Creation Vs. Evolution

[ShadowMarth]

Originally Posted by FoxIllusion

Look at it this way, if you were raised with a certain perspective taught, you will look for evidence supporting it. Atheists learn evolution in class and then take that perspective, effective brainwashing. They dont feel like teaching anything that opposes it, eh?

Excuse me? Thousands of transitional fossils? Show me a direct source. From what I know, there are but a few fossils that are currently being debated upon. By the way, wikipedia is a go in, change anything site. Not as reliable as some other sites, just wanted to point that out.

Freshman biology, wtf? You learn biology in 10th grade (currently mine). 15, if that matters.

Freshman Biology 1 Honors.

Ok, buddy, I'll give you the absolute most obvious example of transitional fossils I can. Every time they find another feathered dinosaur to link between birds, it will likely show up in Popular Science or Discover. I read these regularly, and they discover a whole new form of transitional dinosaur every couple months. That's clear.

I was raised as a normal Christian, as in, raised to believe that nothing from the realm of science was ever able to possibly conflict with creationism. I was not raised as (nor am I) an athiest. I believe that. I just don't believe why people are trying to de-rail a science that would help us immensely in the name of Christianity.

As for your fossil talk, Pilot, well, that's absolutely true. That's why we don't have a fossil record of every animal that ever lived. We only have fossils of the ones that died and their bodies managed to survive long enough to be encased, preserved, and fossilized. I mean, we learned that in third grade...

And nmaster. Come now. You can't see that my view there makes sense? God, it's no big coincidence we came out this way. Randomality and evolution, it was bound to happen eventually in a virtually infinite universe. Just because we happened doesn't make us special. And as you described it, Macroevolution is an easily observable occurence. The making of new species happens quite often.

As for your last view, see first paragraph. Once more, if life is at all common anywhere in the universe, it's no big coincidence. Who's to say that these are the perfect conditions (or only conditions) for life? Heck, who's to say exogenesis isn't the real source of earth's life, that'd really screw with some world views, and it's looking more and more possible considering new studies on India's "red rain", and proof that long ago chunks of primordial earth knocked off by a big impact managed to reach, and crash in a fashion that it's feasible basic forms of life could have survived On Titan, for over 30 of such chunks. But of course, this cannot be proven. Of course, your insistance that we are the product of perfect circumstance isn't exactly foolproof either. With billions of other star systems, nearly these exact circumstances are likely to reoccur in dozens of other systems.

[nmaster64]

Your view does make sense SM, as long as you admit it was either triggered or guided by a higher power. That's all I'm saying, that there's no way all that happened entirely on it's own, at some point there must have been some form divine intervention.

Like I said, if nothing else, there is no scientific explanation as to how the big bang could have occured, so God must have played a role in the process at some point along the way, most likely at the very, very beginning...

[ShadowMarth]

While I think that simply saying that God exists because science can't explain everything now is fairly idiotic, I do agree with most of what you said. It's also rather well postulated how the big bang happened. However I can direct you to some extraordinary reasoning as to why the big bang occured (or one very compelling theory), but once again, that doesn't explain why the universe is here. Nothing ever will.

[nmaster64]

I've heard many very compelling theories, and I won't say any of them are true or false. I just think you need to acknowledge that somewhere along the way something of a greater power took part. There's a difference between this example and saying because we don't know something, it must be God, namely that it's not that we don't currently know it, or that science can not currently prove it, it's that it NEVER can. There is no way for science to EVER explain these things. In fact, there is no Earthly way at all to explain these things, it's entirely beyond our comprehension and being. I think at that point, you can attribute it to a higher power.

Still not good enough? Well, then your going to hell, so I win anyway. :P

[ShadowMarth]

Wtf man, that's just plain ignorance! I can't believe you. "I'm right, you're going to hell", isn't exactly a christian attitude either. Besides, you go up to heaven, and say, hey god, why did you make the universe? You think he's going to have an answer for you that you can understand? Hell no. There's no way for humans to understand the overall purpose of the universe, God or not.

[nmaster64]

Damn you take things too seriously...didn't you see the :P face after the sentence? Jesus...

Oh, and no, I wouldn't be able to understand an answer like that, but that's where the philosophical theory of transcendence comes in...

[Pilot_51]

Originally Posted by nmaster64

And Pilot, that bastard in the video is so biased against evolution I can't see straight. He insults Darwin by saying that he said birds are related to bananas, and then goes on to say the only thing living things may have evolved from is a higher power. I'd call him at best an open-minded preacher, not a scientist.

I agree, he's biased, most strong believers in anything are that way. I've got my own criticisms about him, such as the vast differences he uses (like the dog and banana thing) against evolution. It's probably the best thing he could come up with without confusing the audience (especially a 4 year old), I believe there's a better way to explain it. The point is, he has some very valid points mixed in with his extreme bias, one of the strongest he has is against the many lies in text books telling evolution as fact rather than theory and preventing students from ever finding out about alternative beliefs.
BTW, here's another video of his, it's an actual debate with an actual evolutionist professor. I haven't finished watching it yet, it's 3 hours long.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...81398764731153

Originally Posted by ShadowMarth

As for your fossil talk, Pilot, well, that's absolutely true. That's why we don't have a fossil record of every animal that ever lived. We only have fossils of the ones that died and their bodies managed to survive long enough to be encased, preserved, and fossilized. I mean, we learned that in third grade...

Considering how many large fossils there are all over the world, I find it unlikely that the environment could've remained gradual while those bodies survive for thousands if not millions of years to be fully buried.

I'm confused about where both of you stand, it seems to me like you believe in both to an extent.

[ShadowMarth]

Pilot, well preserved fossils are very rare. That's why it's such a big deal when they find a fully intact one.

[Pilot_51]

How long did the largest one take to be fully covered? If it's over say, 1000 years, I think it's nearly impossible, and I know there's a lot of museums with complete fossils of large dinos (I'm sure most were put together with the same fossils rather than from bits of different ones).

[ShadowMarth]

Bones last a long time. Lots of fossils are from that drowned, covered within weeks with sediment. Quicksand, landslides, tar pits, or even just a natural death and the bones sink into the mud... It's really not a big stretch. Besides, what are you suggesting, that the fossils were put there by god to fool us?