Evolution vs. Creationism

J. Cardigan said:
I realised a long time ago that I don't believe in the Christian form of God. To my mind, God and the devil are ambiguous personifications of forces humans fail to understand.

Over the years, I feel like I've grown spiritually and I accept that I will never know how we or the universe came to be (unless I find out when I die, which would be nifty).

There's obviously something out there that is far beyond our understanding. I'm perfectly okay with Christianity and I'm glad for those who have something to guide them throughout their lives. To say that the Earth was made in seven days a few thousand years ago just strikes me as kind of short-sighted, though.
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Stop poking around in my head!
 
gloomy-optimist said:
According to the bible, animals came before people. Dinosaurs came before people. While it doesn't go into details about all of that, one could interpret even evolution from this part of the bible.
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The Bible also says the earth has four corners. From a scientific perspective, the Bible doesn't represent anymore knowledge than one would expect people who existed 2,000 years ago to know. Even the philosophical ideas in the book had existed in the Far East for centuries prior to being spoken by Jesus Christ.
 
Well, back to human influence versus actual word of God. The bible was written by people, and, though I believe the basic teachings are divinely inspired, there is a lot of human culture and society thrown in there too. The way the world is shaped was not known by people at the time.

People see different religions as being more or less believable than Christianity; the difference between the philosophy of Jesus and Eastern philosophy is mostly in what context it influences the population.
But, I've thought of how that worked before, and I actually kind of believe that all religions are interconnected, somehow. A lot of ancient religions have some very surprising similarities.
 
gloomy-optimist said:
A lot of ancient religions have some very surprising similarities.
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The evolution of religion is circular. It begins as animism, then dominant spirits begin to develop a reputation until they are worshiped as Gods and it evolves into polytheism, and then one God begins to supersede all the other gods, and it becomes monotheism, and then the immanence and transcendence of that God comes into question, and it changes to deism, and then it decays and people begin citing specific "spirits" and it once again becomes animism. In all of human history, God has been born and died at least twice. We are on the third shift of monothesim to deism, the last being during the Great Enlightenment.
 
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I think we simply don't really understand what could be greater than ourselves, nor can we, really. I mean, I agree with you, Satya; religion does cycle, but it keeps common themes as well, in a way. Although Judeo-based religions have gone in and out of style, they have been pretty solid to last so long. Eastern religions as well; they cycle, but they remain.
Sometimes I wonder if we're all not seeing the same thing from different perspectives. It seems to me as if there's something a lot more fundamental behind the quirks of different religions; as if there's something that, once you break down everything that people have added to it, is a lot simpler yet much more complicated than mankind really gives it credit to be.

I dunno. It makes my brain hurt thinking about it. I can't believe that science is the limit of what there is; I trust science, but I feel as if there is something more. It's hard to explain because it's really not so much a rational thing; I could try to really rationalize it, but that only goes so far.
 
gloomy-optimist said:
I dunno. It makes my brain hurt thinking about it. I can't believe that science is the limit of what there is; I trust science, but I feel as if there is something more. It's hard to explain because it's really not so much a rational thing; I could try to really rationalize it, but that only goes so far.
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I believe there is something greater as well, but I won't pretend to understand it. That is what I see religions doing. Claiming they know the will of God and the natural order of the universe.
 
I am most at home with the Christian religion. But I don't pretend to agree with everything; actually, I'm very selective about what I do and don't take for face value. I don't like it when people act like their religion is the answer to everything because there is not one religion on this Earth that truly is, at least from my perspective.
The nature of God and heaven and everything else that could be there is too mysterious, and it's something we can neither prove nor fully understand...
 
I believe that evolutionary theories have merit. Nothing should be taken wholeheartedly. In general, I think the Bible and any religious book should be valued for its spiritual purposes and should remain disconnected from science. We know well enough that a history textbook can easily be biased by a publisher and I imagine the bible is not free of the bias of its original scribes.
 
oceanic99 said:
I believe that evolutionary theories have merit. Nothing should be taken wholeheartedly. In general, I think the Bible and any religious book should be valued for its spiritual purposes and should remain disconnected from science. We know well enough that a history textbook can easily be biased by a publisher and I imagine the bible is not free of the bias of its original scribes.
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...and it's hundreds of editors and translators over the centuries.
 
Quinlan said:
...and it's hundreds of editors and translators over the centuries.
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Agreed.

