You're view on creation/evolution

[Gomen]

People who side with evolution say it's already been proved. Can anybody give some insight on what the most agreed upon today is, creationism or evolution?

A couple of hours ago I was reading about this subject and I discovered the Neanderthal. I already forgot I shouldn't and showed my mom a skeleton picture. She asked me what I thought of it. I told her their bones were different from ours.

Then she told me I was going to die in Armageddon for looking at it. And that the skeletons were fake. I told her they discovered them just like the dinosaurs.

I was really just wondering why some of these humans back then look so different than to us today if the Bible is true. My mom thinks all information on the internet is fake and we shouldn't do research. But the Bible says to study to make sure what we are learning is true.

9 And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
10 The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.

I think I may still lean more into the God is real camp but I wanted to see other views.

[David K]

It's possible to believe in God and accept the fact of evolution. A lot of people like to believe a creator started the universe going, billions of years ago, and now things pretty much take care of themselves with the creator keeping a watchful eye on things. There's no evidence that this is so, but nothing contradicts it either.

Personally I don't believe in any kind of higher power. Sure, it's possible, but anything is possible. If folks want to dream up an origin story for the world, fine, but don't insist it has any kind of validity just because it's not impossible.

To believe that the Bible is literally true, you have to close your eyes to a mountain of evidence that it isn't. Some dudes wrote it long ago, and then some more dudes added a second chapter about their mate Jesus. They were just some dudes and it is just a story.

Warning: censored cartoon bear sex follows. Also blasphemy I guess?

[ExSAguy]

Evolution is fact. That's all there is too it.
A large number of bishops agree that evolution is correct.

If you are unsure I suggest you do some research yourself into evolution and you will see that it simply makes sense.

[Lifeisagame]

Originally Posted by David K

It's possible to believe in God and accept the fact of evolution. A lot of people like to believe a creator started the universe going, billions of years ago, and now things pretty much take care of themselves with the creator keeping a watchful eye on things. There's no evidence that this is so, but nothing contradicts it either.

Personally I don't believe in any kind of higher power. Sure, it's possible, but anything is possible. If folks want to dream up an origin story for the world, fine, but don't insist it has any kind of validity just because it's not impossible.

To believe that the Bible is literally true, you have to close your eyes to a mountain of evidence that it isn't. Some dudes wrote it long ago, and then some more dudes added a second chapter about their mate Jesus. They were just some dudes and it is just a story.

Warning: censored cartoon bear sex follows. Also blasphemy I guess?

WOW, well that's pretty much exactly what my response was going to be, how dare you! Oh well, makes it easier for me now.

I particularly like your bible comments

As you say it is purely some stories by some blokes. Yes there are factual observations in the bible but they are not the ones where "miracles" happened.

I don't subscribe to any particular theory. I am always open to evidence that could arise and change our perceptions of everything. But to date, the sky wizard has not greeted me, nor will he, I am almost certain...

I agree that it is not mutually exclusive with respect to how things got going; a big bang could have been created by a "God" and then evolution was part of her plan, I say her because I am sick of "God" being referred to as some bloke with a white fluffy beard. So you could say, "God" created the world and everything else after that was evolution. However, for me it sits easier in my brain if I look at the big bang theory, with no "God". But no one knows for sure so...

I ponder this everyday actually and appreciate how our hearts beat, how our brains work, how our spinal cord is the thing keeping us alive, sort of. It is a intriguing world in which we reside. We're barely scratching the surface in terms of what we know about our own planet yet alone the universe and everything ever... Completely blows ya mind don't it?

No wonder we all have anxiety problems

[Progress]

I agree that it's perfectly OK to accept God and evolution. I know religious people who readily accept the facts of evolution.

There is a difference between a fact and a theory. Scientists are very cautious before they call something a fact - it has to be virtually as plain as 2+2=4. But evolution is basically accepted as a fact now, there is so much evidence for it from lots of branches of science. If it wasn't true then so much other science would also be proved untrue including areas of geology, genetics and other biology.

