McDuffie

Please respond with the selection that most closely matches your thoughts on this subject.

'Deistic evolution' is what I would have picked when I was in my late teens/early twenties. It is the belief that God (whatever that is) threw the ingredients into the pot, turned the burner on and left the kitchen.

EDIT: moderators, I forgot to add the 'other' option. Could you add it for me?

Skerious

Something Else

kutulu

I really don't know which option to choose. I wouldn't say I'm an athiest, but I don't do anything religious. I believe evolution happened and what we have are scientific answers to the question of how life came about. It doesn't mean that God didn't or couldn't have played a part in starting it or actively guided each step of the process.

God simply doesn't need to be included when we talk about the mechanism of how life evolved.

flstf

McDuffie, you really need a "I don't know" selection which is what many of us believe.

tecoyah

Wish I saw you wanted that option in there before I chose.....I would have chosen other...instead I will just add it to your poll

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El Kaz

While I tend more toward evolutionism (Darwinian evolution), tere's always a measure of doubt. The time scale of evolution is so huge.. I'd feel foolish to have hard convictions about it all.

degrawj

i put down "other" because i think that something had to create the Big Bang, and that Something coerced things into happening the way things have happened. i don't really believe that humans literally came from nothing just by mere evolution. it makes more sense to me that something had to kind of "control" the evolution and made things happen. as for what, or who, did all that stuff, i still haven't decided.

Zephyr66

no god whatsoever

rhaevyn

Right now, I'm not really sure what I believe. *shrugs*

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McDuffie

I am an atheist. I happen to accept the prevailing scientific theory that life arised spontaneously through naturalistic processes and that mutation and natural selection caused the diversity of life we now see on the planet.

I say "I happen to accept..." because atheism does not 'own' evolution. One needn't be an atheist to accept some form of evolution (as this poll demonstrates) and one needn't accept evolution to be an atheist.

MageB420666

I'm going to go with the Great Green Arkelseizure sneezing out the universe proposed by Douglas Adams and warn all of ye that we should all be in great fear of The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief.

But seriously, we're all gonna die at somepoint and worrying about how the universe came to be is kind of pointless compared to try to understand how it works now, once we figure out everything about how it works, then we can waste time wondering about how it came to be.

Now as to what I believe caused the universe to come about, I don't really care, I'm not gonna need to worry about it until I'm dead, and at that point all will be revealed so I won't have to waste my time wondering.

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McDuffie

'How the universe came to be' is an entirely different question than 'how life on Earth came to be so diversified'.

flstf

You are probably right, but we are curious creatures and it is hard to just let things be. That's why I answered "I don't know", but I sure would like to know more. A wise person would probably stop racking their brain about it at some point.

lasiv7

I beleive that we are created because there is no way that we could have evolved from pond scum. We are way to complicated to have just been an accident. There is no proof of evolution. Both ideas need faith. I choose creation.

Hard8s

Right on. This is exactly what I think too. Something had to start it but then it kind of followed along the evolution circuit. how else can we explain the Neanderthal man and others they find. So much like us yet so different as well. The best adaptation survived. And then are things like the Crocodile which do not have to appear to have evolved much in the last 100,000 yrs.

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vermin

I voted creationism. No more or less provable than evolution, but a naked chick in a garden gives it an appeal that evolution can't match.

As Steve Martin said in The Man With Two Brains: "I can't fuck a gorilla!"

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Bill O'Rights

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"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

wnker85

creationism all the way for me. Not only because I have my faith, but also because carbon dating is only been proven acturate within 100 years. (tell me if I am wrong on that)

I just take everything with a grain of salt.

lurkette

Actually there is proof, or at least evidence. Granted, evolution is "just" a theory, but it's a theory with a tremendous amount of evidence to back it up. It doesn't require faith, just reason, inference, and healthy skepticism.

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kutulu

Yes, you are wrong on that. Carbon dating is accurate for a hell of a lot longer than 100 years. It is accurate for much more than 10,000 years.

Glava

THGL

Science call tell us what happened one-billionth of a second after the Big Bang, but it cannot tell us what happened one-billionth of a second BEFORE the Big Bang. I think that's where religious faith comes in.

kutulu

I really don't see why people can't separate science and religion. To me evolution seems like the practical and likely mechanism to describe the emergence and development of life and the Bible is a non-scientific way to describe the same to people who at the time had absolutely zero understanding of scientific processes.

It just amazes me that critics of evolution try every deceptive way to bring down a solid theory with anecdotal 'evidence' while propping the Old Testament as a bullet-proof description of everything. The Bible constantly contradicts itself and Creationism supporters choose to ignore this.