From work I used to do translating Japanese, I've learned how much information is lost in the process. Language isn't just about what is said, but also how it is said, and changes in grammar completely destroy subtleties and connotation that is often essential to the original meaning of the text. I can't imagine the Bible is any different. Without speakers of the original Hebrew and Aramaic, there just isn't any way of truly knowing the Bible.
 
That is definitely true.
 
Satya said:
Agreed.

From work I used to do translating Japanese, I've learned how much information is lost in the process. Language isn't just about what is said, but also how it is said, and changes in grammar completely destroy subtleties and connotation that is often essential to the original meaning of the text. I can't imagine the Bible is any different. Without speakers of the original Hebrew and Aramaic, there just isn't any way of truly knowing the Bible.
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I don't know if anybody is aware of this, but most of all the Bibles (unless it's a translated Bible based on an english one) out there were actually "translated" from original Jewish/Greek manuscripts by people who have actually studied and understand Hebrew and Greek, and all its subtleties, although Aramaic I am not sure. But translators probably have a bit of knowledge about that language as well.

You can't just go about thinking, "Oh, I feel like translating a Bible!" without being able to read the original manuscripts. So that's why there are so many different versions of Bibles out there... because there are many aspects that have to be taken into account when translating. Do you simply translate it word per word, despite the context being culturally-specific, or do you simply translate the meaning? Do you retain the poetic aspects or make it as straightforward as possible? Compare the same chapter of different Bibles and it's basically the same gist.

Just wanted people to know that before they bash the Bible with the arguement that "there's so many versions out there, so you don't know if they can be trusted". It's not a question of can the translated Bibles be trusted, but can the original manuscripts be trusted? Now that is a whole new debate by itself. Peace!
 
Oh, and back to the evolution vs creationism. Sorry, I just had to put my two cents in. :)

I think you can't dismiss it just like that.

Science can only prove something (a theory or whatever) by disproving it. You can prove a circle has no corners by trying all you can to prove there ARE corners, and when all experiments and observations point otherwise, that's the only time you can say that...yes, circles do not have corners.

And so if you cannot disprove a hypothesis, you can never prove it either.

Science cannot disprove the existence of a God or a Higher Being, and therefore it is beyond the scope of science to disprove anything related to God, including creationism. I think most scientists know that, although that won't stop anyone from forming their own views.

From what I know, creationism has holes in its defenses, which is quite logical since it does base everything on something that cannot be proven...which is the concept of a Higher Being. But evolution is NOT foolproof either. There are still many missing links and, of course, there is the matter of carbon dating, what scientists use to "date" fossils in the evolutionary map. Defending the reliability of carbon dating is so complicated and messy, most scientists don't even bother and excuse it away as something that you just have to trust.

Doesn't that sound eerily familiar to the word 'faith'?
And so... neither side wins. Will anyone ever win?
 
Satan wins when you listen to scientists. :thumb:
 
There is a big difference between science which forms tentative explanations based on observable phenomena and theology which asserts absolute explanations based on supernatural phenomena.

That difference can be summed up in one word.

Progress!

Virtually everything you own, from the kind of food you eat, to the roof over your head, has been the result of a scientific process of trial and error, experimentation, and the formation of better explanations. Theology has offered the opposite. It has stood in the way of progress time and time again by asserting it already holds all the answers.

The theory of evolution may be imperfect, but it is no way equal (or inferior) to creationism. It is based an objective, data gathering process, not on a subjective, faith based process.
 
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Satya said:
Agreed.

From work I used to do translating Japanese, I've learned how much information is lost in the process. Language isn't just about what is said, but also how it is said, and changes in grammar completely destroy subtleties and connotation that is often essential to the original meaning of the text. I can't imagine the Bible is any different. Without speakers of the original Hebrew and Aramaic, there just isn't any way of truly knowing the Bible.
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That is sooooooo true but still, the basic underlining theme can still be understood whatever language it is translated too, love is love, a lie is a lie, and wrong is wrong how it is said and hidden double meanings may get lost but the basic message is still their.
 
I thought the basic underlying theme was that god is a mean and childlike being.
 
Dice said:
That is sooooooo true but still, the basic underlining theme can still be understood whatever language it is translated too, love is love, a lie is a lie, and wrong is wrong how it is said and hidden double meanings may get lost but the basic message is still their.
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And a simple variation in the interpretation of that underlying theme can be the difference between a Unitarian Universalist and a Jehovah's Witness. There is a pretty grand expanse there.
 
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