Natural selection (the mechanism by which evolution works) is a slightly different matter. It is still considered a theory. But one that is almost universally accepted as true.

[Mr. Nobody]

simple fact is that humans have created god, that is an absolute fact,
another absolute fact is the process of evolution,

the bible is simply an old book, conjured up by yes,. you guessed it,. another human.
same goes for the: Qu'ran, Talmud, Torah, bagavad gita, Dhammapada, tao-te-ching and all the other so-called 'religious' books,

if people in the living, active present want their entire life controlled and dictated by one book some unknown dead person wrote thousands of years ago, - that's a sad sate of affairs I think.

it reminds me of children being read stories at night to help them go to bed,..it's a little regressive for an adult to do that, to say the least.

evolution is mind-blowing once you get into it, and appreciate the depth of it,.
a lot more fulfilling and awe-inspiring than any dirty, dusty old book.

[Oddity]

[Ajax Amsterdam]

Originally Posted by Carbon(cycle)Fodder

simple fact is that humans have created god, that is an absolute fact,
another absolute fact is the process of evolution,

the bible is simply an old book, conjured up by yes,. you guessed it,. another human.
same goes for the: Qu'ran, Talmud, Torah, bagavad gita, Dhammapada, tao-te-ching and all the other so-called 'religious' books,

if people in the living, active present want their entire life controlled and dictated by one book some unknown dead person wrote thousands of years ago, - that's a sad sate of affairs I think.

it reminds me of children being read stories at night to help them go to bed,..it's a little regressive for an adult to do that, to say the least.

evolution is mind-blowing once you get into it, and appreciate the depth of it,.
a lot more fulfilling and awe-inspiring than any dirty, dusty old book.

I'm also in the evolution camp.

Personally, I find it staggering in the modern age that there are still people out there who live their lives literally according to books written thousands of years ago by human beings, then reinterpreted and misinterpreted over and over again. Surely all these texts were also written through the filter of the biases and limitations of those who wrote them, too.

I love your first line and will steal it from you I think.

Did God create man? No, man created God.

And to think... human beings are actually killing other human beings today over what some ancient old guys wrote in a few books.

[Dougella]

Originally Posted by winter*

Yeah, i also think this is why God is depicted as a man.

Back in those days , man was top dog. Who in their right mind would depict God as woman? Woman were only 2nd class citizens back then.

Well, originally actually Gods were often depicted as women, because women brought life into the world. For people back then the idea of a god being a man was nonsensical lol. But then along came Judaism, Christianity, Islam etc...

[Marco]

I agree with all of the comments in this thread that the evidence to support the theory of evolution is overwhelming and that the biblical account of the origins of our planet and life simply cannot be taken literally ***8211; that would be tantamount to believing the earth is flat! However, I don***8217;t think evolution rules out there being a god***8230;***8230;.yet. It is possible (albeit unlikely perhaps) that our universe was ***8220;created***8221; with built-in fundamental properties by a super-intelligent agent(s) to provide precisely the conditions required to enable such an improbable evolutionary process. I don***8217;t subscribe to any religion and all the nonsense that is attached to the different faiths, but I***8217;m not prepared to rule out God altogether. If, however, someone is eventually able to prove beyond doubt that a universe such as ours could spontaneously come about, then I guess the God explanation is surplus to requirement and, following Ockham***8217;s razor principle, would have to be dropped by all rational people ***8211; not that this would happen of course because faith is not based on reason!

[erase&rewind]

Originally Posted by Gomen

A couple of hours ago I was reading about this subject and I discovered the Neanderthal. I already forgot I shouldn't and showed my mom a skeleton picture. She asked me what I thought of it. I told her their bones were different from ours.

Then she told me I was going to die in Armageddon for looking at it. And that the skeletons were fake. I told her they discovered them just like the dinosaurs.

