Evolution or Creationism?

Question

As a theologican I have always wandered with all the beautiful things on the this earth why do men believe in evoultion and deny creationism. When you really sit down and think about it evoultion is plain stupid. I did not come from a monkey. There is no real evidence backing up evoultion. There is far more evidence to support Creationism than evoution. Saying the world just made itself is the same as saying my house built itself. Big Bang and Evoution are old outdated theories that need to be removed from sceince books. Cretaionism is still fresh, has lots of sceintific backing, and unlike evoution Creationism makes sense. Who agrees?

Answer 1

I said I was not going to answer any more for at least a week, but someone mailed me about this question and said I should give a sensible reply.

First, I respect your belief, and even share some of them, and I know quite a bit about them. Several people have assumed that I don’t, and they have regretted it.

You, however, seem to know nothing about science, or, even worse, you pretend not to so you can make erroneous statements in order to present scientific theories in a bad light.

First, we can dismiss your statement that you came from a monkey (unless you are one of the infinite number of monkeys hitting a keyboard trying to recreate the works of Shakespeare and came up with this). No one ever said that man descended from monkeys!

If you knew the least bit about the theory of evolution, you would know that. What the theory does say it that man, monkey, apes and the other primates had a common ancestor. The fabled missing link. You may have heard of it.

To deny the process of evolution is to deny the headlines of today. You hear all the time of new illness and new strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibodies. You read about AIDS, Ebola and other new diseases, but apparently never wonder where they came from. They are evolved, or if you prefer, mutated viruses. Sometimes relatively harmless virus or bacteria will change into something quite deadly.

Let’s look closely at this. Let’s start with an illness that Dr. Whatshisname developed a antibody for. Something that can now be cured with a shot. This antibody kills all the bacteria, but one. That one bacteria is resistant to the antibody. That bacteria then splits, and becomes two, then two become four and so on, and each generation is also resistant to the antibody. This is how different strains of a diseases are born. You notice this faster and easier among bacteria because a generation of bacteria might be a few minutes or hours, while a generation of higher organism is years.

You might believe that this process is chance, or circumstance, however, I believe in a merciful God who may look down and, out of love for all his creatures might say , “Let this one bacteria live.”

You see, evolution does not preclude the existence of God. However, it seems, that believers in God would rather deny any theory of science then to try and see the hand of God in it.

Now, let’s look at the big bang!

This is actually rather simple for me because it means all I have to do is copy and paste an answer I made a few weeks ago, and here it is:



Did you know that the first person to propose the Big Bang was a priest who actually studied Einstein's theories and realized that it left the possibility of a moment of creation. He did this by studying the theories he was trying to either discredit or change so that he could use those theories to prove a moment of creation and the existence of God.

He then respectfully discussed the matter with Einstein and also Edwin Hubble, and they agreed with him because he knew what he was talking about.

He did not watch a few TV programs and suddenly have a flash of insight that allowed him to claim to have solved a problem that has been search for for decades.

Let's take a look:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Now another version:

In the beginning there was nothing, no time, no space, no matter (sounds like it was without form, darkness and void to me).

Then, there was a sudden release of energy which created the universe as we know it (Ok, let there be light).

Scientist have always known this is basically the same statement, however, most people seem to see it as opposed to each other.

You need to stop treating people as enemies and learn to see what they have to say, you may find they are saying the same thing.

Also, do not call anyone who thinks YOU are wrong an atheist. That is just plain insulting.
________________________________________________

Now, the person I was answering in this case called himself a follower of Christ, even though in mail I showed him he did not know much about the teachings of Christ when it came to tolerance. As this answer shows, the big bang theory is the only theory that allows for a moment of creation! That allows, and even suggest, the possible existence of God. But, the people who know little about the theory, and even less about how it was discovered, seem to think the exact opposite.

So, do a bit of research (start with the works of Georges Lemaitre) and then look into your hearts and think, perhaps you do not know all of the wonders of Gods universe, and perhaps some of it can be found outside the Bible.

