Evolution v Creationism

**Askthepizzaguy** · 05-19-2009, 23:02

Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

I hope you haven't abandoned the fiery little leprechaun god.

HE ABANDONED ME FIRST!!! I leave him messages on his answering machine saying things like:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

"Hi, it's the pizzaguy. Love that green outfit. What are you doing Saturday Night? By the way, can you please let my local sports team win the pennant? Thanks. -Amen"

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

"Hey it's me again. I'm sorry I forgot to add that I'd really love to win the lottery. Could you make that happen? Thanks. -Amen

Oh, PS- where does life begin?"

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

As you can see, since he doesn't return my phone calls, he abandoned me first. Or he's dead. But the important thing is that even though he doesn't talk to me, I continue to pray to him and ask him to change his Divine Plan, even though it wouldn't be much of a Divine Plan if he changed it to suit my whims.

Originally Posted by Sigurd

Argumentum ad Hominem with the sub fallacy; Refutation by Caricature.

Much of the religious argument against evolution comes from the argument from ignorance. See also "God of the Gaps".

**Rhyfelwyr** · 05-19-2009, 23:22

Heh, well Yahweh is very real to me, in everything I do. It follows that since the message of the New Testament is so real to me, so is that of the Old Testament, Jesus was fulfilling those scriptures after all. Plus, you've got to admit, Daniel didn't do bad predicting the year of Jesus' death, and all the prophecies concerning Israel etc.

On a side note, if you were comparing your prayer to the Christian version, it's not quite like that. Trying to work through prayer is like trying to do stuff in the Matrix - Jesus says you have to know your prayer will be answered, otherwise you were not in accordance with God's will in the first place! Stop trying to hit me and hit me... see what I mean?

**Askthepizzaguy** · 05-19-2009, 23:28

I always knew Christianity was like the Matrix. Thanks for clearing that up.

I'm just having fun, I believe that the real arguments have been passed back and forth, and ultimately since Creationism is a religious argument not based upon science but upon Scripture, there is nothing that can be said to change one's mind.

To call it a debate is silly because there is one side of the issue which won't budge regardless of evidence or argument, if it is based upon religion, because religion requires faith and faith isn't really evidence, and is considered superior to evidence by the faithful. I'm willing to discuss the real facts, but there is no alternative theory at the moment grounded in science and based upon evidence. There is only religion and skepticism. Skepticism I buy, because that is simply the position that we cannot know. However, even then, one should not totally dismiss evidence. As for religion, it hasn't advanced our knowledge of the universe, only our belief in aspects of it, and beyond, so they are different unrelated things.

As for prayer, in all honesty it can't hurt. However, it shouldn't be relied upon instead of medicine, for example.

Originally Posted by Sigurd

Argumentum ad Hominem Tu Quoque

You win the argument by default because your vocabulary is superior to my own. Curse my distaste of Latin!

**Rhyfelwyr** · 05-19-2009, 23:44

That's fair enough, but remember a lot of people who argue against religion do so because they don't like some of its (debatable) effects. Things like holding back science, causing wars etc don't really do anything to prove whether the belief system is right or not.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 05-19-2009, 23:49

Whether it is right or not is not knowable by any living being.

If one can remain skeptical of science, one needs to rely on the argument that we don't know everything, which puts religion on equal or lesser footing than science, because science relies on a foundation of impartial reasoning and evidence rather than a series of unprovable assumptions involving the supernatural.

If we aren't discussing whether it is true or not, we can discuss that the unwavering certainty of any viewpoint, and the intolerance of those who hold that view to opposing viewpoints, does usually result in negative effects on mankind, regardless of the truth of the message.

If I were set out to prove that 1+1=2, regardless of how true it is, would I be right to go to war over it, or to attempt to stop all attempts to research alternative theories, or to persecute those who believe there could be other answers? No... even if we "know" we are right, we have to accept that "being right doesn't give us the right" to do wrong. One can freely argue for intelligent design, or debate any scientific viewpoint. However, it rarely stops there. It usually ends when the offending viewpoint is abolished or declared heretical or illegal, if we base this on historical precedent. In recent years, it has reared its head once more, to infringe upon the rights of the individual.

Science and religion can coexist, but just like voodoo and astrophysics, they belong in different books.

**Rhyfelwyr** · 05-19-2009, 23:55

I think there's a bit of debate about whether or not it could be "knowable" by a little human such as ourselves. I came across a discussion once about whether religious experiences could be self-authenticating, in that they give a person 100% (no 99.999's) assurance of their truthfulness, beyond even the certainty you could place in your own minds reliability.

