Evolution or creationism?

Question

What do you believe. Why?

Answer 1

First of all, evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with creation, or the origins of life... it is a biological science, and all it does is provide an explanatory framework for observed facts; those facts are the changes in the genetic makeup of populations of organisms, over time.

With regard to 'creation'... that is pure horesh*t. Just consider the first part of Genesis, for example. In biblical times, people thought that the earth and heaven were all that there was... and that the earth was essentially a 'terrarium' (you might want to look that up). They thought that the sky was a solid object, called the 'firmament', and that the sun, moon, and stars were affixed to it. So, essentially, heaven is 'on the other side of the sky'.

The story of Genesis is comprised of the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of an ignorant bunch of Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat herders, lifted from the oral traditions of other cultures, and crafted into a tale that incorporated some of their own folk tales and pseudo-history. This collection of ignorance provides the basis for the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism... Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The cosmological aspects of Genesis are perfectly understandable, if you contemplate it in the proper context. At the time the bible stories were concocted, the perception was that the earth was the object and the center of creation. Why? Because they had no reason to think otherwise. Today, as we advance science, we stand upon the shoulders of all the scientists that came before. Back then there were no shoulders to stand upon... so they did the best they could with what they had... their senses and their imaginations.

* They had no concept of 'outer space', and so they conceived that in the beginning all that existed were dark waters.

* They had no concept of 'nothingness'. Remember, the concept of 'zero' wasn't invented (discovered?) until thousands of years later. With that in mind, the term 'void', as it is employed in Genesis, can not refer to 'nothingness'... it can only be applied in its alternative definition, which is 'empty'. So, the waters were dark, formless and empty (devoid of content).

* They thought that all of creation consisted of the earth and an unseen 'heaven', and they thought that the sky was a 'thing'... a substantive 'firmament' (the sky) that was created by god to separate the waters and differentiate earth from heaven, when both were created.

# They had no idea that Earth was a planet, orbiting the sun.

# They had no idea that there is no firmament... that the sky is not a 'thing'.

(If you don't believe that they thought the sky was an object... a solid barrier... consider the Tower of Babel, that they were building to reach heaven. Apparently, God ALSO thought that the sky was an object, since it concerned him so much that he confounded their speech, so as to disrupt their project and keep them from reaching his domain. God must be pretty much of a dumbass, if he doesn't even know the actual configuration of the universe that he created. So much for the 'inerrant' bible.)

* They thought that the sun was a light that god had placed upon the 'firmament' to differentiate night from day.

# They had no idea that the sun is a star... the center of our solar system.

# They had no concept of 'stars' in the same sense that we understand them today.

* They had no idea that night and day were a consequence of the earth's rotation.

* They thought that the moon was a 'lesser' light that god had caused to travel across the firmament to enable man to differentiate the seasons, and provide illumination at night.

# They had no concept of the moon as a satellite.

* They thought that the stars were tiny lights that god had placed upon the firmament to provide for omens. (Some thought that the stars were 'holes' in the firmament that allowed the 'light of heaven' to shine through.)

# They had no idea that the stars were suns, just like our own sun.

# They thought the eyeball-visible planets (Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn) were 'wandering stars'.

# They had no idea that the planets were actually sun-orbiting bodies, just like earth.

* They had no idea that the earth, itself, is a planet.

# They had no clue as to the actual nature of the earth, our solar system, the place of our solar system in the galaxy... or even of the existence of our galaxy. (Up until very recently, we didn't even know that there were other galaxies. Our galaxy, when it was first known that there actually WAS a galaxy, was thought to be the whole universe.) From their perspective, the 'earth' and 'heaven' (i.e., whatever existed on the other side of the sky) represented all that there was. A terrarium.

I do not say this things to disparage what they thought back then. They were trying to do what science is trying to do today... trying to understand reality. Today, we have technology and disciplined meta-procedures (scientific method) to help us extract answers from nature.

Back then, they did not.

Today, we have 'theories' to provide consistent explanations for what we are able to observe in nature, supplemented and validated by the additional information that we are able to extract from nature by means of our technology, our disciplined methods and our intellectual tools (mathematics, logic). Most of our theories are incomplete, so we continue to work on them... because we know that they are incomplete.