Remember, faith is not strictly a Christian trait, others may have it also, and as Christ said:

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Matthew 17:20

Answer 2

Creationism has zero scientific backing because it is not a scientific theory. It was a myth created to explain unanswerable questions long long ago to people who had no scientific explanations for these things. As for you thinking you and monkeys are not related, if you think about it, we are a very similar to monkeys, because us and them both evolved from a common ancestor.

Evolution and The Big Bang have a lot of evidence going for them. Evolution has fossil evidence, DNA evidence, vestigial organs, and many similarities between separate species suggesting they once evolved from a common ancestor. Think about it, why else would we have a tail bone unless your 10000000000000 generations back our ancestors had tails? We don't need tails anymore but the tailbone remains, although useless. We see evolution happen today even among us humans. The people of africa have evolved darker skin to deal with the higher amount of UV radiation that hits the area around the Earth's equator. Bacteria and viruses have evolved to become resistant to our modern antibiotics.

As for the big bang, galaxies in the universe are all receding from each other, run the clock backwards and they all come to one point. If you have a better theory, and evidence backing it up, by all means do share.

Answer 3

Your question is really asking: Science or Theology?Creationism is merely Religion masquerading as Science. True Science never tries to explain the unexplainable, which includes religion, voodoo, astrology, metaphysics, or anything else that must be accepted on faith and is not subjected to the experimental method. Also, the Scientific Method is subject to verification, and scientists list sources so that other scientists can reproduce their experiments. When you make claims like "There is far more evidence to support Creationism than evolution" without citing sources you merely show that you do not understand the Scientific Process. Not to mention that many web sites that others have cited as "proof" contain the same dogma and no evidence whatsoever. If you go to the New Testament I think you will find that Jesus didn't worry about proving creationism, he had other things to talk about.

Answer 4

There is nothing in the theory of evolution that denies the hand of a creator, if you are so inclined to believe in such a thing, but the evidence gathered not just in evolutionary biology, but also geology, genetics, astronomy, chemistry, physics, biogeography, anatomy and virtually every other field of science is incompatible with a literal reading of Genesis.

There are hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence that back up the theory of evolution. There is more evidence supporting evolutionary theory than there is for the theory that the Earth goes around the Sun or that germs cause disease. It is not 'plain stupid'.

You yourself did not come from a monkey, no, but back about 6 to 8 million years ago, there is considerable paleontological, anatomical and genetic evidence that we did indeed share a common ape ancestor with the living great apes. I don't see how that is somehow philosophically more distasteful than the idea that we were smushed together out of ash and mud 6000 years ago.

There is no evidence which supports Creationism.

Evolution says nothing about the 'world just made itself'. The theory of evolution is concerned with how life changed, adapted and evolved once it got started, but has nothing to do with how it actually got started in the first place.

Creationism is hardly 'fresh', nor does it have any scientific backing, and is completely lacking in 'sense' - so I'm afraid that I, and every reputable scientist in every field of endeavour are going to have to disagree with you. Sorry.

Answer 5

Ummm what do you mean, no real evidence?
Once you put aside the ape/monkey/man thing...which is 9/10 times the main reason people don't like evolution, there is lots of evidence.
ie in the oldest rocks only simple forms of life exist
as you get into younger and younger rock the range of things increases eg you can see the earliest plants eg algae, then mosses, ferns, conifers and only then in the later rocks do we see the angiosperms.
This occurs in animals too eg reptiles, amphibians...dinosaurs (I asume you accept they existed since we have the SAME evidence they existed as we do about human evolution), then birds and fianlly mamals.
THere are excellent exmaples of changes in horses and elephants...right from primative types to modern days one.