McDuffie

as noted, quite wrong.

However, evolutionary biology does not rest upon carbon dating. If carbon dating didn't exist, our modern concept of evolution would not change in the very least.

McDuffie

I wonder why my earlier post was deleted. Nothing I said was inflammatory in the least. In fact, the post I was responding to was subtly inflammatory, but that one is still in the thread.

Just wondering.

Hanabal

well ive actually decided to develop my own belief system in what happened.

evolution happened, and is still happenning, but there is a guiding force. This force however is not sentient and has no conscience. Its complicated to explain, once Ive thought it through i might share it with you guys

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wnker85

Well, from what I remember that it was tested on artifacts that were 100 years older or less and the an exponential (SP?) graph was made. And, some think that it is inaccurate.

Is there anything out there that shows more indepth testing of carbon dating?

But, it can make a difference. If it is not accurate then it can go to show that there was nothing made before 10,000 years ago and that creationism has more bearing.

But, IMO how do we know that the dinasuars were cold blooded by their bones. What if they had hair and were warm blooded. I just think that we need someone out there cross testing all this science to make sure that they are correct, because I have seen reports that have disproven some of the basis for random life.

Hanabal

carbon dating is no longer the method used to date things, thats why it doesnt matter anymore

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flstf

I agree that evolution is a viable explaination for how life emerged and developed on this planet. I can even comprehend how the galaxies, stars and planets may have evolved from coalescing space dust etc..

What I have the most trouble fully accepting is the big bang theory which supposedly happened when something described as a singularity exploded. And even if this is true, what was existing before that? I can't comprehend it if the answer is nothing. And if the answer is something, what was there before that? Where do these singularities come from anyway?

That's why I answered "I don't know". That something may turn out to be what us humans refer to as a god. Or not.

Bill O'Rights

You have trouble grasping the concept because everything that you know has a beginning, and an end. Everything has...boundaries. things are here...or there. My desk starts over here, and ends over there. I had a lunch hour that had a beginning, and an ending. Even our lives have a beginning, and an ending. All of this is based on our extremely limited experience. There is a vast universe out there, that has no beginning, and has no end. We pathetic little people cannot grasp that concept.

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"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

omega2K4

I believe in Evolution.

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1010011010

Since others can't seem to let the carbon dating thing go...

Carbon dating currently has an upper limit of around 50,000 years. It also has a lower limit of about 150 years. The lower limit is due to the industrial revolution pumping a lot of depleted carbon into the environment. What it means is that the amount of carbon-14 present in recently dead organisms can also be consistent with the amount of carbon-14 present in things that died a lot longer ago. The exact "apparent age" depends on how much exposure to a depleted carbon source the specimen recieved as it lived and died. In short, carbon dating really is erratic for young things because the traditionally very smooth index of environmental C12:C14 has become erratic.

Carbon dating isn't the only radioisochronological method, though. And while there are recognized problems with all of them and ways to test and control for those problems... it gets pretty hard to claim they're all wrong if multiple methods agree on the age.

Oh, and C-dating, due to its 50Kya upper limit, has very little import on the evolution discussion and no relevance at all to a discussion of fossils.

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flstf

Yep, that's where I'm at, LOL. I do not truly comprehend the concept of the universe being infinite or finite.

CSflim

No Gods or Godesses. Just evolution.

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lurkette

Bless you, kutulu. I have never understood why people who "interpret" the Bible "literally" (aren't those contradictions in terms?) have trouble believing in an empirically supported theory that explains a heck of a lot about our physical universe.

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Frowning Budah

What I don't understand is why evolutionist and creationist have to be mutually exclusive. Why couldn't God have created the Universe using evolution?

ShaniFaye

I believe god created everything....then those things evolved given the nature of the planet....ice ages, droughts, floods etc....everything has to either learn to adapt (read: evolve) or die out. I do not, however, believe that we evolved from apes

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splck

Or maybe god being created in the evolving mind of humans?

Never have, and never will believe in a god. The whole idea of "poof" the earth was formed, adam and eve, the flood seems ridiculous to me. While creation may have been an adequate explanation years ago, I think people should realize it's simply a fable and treat it as such.

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nice line eh?

wnker85

I do not understand how creation by God is less beleivable than the random events that happened to bring about life. How can you be dismissive of one and not the other.

I know my biology, and I still have a strong faith, and beleive that the world was created in 6 days.

Darwin is right though on how birds change when in different enviroments and how animals change over time . There is no arguing the fact there. Theroies are regarded as fact because they can not be proven wrong, same as someones faith. I will always have my faith even if I am wrong and there is noone on the other line when I pray.

SiN

Since we're talking about our planet earth, Evolution.

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