That's a horrendeously complicated debate, and again I suppose it wouldn't prove Christianity, just perhaps, if won, prove that some of its claims are possible.

**A Terribly Harmful Name** · 05-20-2009, 00:13

If there was ever "design", it sure as hell was of the stupid kind.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 05-20-2009, 00:18

Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

I think there's a bit of debate about whether or not it could be "knowable" by a little human such as ourselves. I came across a discussion once about whether religious experiences could be self-authenticating, in that they give a person 100% (no 99.999's) assurance of their truthfulness, beyond even the certainty you could place in your own minds reliability.

That's a horrendeously complicated debate, and again I suppose it wouldn't prove Christianity, just perhaps, if won, prove that some of its claims are possible.

Using the same argument some use against the idea of proof, how can you use a religious "experience" as evidence of anything? The mind can dream, the mind can forget, mis-remember, misinterpret, misdiagnose, not to mention hallucinate. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if someone has a religious experience, it doesn't count as scientific knowledge unless the results can be repeated, predicted, and observed by neutral observers. I can see that there are cheetos that look like jesus, and I can also see that a closet door once closed "on its own" and a light bulb coincidentally turned off "on its own" within seconds of one another. However, given the billions of cheetos out there, it is almost a certainty that some will resemble other things, and the closet door in question had slightly changed shape due to changes in temperature, and while it usually would experience little friction when opening or closing, on that particular day it was open but experiencing pressure, until it moved enough that it suddenly popped closed. Coincidentally, at the same time the light bulb in that room turned off because it was a bulb that was inside a small hollow part of the ceiling, and it overheated.

You can bet that odd coincidences like that make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, because even though I'm a person who thinks scientifically I am just an animal with instincts and unintelligent fears and/or phobias. Until I figured out what was going on, I felt a little freaked out. And if "God" appeared before me and started raining lightning bolts on me, I'd feel freaked out too. But then again, if I regained my composure, I might think that it would be possible I ingested something hallucinogenic, and I'd still need more proof than that to say conclusively that God exists. Bottom line is that I could also be insane. Which, if you were, you would have no way of knowing conclusively. Maybe everyone else is insane and you're the only one who sees clearly.

Things that we "know" and are certain of can be wrong as well. We might find out one day that we were adopted. We might find out our birth certificate gives our middle name as "Jose". We might discover that the mole on our neck isn't a mole after all, but a malignant tumor. We could also find out one day that our ideas about science and/or God are all total baloney. I am always leery of the idea that one person knows something with absolute certainty, because that is almost certainly wrong.

I place more trust in things that don't come from our little weak opinions, such as things we all agree we can see with our eyes, hear with our ears, taste, smell, touch, etc. I also trust when we can repeat an experiment over and over again with the same results. I also trust when we find stuff in the ground that was never touched by human beings before, encased in a layer of solid rock, that it is not a fabrication by someone trying to sell some crackpot theory. Especially if thousands of people across the planet can find similar rock pieces. I also trust what seems to follow from logical examples of something similar... bacteria and viruses totally changing randomly, such that the ones who survive in their environments are the ones who just happen to be more resistant to our medicines and our immune systems. From that, one might conclude that if the environment of an ecosystem changed that trees which once had white bark now had black bark, now certain color adaptations tended to survive because they were better hidden from predators than before. We observe key changes in the population of the species and each succeeding generation having differences which allow them to survive better, until the species flourishes and spreads across the planet and changes once again by natural selection and adapts to its new surroundings... until you have very different looking animals.

So, we have proof of natural selection, and we have proof of genetic mutation. And we also can see, just from changes in species over time, just from the time frame of our own human observations, that certain species change so much they can no longer mate with former members of their own species, and they are now considered different species.

Once we see this, and we add that to what appears to be billions of years of fossil evidence showing these changes, species appearing and disappearing, with logical steps being taken for one species to radiate and change into several over time, and some species going extinct... and of the surviving species, we can see that there is a genetic similarity between species which seem to have the closest ancestry, and a genetic dissimilarity between species which have more distant ancestry... we have ample evidence that species radiate, change, adapt, and become new species over time, and others disappear. Which directly contradicts the idea that all species were created at once using magic and dust.

If there were evidence that a trillion species appeared suddenly billions of years ago, and since then, they have done nothing but disappear, we might reach a different conclusion. Then creationism might have more merit. But as it stands, there is literally no evidence which supports that theory over the theory of evolution or natural selection.