Now the human thing.....We have fossil evidence that at the moment goes back about 10 million years. These fossils are very ape like (to go back to a monkey ancestor is even further back) . It stood on 2 legs (unlike apes) but had similar teeth (cusp on teeth), muscles on the head, jaw etc, among other things as well.
THere are actually quite a few human'like ancestors...not just 1!!! As we get closer to today there are other changes. there are some "dead ends" (eg parathopus, H. neaderthalensis) that are not in the direct linkage to us. Having said that there are other ones that are quite similar to us and you can see the progession of changes just as you can see in other plants and animals.
when we develop in the embryo we have a tail and gills....hmmm???
our DNA has a LOT in common with the chimpanzee, which is genetically closer to us than to monkeys (and remmber monkeys and apes have also evolved as don't look like they used to)
Have you ever seen a baby chimpanzee and noticed how similar it is to a human. Some say we are a juvinile form of chimps...i mean have retained the juvinile features of ancestors, unlike chimps which vary more in adulthood.
We are finding new evidence all the time, so I have no idea where the outdated thing comes from!!!

Answer 6

We have to make sure that we define our terms.

To believe in evolution does not mean you have to not believe in God. My own viewpoint as both a devout layman in a mainstream Protestant church and the holder of two degrees in Biological Anthropology is that God created the universe and that He designed it so that life would appear and that beings would evolve with whom He could have fellowship.

Creationism is not the same thing. Creationists believe that the Bible must be interpreted literally. Thus the creationist believes that God created every living thing separately, in kinds with uncrossable boundaries between them and every other kind. For them to believe otherwise calls into question the very existence of God. Usually they will also believe that the earth is of recent origin.

The problem for a creationist is that you just can't "get rid" of evolution. The evidence (found all over the earth and observable cosmos) and theories that have developed to explain and understand what we observe are all intertwined. Remember, science is a method for understanding what is around us and that science as a given rules out non-natural phenomena. If you simply make evolution "disappear", much of biology, geology, physics, medicine, and so forth.

Where is the "tons of scientific backing" to which you refer? Creationist materials I've seen offer very little in the way of "evidence", but a lot in misquoting scientists, and a lot in the way offering examples of "proof" which are then shown to be wrong, and which they continue to use, despite being shown that the example is wrong.

I hate to say that scientific creationists ( and their stepchild, the ID movement) are lazy, and incompetent scholars, but the only alternative is to say they are deliberating lying, and so I'd prefer to think they're incompetent.

Answer 7

Do you want to be descended from a pile of dust, as the creation story claims? Creationists don't seem to mind being modified dirt, it's not clear why they have a problem with being modified monkeys.
Science is not about what we want, it is about collecting, testing, and explaining data. Do you want deadly earthquakes to happen? Most people do not, but that does not prevent them from happening, nor should it prevent people from studying earthquakes.
I admit it would be nice if we could choose our ancestry. Wouldn't you like to be the son/daughter of (insert name of celebrity, potentate, or historical figure)? (Note: responding to the ad hominem aspect of this argument with another ad hominem remark is not logically valid, but it can be an effective rhetorical technique for demonstrating the claimant's wrong logic.)
First, evolution says both Homo sapiens and "monkeys" are descended from a common ancestor during the Oligocene. Second, what may be particularly interesting, from recent molecular studies and other data, that common ancestor may be more like us than monkeys. Therefore, perhaps the more accurate questions is whether monkeys would want to be descended from us!

Answer 8

you don't "believe" in Evolution, you either understand it or need desperately to take some basic science courses. Clearly, you haven't, because otherwise your understanding would make you realize that your argument is logically untenuable.

And Creationism is faith based, meaning it has no scientific backing by its very nature. Plus it makes absolutely no sense, scientifically, for a God to "evolve" fully out of nowhere and then to start creating things by wadding up piles of dirt and yanking out ribs. Think about it.

And then take some science courses!

Answer 9

Evolution and creationism are not mutually exclusive. Charles Darwin was a creationist of sorts. He believed that all species evolved from a common ancestor but he couldn't explain what the original living thing evolved from so he concluded that it was created.

It seems plausable to me that evolution could be part of the creation process.

Answer 10

Actualy Darwin's theory of Evolution never says that we came from monkeys. I myself belive in Evolution. There is good evidence of Evolution like Vestigial Structures and the evidence on Galapaglos Island.