 and less than 5 billion.

 

I am one of those who was inspired to belief in God through studying evolution. To me, it's beautiful, ingenious and awe inspiring. To think that every living thing on earth today came from one single source just blows the mind.

It also makes you appreciate your lunch more, when you're aware that you share 50% of your genes with a cabbage.

 

From a scientific perspective, creationism has no merit. None. It's a strawman cobbled together with logical fallacies, rhetorical dodges, and mysticism dressed in scientific jargon. As a religious tenet, it has its place, but by insisting they be taken seriously as scientists, the fundamentalists of the western faiths have undermined their credibility. When they enter into a debate, it's like watching a student driver trying to hold his own in a formula 1 race.

To be honest, I'm not interested in debating creationists. Their arguments have already been adequately answered in the talk.origins archive and the Secular Web. What I wouldn't mind doing is talking with others with a biology background about elements of evolution and ecology. For example, what are your opinions on Stephen Jay Gould and his assertion that chance events, rather than selection have had a more profound impact on the species make-up of the world today?

 

I find it particularly interesting that most Jewish scholars see the Biblical stories as parables to describe our place in the cosmos, not as a literal tale of the creation of the earth and the heavens.

 

If you want to be flippant about things that is fine, but don't expect to be respected by those you disrespect.

I find it ironic that you go from saying creationism has no merit to wondering about punctuated equilibrium.

 

Nothing ironic about that.

How can you be a young earth creationist when the earth is BILLIONS OF YEARS OLD? ?

 

Prove the Earth is a billion years old and we'll believe you.

 

Scientists have.

 

Careful with the tone. This is a subject that can get both sides frustrated quickly.

The idea behind young earth creationism as I understand it is that G-d created Earth with certain elements that are already aged. (Eg, He didn't create dinosaurs, he created dinosaur fossils... am I right about that, young earth creationists? I seem to remember reading that a long time ago).

For myself, I think there are religious arguments against Creation and scientific arguments against evolution, and I think that each should be met on its own terms. I believe that they have a meeting place -- that the evolutionists are mostly right about the age of the Earth and the process of evolution, but that they are missing the aspect of G-d (it was a good way of putting it to say that Someone made the apes realize they were thinking), and that the Creationists are right about G-d's directing it and making it mean something, but not about the technical parts of it.