Census What explanation do you accept for the diversity of life on Earth?

In an attempt to separate the evolution/creationism and science/religion talk from the "goooooooo science" thread, I've pulled a Darth_Ghost and done this. So what do you accept as an explanation for life on Earth. Votes are anonymous, so besides voting, I encourage an explanation of your choice. While we should refrain from mockery or insults, we should be ready to defend our views from critique.

Note: Naturalist Evolution is purely secular while Theistic Evolution is guided by a deity

Special Thanks to lowbacca1977 for his input.

 

Theistic evolution. Basically, what science tells me + a unifying hand/unseen deity/brahman what have you.

PS, is this a senate question or a jcc question? Is a one liner okay?

 

I selected Theistic Evolution, since it is the closest to what I believe.

After staring at the screen and thinking for all these minutes about what to type, I've decided I'm just going to leave it at that, because if I were to go into any details, I'd wind up with a wall of text that nobody would really care to read anyway.

 

Nature is horrific, and teaches us nothing.

EDIT: I realized that most people probably wouldn't understand the Futurama reference, so I'll spell it out. I believe that since everything can happen on its own and most of it is crap, there's most likely no supernatural thing behind it.

 

I believe that the diversity of life on earth is caused by affirmative action, and that it should be stopped. God protect the valiant loggers who work tirelessly to render species extinct before they are even discovered!

 

No, diversity of life is due to the sexually permissive lifestyle of almost all biological life on this planet. If everything from bacteria to mammals weren't always having sex, there wouldn't be all these unholy mutated bastard creatures swimming the oceans or walking the earth (like this).

(Ignore the dice, I was just seeing what that does lol)

 

"Allah loves wonderous variety"

 

Too bad there's no option for the theory of evolution that Gil Gerard traveled back in time and ejaculated into the primordial ooze.

 

Now that we've got some responses, I'll go ahead and give my say:

Everyone remembers I used to be an OEC (Old Earth Creationist) a few years ago. Now I accept naturalistic evolution because 1) evolution has a large body of evidence unmatched by any competitor and 2) there is no evidence that there is anything supernatural involved.

 

I gave "alien seeding" an honorary vote because it's still more plausible than "young earth" or "old earth" creationism.

 

I'm curious about the "other" response, myself.

 

ITS ONLY A THEORY VIVEC

ONLY A THEORY

IF IM A MONKEY THAN WHY ARE THERE STILL MONKEYS, SCIENCE BOY?!!! HEY HEY WE'RE THE MONKEYS

THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT, VIVEC!! THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT!!

 

You're a theory.

 

your mom

 

I SO wanted to click alien seeding. Naturalistic evolution. I notice it says explanation of diversity of life rather than origin.

 

That's because someone with training in science rather than a journalist wrote it.

 

lol

Voted xenogenesis

oh wait.......I voted theistic evolution.

No really I clicked All of the Above....

..let's party!

 

Theistic Evolution... but of course, I don't believe God's work is supernatural at all.

 

I voted for theistic evolution because

A) evolution has a larger body of evidence to support it than any competing theory and

B) Because God travels light.....beard, robe, some book in his hands usually. Plus he has lightnin!

 

This was part of my transition from Catholicism to atheism. Though my family is Catholic, they're creationist. Science was never really promoted as a "awesome thing" that you see me promoting. So it was natural that I would be having their views on the topic of evolution as well. Old Earth Creationism, as it is called. Anyways, I had gotten really interested in science in high school and what caused me great stress was my love of learning science mixed with the demands of faith.

See, just learning science trivia doesn't cause any problems with one's faith. However, thinking like a scientist does, because to think like a scientist, one needs to apply scientific skepticism. Claims need to be met with appropriate skepticism and evidence needs to be demanded. Faith and religion do not work that way. So as my education in science went further in college, my frustrations with how faith and religion worked eventually led to me abandoning it. As such, OEC no longer worked as a belief, I moved to accepting a purely secular evolutionary theory.

 

Religion, well Christianity anyway, always moves the goalposts to respond to the latest scientific discoveries.

So, those who still accept it are the absolutists. As the pool of believers shrinks, and the West loses some of its scientific capacity and aptitude, they will become ever more radicalized.

 

What was interesting was watching your transformation right here on these boards. I had times where I swore you were following me around in threads to debate in favor of Creationism, then slowly but surely you started making logical arguments to say otherwise.

 

Naturalistic evolution. Naturalistic is synonymous with theistic in my worldview, but it probably would have been misleading if I'd voted for the second option.

I'm glad no one has used the phrase "intelligent design" yet, because every time I hear it I feel the need to point out how unintelligently designed many features of the human body in particular and lifeforms in general are.
Herp derp why don't I connect the esophagus to the trachea so it's possible for people to accidentally kill themselves while eating.

 

Since JESUS THE ELECTRO-BEARDED HIPPY WIZARD DID IT wasn't a specific option, I voted naturalistic evolution because to suggest a man-made invention like God did it would be putting the cart before the horse. God, not being real, can hardly have started the process or guided it.