creationism, natual selction, theistic evolution..what do you believe?

Question

come on guys, lets keep an open mind to peoples reasons for believe what they do, and not be rude. i understand this is an touchy subject, and im not trying to create controversy. im just curious to hear the general publics reasoning for believe what they believe on the subject of beginnings, not a scientist with a PhD.
also: i know a good deal about this subject, so you don't need to spend a lot of time explaining the actual 'scientific' explanations. thanks so much guys, my curiousity has gotten the best of me

hey i didn't mean that i don't want your opinion if you are a scientist in the making or a scientist, all i was saying is that i want to know what people really understand about these subjects. Not just what sounds like something straight out of a text book being parroted by someone. sorry if i was misunderstood or something.
AND I did not mean to list every theory, just three pretty popular ones. if you believe in a different branch of evolution or whatever, I'd love to hear what you have to say. no joke.

Answer 1

Creationism and Natural Selection.

As the Dutch botanist, Hugo de Vries, said, “Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest.” That statement is just as true today.

Dr. Terry Mortenson was right when he said, “Natural selection is the God-designed method of preserving representatives of the original created kinds.”

Natural selection is a logical process that anyone can observe (and it was actually a creationist named Edward Blyth who first wrote about it in 1835–37, before Darwin). We can look at the great variation in an animal kind and see the results of natural selection. For instance, wolves, coyotes, and dingoes have developed over time as a result of natural selection operating on the information in the genes of the dog kind.

But there are limits. For instance, you can’t breed a dog to the size of an elephant, much less turn it into an elephant. Natural and artificial selection can only operate on the information already contained in the genes.

The different dogs we see today have resulted from a rearrangement or loss of information from the original dog kind. That is why you can breed wolves to get to chihuahuas, but you can’t breed chihuahuas to get to wolves. The new breeds of dogs have much less genetic information and variability.

And the thing is, what are they? Dogs. What were they? Dogs. What will they be? Dogs. The same could be said for Darwin’s finches, peppered moths, and so forth. There is a big difference between subspeciation (variation within a kind) and transspeciation (change from one kind to another).

Natural selection explains how the dogs can adapt and survive in different environments, not where the dogs came from in the first place.

Answer 2

I have often asked this question myself and have found an unusual condition that I like to call persistence of vision. What I mean by that is whatever a person was taught, or believes, will stay with them. People who have a persistence of vision tend to either believe in creation or evolution and stick with that single viewpoint, invalidating in their own mind any evidence or criticism of their viewpoint. Quite often these same people will either become antagonistic and even violent toward someone who questions or presents evidence that opposes their view. It is quite fascinating (and amusing) to watch from the sidelines as two people with this persistence of vision, but on opposing sides, go at it.

To answer your question I tend to go with the theistic evolution line of reasoning. There does seem to be a pattern and an order to life and the universe that the current 'it all occurred randomly' doctrine cannot explain, however there is the theory and evidence for the theory of evolution that must also be accounted for. A theistic evolution standing seems to encompass both of these points nicely.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

There is mention of more than one process/mechanism in the Theory of Evolution. There is actually an overwhelming amount of evidence to support some of the processes, while others have had to be revised under new discoveries.
Natural Selection is the most fundamental process by which evolution occurs. Other processes are involved in allowing natural selection to happen. The exact nature of some of these processes have changed slightly over the centuries but there is absolutely no evidence against Natural Selection.
(I'm a scientist in the process of getting a PhD., so maybe you don't want my opinion)

Answer 4

I believe this world came about because due an intellectual designer. Every beginning must have a beginner, and there's just no way this world being as ordered as it is, as detailed as it is, that it could happen by chance. IN addition most theories if not all, including evolution has had major flaws that could not be ignored.
When you look at cells and neurons and DNA which contains loads of information, there comes a point when you ask yourself, where did that information come from? Where there is information, there's an author, and as much as people want to ignore the possibility of God creating the world, there is just no way scientifically or otherwise that people rationally can.

Answer 5

I believe in God and attend a Pentecostal Church where everyone else seems to be Fundamentalist Creationist. But I used to be an undergrad in population/evolutionary/genetic biology, and I know that we are basically mutated apes.

The Bible tells us that the rise of Man was God's will, and if the whole story of how He exerted that will is too wonderfully complex to completely include in the Genesis story, that's more than okay. There's no conflict that I can see and I don't understand why others get so uptight.

Answer 6

the bible says that outer space is full of water (genesis 1, 6-10).

(it also says lots of other neat stuff - like the earth is older than the sun - but let's stick with the easy one).

i don't believe that outer space is full of water. so i regard the bible as unreliable.

with the bible out of the running there is no explanation for how the world got the way it is except evolution through natural selection.

it isn't that i think natural selection is the best of several competing theories. i know that natural selection is the only theory.

if people want to believe that outer space is full of water, that is their business.

(and it is my business what i think of them).

Answer 7

i believe in God and i also believe in evolution. i mean some live by the bible and the statement of the earth being created in seven days, but you cant really ignore the evidence of evolution staring you straight in the face. some people say that it has to be either one way or the other, no in between. but lets face it, we dont know everything there is to know and i believe that both can go hand in hand.

Answer 8

I think everything is linked.
Creationists must believe in science and scientists must believe in God.
I think God created nature, chemistry and evolution.
The Bible doesn't have mistakes, Science neither.

Answer 9

There is more proof of evolution than there is of creationism definitely. However, evolution is still not completely proven (the missing link). So to answer your question I honestly don't know what to believe.

Answer 10

Life is too complex to be a random chance occurence. There are many similarities between people and animals which shows there is a common design, not that we evolved from them.

Evolutional science falsefies data and research and hides findings that don't fit into their belief system of evolution. So it's just not credible.

I believe God created us as humans. We didn't evolve from some pond scum.

How much more grand to think that a God created us than to think we came from pond scum. I mean really, is that all
evolutionists think they are??!!

There are plenty of books to read about this. Try Icons of Evolution.

http://www.amazon.com/Icons-Evolution-Science-Teach-About/dp/0895262002/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196381511&sr=1-1

Basically neither one can be proven but evolution sure can be disproven. It all comes down to faith. I think it takes more faith to believe in evolution that to believe God created us whole.

Also, evolution is like a religion. So all that separation of church and state cr@p is nonsense. Evolution IS their religion.