Don't tell your mom that most Europeans and Asians have between 1 to 2 percent Neanderthal DNA

[Marco]

Originally Posted by HermannHesse

However, the idea that this necessary being is a conveniently human shaped being, kinda like an angry grandpa figure, is frankly ridiculous

I agree with most of what you’re saying HH, but let’s the drop the notion that Christians and other people of faith naively believe in a white bearded old man sitting in the clouds – that’s simply a straw man argument.

[Gomen]

Is seems a lot of people in this thread are agnostic.Can you all tell me you're thoughts on this?

https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/a-p...y-of-the-bible

[David K]

Originally Posted by Gomen

Is seems a lot of people in this thread are agnostic.Can you all tell me you're thoughts on this?

https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/a-p...y-of-the-bible

One time I was in a lecture at uni and the lecturer said he was about to show us a scene from a movie that he thought perfectly demonstrated uncanny characteristics. I whispered to my friend "Diner scene from Mullholland Dr."

And lo! It came to pass. Out of all the creepy scenes in all the movies ever, I knew which one it would be. Only God could have predicted such a thing. So I am a prophet of the Lord.

I mean, I've predicted loads of other things and mostly I'm wrong, but I can always use this example to show that I am infallible.

[Marco]

Gomen, biblical prophecies are invariably vague and can be interpreted any which way by those who choose to exploit them. The truth is we don***8217;t know much, if anything, about most of the authors of the Old Testament or indeed when they lived. It might be that some of these so-called prophecies from the OT were actually written around the time or even after the events supposedly being prophesied. I***8217;m sure if you do a little research into the particular prophecy in your link, you***8217;ll find good explanations that effectively debunk it.

[lone*star]

Originally Posted by Carbon(cycle)Fodder

simple fact is that humans have created god, that is an absolute fact,
another absolute fact is the process of evolution,

There is no such thing as an 'absolute fact' (including of evolution). All facts can be only relatively true at best. Why? Because 'facts' are all based on our current, and widely accepted, worldview that the fundamental reality of the universe (and its contents, including ourselves) is that it is made from stuff called 'physical matter'.

The somewhat minor inconvenience that science still doesn't know what physical matter actually is, and can't even find any of it to look at in the first place, seems not important! The attitude appears to be, "Well, things look solid and real enough, therefore they must be reality itself, so we'll take that as a given [and start from there]."

In other words, this current, widely accepted, paradigm is merely a convenient belief. The truth is, that we live in a universe where nothing can really be known about anything. But of course, the nature of the human mind is to want to know; to understand everything. And so we come up with all sorts of brilliant concepts and theories, in order to explain the unexplainable, and thereby help satisfy our insatiably inquisitive minds.

Religious 'creation' and scientific 'evolution' are sadly both such concepts and, as such, are both pretty much meaningless to anyone interested in the truth.

[BritishPeace]

I'm a scientist by training and in psychology you study "evolutionary psychology" about why and how the brain evolved so I believe in evolution because it seems to be the most logical explanation of life. But Neanderthals wern't humans they were a different animal and it's thought that humans were partly responsible for extinction of them because of humans aggressive nature and killing them all.

[Gomen]

Originally Posted by BritishPeace

I'm a scientist by training and in psychology you study "evolutionary psychology" about why and how the brain evolved so I believe in evolution because it seems to be the most logical explanation of life. But Neanderthals wern't humans they were a different animal and it's thought that humans were partly responsible for extinction of them because of humans aggressive nature and killing them all.

Not human? Another user said some of their dna was found in some races today. Were people back then breeding with animals?

Could the people who made illustrations of what the Neanderthal looked like, instead of looking similar to a human maybe their wrong and its just a ape?

[Progress]

Originally Posted by Gomen

Not human? Another user said some of their dna was found in some races today. Were people back then breeding with animals?

Could the people who made illustrations of what the Neanderthal looked like, instead of looking similar to a human maybe their wrong and its just a ape?

They were a different kind of human, but they looked very similar to us and would occasionally interbreed, but they kept apart most of the time.

