Were you created? or are you the result chance?

Question

I am teaching Sunday School this weekend and I want your input.

Is mankind the result of a Higher Powers purposeful creation?
Is mankind the outcome of a chaotic lottery?

Please feel free to elaborate, these questions are open ended.

Answer 1

Genesis 1:27-28 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God intended for us to be fruitful, and to multiply. He wanted us to have children. It wasn't a result of chance. Nothing that God does is by chance but by design. I was a planned baby.

Answer 2

Let's examine the claims and decide.

What evidence exists that humans are the result of some Higher Power? None (if there were conclusive data proving the existence of any god, all other religions would disappear).

Who is claiming that humans are the result of some Higher Power? About a dozen different contemporary human religions, not to mention quite a few defunct ones, and they have quite different ideas on how this happened and who caused it and why.

What evidence exists that humans are the result of a 'chaotic lottery'? None.

Who is claiming that humans are the result of a chaotic lottery? No one, except for a few uninformed answerers who misconstrue this term as evolution, but this is false. Evolution is not a chaotic lottery.

What evidence exists that humans are the result of millions of years of evolution and have evolved from earlier ancestors? The entire fossil record, not to mention geology.

Who is claiming that humans (and indeed all life) are the result of billions of years of evolution on this planet? Pretty much every scientist, regardless of their religion. Certainly 99% of scientists in the US, which has one of the largest and most fervent religious populations in the world.

Does that help?

I would like to point out that every given proof of God in this question has argued from the position that everything must have a creator, and God solves this only by explicitly stating that he has no creator. How does that make sense to anyone?

Answer 3

Yes and yes. We were created by a process, called evolution, in which randomness is an essential feature. The design in life is caused by life being molded by the environment. That part is not chance. It makes use of randomness to get out of ecological ruts. That part relies on some chance in a structured framework.

Also, the whole process was kicked off by elements that characteristically form chains and complex compounds in certain environments. You could say that chance is involved in bringing pairs of carbon atoms together in a way where their natural tendency is to form chains. And you could say that chance was involved in which replicating carbon chain happened to come about which kick-started the evolutionary process. However, given the amount of those materials it was fairly inevitable that it would happen eventually. So, the randomness of the movement of atoms reduced the statistical chance of them coming together.

Is mankind the result of a Higher Power's purposeful creation? No.
Is mankind the outcome of a chaotic lottery? No, though chance is involved.

Answer 4

Neither.

I wasn't created, but by the time my life came about, it was by conscious choice -- my parents got in bed and did that thing that heterosexual people do, whatever it is, ew, and nine months later I put my mother through 28 hours of labor and had to be yanked out with forceps.

I was a brat even before I was born. Ah well, at least there is consistency in my life.

Answer 5

I think the universe was designed. As an individual I don't think I was handcrafted.

I don't have enough faith to believe that so much order can come from raw materials. Things tend to fall apart not become more ordered and complex. An infinity of tornado's blowing through a junk yard isn't going to produce a fully assembled and functional Boeing 747.

Answer 6

Neither.

Chance has a very minor part to play in evolution and it may well be that life was inevitable given the chemistry of the early earth. That human beings as opposed to anything else evolved is in its way a matter of chance but it is certainly nothing to do with the chance that is often supposed by theists.

Answer 7

You're disrespectful and know absolutely nothing about science if you claim it is a 'lottery.' I would open a science textbook before you speak next time. Also, why even ask such a question if you're teaching Sunday School? This is rather bias.

Answer 8

right, Neither. It's pretty idiotic to teach that we were just :"plopped" here in everything's original form, doncha think?

Life sprung up here, because that's what the universe does: life is everywhere in it, we are just spread far between...

We evolved and grew...it's life.
Human beings are animals and deserve life like anything else which has ever lived.

I can see easily why the belief that dinosaurs were here millions of years before us, living and thriving and dominating the planet would threaten your entire faith system....I can see it really clearly.

Answer 9

Random Chance to the Nth degree. So many people had to meet and reproduce to form me and had to do it at the exact moment they did in the way they did or or I would not be here.

That is me specifically. if one person would have done something different or with a different person, I would not exist and there would be someone else here, but they would be here, natural selection says so.

Answer 10

It's a chaotic lottery.
The choices in our lives are often determined by random chance,
including who we meet,marry and have children with. Had our parents made different choices,we wouldn't exist.

Answer 11

If you are really teaching Sunday school , you already have your answer . If you question your beliefs maybe you should council with the Pastor or a group within the church.