Back then, they did not have disciplined methods, and they did not have the technology to extract answers from nature. The only information they had access to was what they could see with their own eyeballs. There was no technological knowledge base or scientific context in which to interpret their observations, so they had to appeal to their imaginations... and the 'supernatural'... in order to make sense out of what they saw. Actually, what they really achieved was deluding themselves into thinking that they knew the truth. Amazingly, over time, this delusion has become codified, institutionalized, and incorporated... complete with franchises.

Basically, Genesis can be thought of as a 'theory', concocted by people who were constrained by lack of technology, methodology and intellectual tools... but they sure weren't constrained by lack of imagination.

Today, we try to interpret Genesis in the context of what we know to be true of the universe... galaxies, stars, planets, moons, gravity, orbits, inclination of the earth's axis, planetary rotation, etc. They problem is that Genesis can't be interpreted in terms of those things, because Genesis was written by men, based on oral traditions, and those men did not know about those things. They could only write about what they could see and what they could guess about the reasons that lay behind what they saw. In any event, it provided them with a mechanism to quell the innate anxiety that comes with fretting about how and why they came to be here.

They guessed wrong.

So... I think that the cosmological aspects of Genesis require a literal interpretation... no metaphors... no allegory... no hidden meaning. The key, though, is in understanding that the literal interpretation does not lead to a description of the way things are... it leads to a description of the way they thought things are. It leads to a naive description of reality, concocted by people who were doing the best they could with what they had.

It is absolutely appalling, though, to realize that hundreds of millions of people, TODAY, including participants in this forum, BELIEVE that this ignorant bovine excrement is actually TRUE.

Answer 2

A RECIPE FOR CREATING LIFE

Today I am going to share a secret recipe with you. First, take a really large rock, heat it up, and make some oozing puddles of hot mud. Then just sit back and wait. In a few billion years, living creatures will emerge from the mud. They will evolve and eventually, some of the creatures will become men and women, others will become cows, and still others will become mosquitoes, frogs, birds, and even horses. Then, remarkably, some of the matter will become vegetables, flowers, trees, and yes...weeds!
Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? And yet , that is basically the so called scientific explanation of the creation of life that many supposedly intelligent people accept as truth. If you are in that number, I beg you to take a moment and really think about how irrational that concept is. Even if life self- started in the mud, where did the mud come from?. Where did the universe begin?. Scientist tell us that the universe is constantly expanding...into what? Where did the elements that make oxygen originate? Matter cannot create itself, everything has a beginning, including oozing mud.
In the Holy Bible, in the book of Genesis, verse one, we read the following:" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Is this version of creation more unbelievable to you than the "mud theory"? Even if totally unconvinced, I personally would rather err on the side of caution. That way I would have a chance to accept God and his son Jesus, and be able to go to Heaven after I die and exist in eternal glory. My other option would be to accept the story about the mud....................?

Answer 3

Scientists uses evolution as an ongoing study of the human being. Creationism is that humans be. Scientists uses the study of evolution that man is ever evolving from one thing to another. Creationism states man is man, not something else. Evolution would be a state similar to metamorphosis. http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/metamorpsis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphosis
Since the evolutionary theory states that all have a commonality why not this. Eventually, we as humans as other life forms will ultimately become extinct if these theories are correct. Why would I want to believe in evolution since the two, metamorphosis and evolution go hand in hand. I believe in the Ultimate Supreme God that created all things, including mankind.

Answer 4

The facts and the evidence point very clearly towards the Theory of Evolution. That's why it's called a "theory" and not a "hypothisis" or a "guess". What a "holy" book says about the origin of the universe is irrelevant. Only the evidence can lead to reality.

Answer 5

There is really no way to dispute that the earth was created millions of years ago, not 6,000 years. Science, logic, and common sense show that the stories of Genesis must be myths, created to explain the then unexplainable in terms the people of the time could understand.

The Roman Catholic church, one of the biggest christian churches, now accepts Evolution as the history, but genesis as an important moral story.

Answer 6

evolution.....its the only logical explanation from my point of view

there is too much evidence to ignore....

i think as humans evolve there will be less and less need for organized religion and eventually the idea of creationism will be a thing of the past, but I dont think this will happen in our lifetimes.

Answer 7

Evolution it can be proven to be true from the masses of scientific evidence supporting it. creationism is just a story from a story book and has no evidence to support it at all.
Say no to jesus

Answer 8

Evolution. It is based on facts. Creationism is based on fiction.

Answer 9

Evolution. It makes much more sense to me.

Answer 10

I don't believe in either, I just find one more probable to the other, based off of actual data and facts that we can see in our physical world.