[lone*star]

Originally Posted by Johnny88

There is a huge difference between a fact and that which has absolutely no proof.

You're missing the point Johnny.

If the fundamental (and widely accepted) current paradigm [which I described above] is merely a belief, then how can anything 'downstream' of that be a fact?

A fact (ie. something real) can produce a belief, but a belief (ie. something not real) can't produce a fact!

[ExSAguy]

Originally Posted by Gomen

Is seems a lot of people in this thread are agnostic.Can you all tell me you're thoughts on this?

https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/a-p...y-of-the-bible

Put your hand out of the window and pray for rain.
If it rains it must mean God exists.
I can make a wide prediction now about the future.

and lo 'pon the red earth did thy humans lie.

Could allude to anything really to be seen as 'true'

Oh and personaly I am an atheist, not agnostic.
I don't believe in God (any God, not just the one you were brought up with)

[lone*star]

Originally Posted by Johnny88

There really isn't any general consensus on the nature of the universe.

Exactly, which is what I was saying! And yet people are habitually starting from that fundamental position of not knowing, to suddenly know that evolution is an indisputable 'fact'! Why? Because that is what they want to believe - that is what sits nicest in their limited little minds.

[Gomen]

Originally Posted by lone*star

Exactly, which is what I was saying! And yet people are habitually starting from that fundamental position of not knowing, to suddenly know that evolution is an indisputable 'fact'! Why? Because that is what they want to believe - that is what sits nicest in their limited little minds.

So is their still a reason to doubt evolution?

[Gomen]

Is this something that will ever be known for sure? I suspect even if it is, it wont be in our lifetimes.

[lone*star]

Originally Posted by Gomen

So is their still a reason to doubt evolution?

You need to broaden your horizons Gomen! Are you interested in the truth or what? If you are, then this pointless debate between creation and evolution will get you nowhere! The truth is beyond all concepts and is too deep and vast to be comprehended by the human mind. Both science and religion can be useful up to a point, but neither of them have the final answer that you're looking for.

[Progress]

Originally Posted by Gomen

So is their still a reason to doubt evolution?

Originally Posted by Gomen

Is this something that will ever be known for sure? I suspect even if it is, it wont be in our lifetimes.

As discussed above there is pretty much nothing we can know for absolute sure. In a sense you can choose what you wish to know for sure. As far as science is concerned the existence of evolution is roughly as sure as the existence of electricity I'd say. Science doesn't need more evidence, it has all it needs.

Personally I'm happy to know for sure that evolution happens. There might be the smallest doubt in my mind, but it's so small it's not worth thinking about, and I don't think about it.

The important thing is, you've got to make up your own mind. Listen to people, consider the evidence, but don't let anyone brainwash you. In the end, make up your own mind.

[Spectrelight]

Originally Posted by Gomen

So is their still a reason to doubt evolution?

You sound like an American

[lone*star]

Originally Posted by Legion

I don't ascribe to this guff that there is nothing we can know for sure. We know for sure that lifeforms are in a continuous state of evolution. One of the biggest emerging threats to our own species is the evolution of microbes.

But in truth, you can only know your above 'fact' for sure, after you [already] know 'we', 'life forms', 'evolution' and 'microbes'. In other words, if you start off by just assuming all of those things to be factual, based on pre-existing belief rather than direct experience, you then leave yourself open to all kinds of potential threats and problems in the future - such as the evolution of microbes for example!

But what if none of those things listed above were actually true in their own right? What if their reality owed its existence purely to you and your own being? That this whole story of 'we' and 'life forms' and 'evolution' and 'microbes' was just appearing, like a dream, inside you? What would be the threat then?

Because the funny thing is, that all you can know for sure is just that - that simply "I am". Anything beyond that knowledge is merely a construction in your own mind.

There is nothing else to know for sure!

[David K]

^ This is absolutely true and completely moot.

[lone*star]

^ But who is it true for, and who would be debating it?