I don't understand, you opened with you believe in creationism, but then you post an argument in favor of random chance. What point are you getting at? Two things here. 1, I do know all about what the bible says, I was raised Catholic for 18 years, and part of getting confirmed was learning the Bible. What I don't know is why it is considered a good source of information. The book is a collection of stories, with no more credibility as a record of events than the Hindu creation stories, the Egyptian myths, the Greek myths, etc. When you understand why you don't believe what the other creation myths say happened, you will understand why I don't believe what the Bible says. 2, Humans didn't come from monkeys, humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. As for the hair issue, I am not an expert, but I am willing to do some googling and find the opinions of someone who is an expert on the subject. Here is a detailed article on some possible reasons humans lost the fur that dominates most other mammal species. A short summary of the possibilities presented in case of TL;DR When humans moved from the forest to the savannah in Africa, hair was too hot, and the invention of clothing made it possible to adapt to cold. Evidence includes the fact that we can have much darker skin than our close primate relatives, which indicates that dark skin rather than hair was adapted to protect from the sun's rays in the African savannah. When humans began living in caves and dens in groups, less hair prevented the spread of lice and similar infections. Evidence includes that less hairy races of humans come from areas with less types of flea and louse borne diseases. Africans have very little body hair, and Africa has more of these diseases than anywhere else. Human ancestors went through a semi-aquatic phase. Less hair made it easier to move like whales and dolphins which have also lost their hair. Evidence of aquatic ancestry is visible in our partially-webbed fingers and toes. These are just some hypotheses, and evidence for all of them is weak, but the point is that hair loss does not indicate that we don't share ancestry with modern monkeys, as there are many ways that there could have been selective pressure against hair. Edit: I don't bring up my lack of religious belief in any Halo related discussion, nor will I tell anyone "screw you" because they are a believer. And I notice you didn't mind posting your opinion about the Bible and how God created "***** monkeys" on this site, but then as soon as you read my statement this site is suddenly for Halo only and religion is not to be discussed here. Don't apply double standards to people you disagree with, especially in the debate forum, its just bad form.
Well whatever, just do me afavor and remember this saying. I would rather live my life as if their is a God and die to find out their isn't, then live my life as if their isn't and die to find out their is.
How about we keep this thread to just debating whether evolution is true or false, and whether creationism is true or false. If you guys want to argue just God, try it in the God debate thread. This thread is for showing with evidence that the variety of species on Earth arose through evolution by natural selection, or stating with no evidence or even basic knowledge of biology that every creature was created as we see it today, and did not evolve.
I think this debate is pretty much over. What we have seen thus far hasn't really been a debate- just creationists saying crazy reasons why they don't believe in evolution, and us explaining how their misconceptions are completely wrong. There's really no way to argue for Creationism without basing it entirely on faith (and in that case, it becomes a God discussion). And there's really no way to argue against evolution, since it is pretty much infallible. As Ladnil said, we should move our current discussion to the God debate.
Seriously, this is a DEBATE. If you can't handle people assaulting your beliefs, GTFO. There is a way to argue logically for creationism, without just giving 'crazy reasons'. I just haven't seen anything like that before. Unfortunately, I think it's a little late for that. I'm going to have to agree with Rabid, it might be time to close this debate topic.
Personally I am a supporter of the Divine Hand Theory. I believe that there was evolution, but God had a hand in making it happen. I've realized the validity in both sides of the argument and so I decided that a combination of the two is the most likely. I feel that there has to be some driving force behind evolution, I don't think we can't just turn from single-celled organisms to multi-celled organisms on our own. Star of Knights, when going into a debate section should be ready for people to challenge your faith and your ideals. You can't just come in, state your set of ideals, and expect people not to question them, and then just tell them that they should stop arguing because their ideas are different than yours. We grow stronger in our faith through challenges, remember that.
So your just religious in order to go to heaven? That doesn't seem very moral. What you are saying is that you believe in god purely based off the fear of god and are hoping not to go to hell. Isn't that the exact opposite of what religion is trying to teach? You are not supposed to believe in a religion in order to gain the benefits that that religion has, that is a very materialistic goal and you are using that religion in order to cover all your "bases."
The problem with that is that it still makes it seem like evolution had a goal. More specifically, it implies that evolution's goal was to create people, and now that its done, why should it continue? If some benevolent god used evolution to create human beings, and we're presumably this god's favorites, then why is evolution still happening? Why do bacteria evolve to resist our antibacterials, if evolution is a divine benevolent tool? Why does HIV evolve so rapidly that it can't be vaccinated against? Why haven't we divinely evolved immunity to both bacteria and viruses? Or did this god just poke and prod at one particular branch on the evolutionary tree until it created people and stop there? If that is the case, then why include a god at all in the theory when its interference is indistinguishable from if it did not interfere?
Maybe he just wanted to see if he could perfect a species. Who said God wasn't a scientist of sorts? (Maybe that explains why we have higher mental capabilities as opposed to other species.)
I accidently said creation before so my point may have been ignored I personally believe in evolution so: Take a deck of cards. If you suffle the cards and deal them like so : [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[] chances are they will be random. In a universe with an infinite amount of time, continually shuffiling and dealing cards will result in the cards appearing in every order possible. Essentially, thats a metaphor for given time all events that have even a chance of 1 in 123,456,789,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000 will eventually happen.
My validation of God is that in the beginning there was nothing and then nothing combined and something happened, most people attribute this to a Big Bang, correct? To do anything, energy has to be output, but if there was nothing, then what caused this to happen? I believe that God started the whole process, and that he guided the evolution to form the first humans. And if this isn't concrete enough for you, can I have some proof he doesn't exist?(I'm not trying to pick a fight or something, I'm just wondering so please no, OMG GOD r liez. Just answer respectfully please.
No that is not why I believe in in God. I just think that it sounds really kool and interesting. I believe in God for alot of reasons and that is not one of them And that guy above me. God didnt make us immune to bacteria because he wanted us to have knowledge and actually try to help our selves instead of being gave the ability to resist all viruses. Yea I kind of believe both . I think God created evolution because before the big bang theory,what was there,ok,exactly, maybe he created a little bit and made it evolve into more.
What made god? I'll say the same thing you did - "To do anything, energy has to be output, but if there was nothing, then what caused this to happen?" Assuming that God just appeared one day is worse than assuming that matter appeared one day. If you assume that god just appeared one day, waited a little, and create the universe, you also have to assume that the chances of an omnipotent being randomly occurring are far less likely than matter randomly occurring. No, you can't have proof that he doesn't exist. You can't have proof that anything doesn't exist. The inherent problem with the idea of God is that it is so badly defined that it is impossible to disprove it. It is like trying to disprove a tiny china teapot orbiting Pluto- you can't. You say that you can't see it, I say because it is invisible. You say it is unlikely, I say that it's still possible. One of the key difference between religion and science is that science doesn't pretend to know everything. Just because science can't explain how the universe began doesn't mean it never will. The problem that many people have is that the second that science can't explain something, they default back to God. It doesn't work like that. It isn't one or the other. Just because current science isn't right doesn't mean religion automatically is. Instead, go look for some proof of god. When you are unable to find any, discard religion just as you would discard any other failed idea, and start again.
Making the argument that there has to be a god because something can't come from nothing raises two problems. The first problem is that all you've argued in favor of is a supernatural force that began the universe. You still leave any claims of miracles, answered prayers, or an afterlife completely unsupported. The first two of these things are significant claims that would be provable if they were real. If there are miracles, then they never happen in front of a camera, or they're never compeltely unexplainable by non-miraculous events. If there were answered prayers, then scientific study of the effects of prayer on certain events would confirm that prayer has a positive effect, when in reality every attempt to study prayer's effect on random chance events like coin tossing or on recovery of the sick has returned no positive effect of prayer. And the second problem is that you're saying that the universe had to have a creator, yet you're denying that your creator needed a creator itself. That is simply an unnecessary extra addition to the potentially infinite regression of adding creators to creators. If, as is claimed, a god can simply exist without beginning, why can't the universe do the same? Making that first cause argument is not only worthless at supporting any specific religion since all can claim it, it also raises another identical creation question of where the creator came from. And it definitely does not give any support to the other characteristics that are generally given to the creator god.
Years proior, science and religion have been taught together and complimentary subjects instead of trying to disprove one another. Not 1 is right or wrong in its entirerty. "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." (Albert Einstein)