Creationism/Evolution - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

SecretMethod70 · 08-30-2004, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sargeman

In what ways has science proven the bible wrong? This is something that I have read on other boards and the best most can come up with is "theoretically" science has proven the bible wrong.

It's all a matter of perspective. Many people - especially those who tend to reject religion - can tend to forget that the people who believe in taking the Bible literally and who believe in Cerationism are an extremely small minority of Christian believers.

It's very true that many/most of the best scientific minds before the 20th century were religious scholars. Isaac Newton has said everything he did he did for the church, and he was probably an ordained minister at the time of his death. The difference now is the vocal minority fundamentalists. Religious scientists have never proven the Bible "wrong" per se - there has nearly always been the concept of the "two books" - nature and the Bible - neither of which can contradict each other. So, when science "proves" the Bible wrong, all it means is that it's time to go back to the interpretive table regarding what the Bible says.

All this changes, however, in the fundamentalist perspective. In that mindset, the Bible is ALL there is and anything that contradicts it is a temptation from the devil. This, I believfe, comes from an arrogant viewpoint and unwillingness to change and accept the idea they may be wrong. This is not as prevalent as one would think however - even the Catholic Church in its decision that birth control was wrong made it very clear that it was NOT an infallible decision and was not presupposed to be the final word for all time. In fact, most decisions by the Catholic Church and many other churches are made with this understanding, that they are based on what is known at the time and the current climate, but that new revelations and knowledge may always come and change the understanding to some degree.

In America the issue seems far more present than it really is. I believe this is a side-effect of the US being a primarily WASP country. There is a much higher instance of fundamentalists here than anywhere else as far as I can see.

Religion requiers humility, and if one cannot be constantly reassessing their thoughts and stances in regards to religion, then they are not approaching religion from a mature standpoint.

filtherton · 08-30-2004, 12:59 PM

To quote bill hicks, "Dinosaurs, man. How come nobody in the bible ever mentioned anything about any fucking dinosaurs, man?"

Sargeman · 08-30-2004, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton

To quote bill hicks, "Dinosaurs, man. How come nobody in the bible ever mentioned anything about any fucking dinosaurs, man?"

If I'm not mistaken, there is a verse somewhere in the bible that talks about a big creature or something like that. I say this because I've heard that the bible has never said dinosaurs never existed, on the contrary this large beast is "proof" that the bible acknowledges their existence. Anyway, I've heard that argument before.

SecretMethod70 · 08-30-2004, 01:52 PM

Again, it's all a matter of perspective. Fundamentalist WASPs like to look at the Bible as a historical book as well as a religious book, however this is not how it was originally looked at by any means. The Bible is a book meant to show man's relationship with God through poetic stories - literally true or not, depending on the instance. It is not a history book and was not intended to be one. Dinosaurs and whether or not they existed has nothing to do with the relationship between humans and God and, therefore, are irrelevant to the Bible. Combine that with the fact that the Bible was written at a time when people knew nothing of Dinosaurs and all the more reason they would not be mentioned.

I know a LOT of religious people, and I know, at most, 4 or 5 that actually believe that the story of Adam and Eve is more than just a poetic representation of the idea that God is the source of all creation. This is why I find the whole evolution/creationism debate pretty exhausting because it's essentially a debate over something that only a relatively small handful of habitually close-minded people see an issue in.

SecretMethod70 · 08-30-2004, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wilbjammin

metaphor n.
the application of a name or descriptive term or phrase to an object or action to which it is imaginatively but not literally applicable (e.g., killing him with kindness).
(From The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)

simile n.
an explicit comparison between two different things, actions, or feelings, using the words ‘as’ or ‘like’, as in Wordsworth's line:I wandered lonely as a cloud / A very common figure of speech in both prose and verse, simile is more tentative and ...
(From The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms in Literature)

This difference would be far more relevant were the Bible written in English. Alas, it was not.

SecretMethod70 · 08-30-2004, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Henry

Assumptions:

1) God is not stupid.
2) God wants us to believe and understand His word.
3) God can do whatever He wants.
4) The Bible is His word.
5) God is good.

Observations:

1) Genesis states that the world was made in 7 days.
2) The world seems to have taken a bit longer than that to form.

The observations here do not appear to fit our assumptions. We do not expect God to lie to us and if He wanted it to believe His word literally, He would not have made the universe seem so clearly to have taken longer than seven days to form.

So we are led to the conclusion that He was using a crude metaphor. Why, if it would cause misunderstanding? Surely if He had not meant 'day', when He said day, He would have added "By the way, I don't really mean 'day'" for clarity.

Keeping it simple for the primitive tribes? Then why not cut out the days altogether. "First I did this, then I did that... and, boy did it take a long time". Now I just thought of that myself and I'm pretty stupid compared to God. Couldn't he have thought of it too?

Also, if you're going to pick and choose which bits of the Bible you take literally and which you don't, you may as well chuck the whole thing out and start again. After all, who's to say He really meant "Thou shalt not"?

The time in which the Bible was written is a significant factor here. It was written at a time in which "literal" writings were not only NOT commonplace but they were extremely unusual. The common language and method of communicating ideas at the time involved poetic stories and metaphor. This can be seen simply by the many accounts in which Jesus is shown in the Bible telling a story that is not necessarily factual and leaving it up to the apostles to discover what it means - many times they don't fully understand it until after he is dead. Taking into consideration that the Bible is not a historical book but a book meant to convey the relationship between God and humans, it is not God's place to "give" us the answers, but our place to "find" the answers through free will. Again, the Biblical stories of Jesus make this very clear - the idea is that Jesus could have easily proven that he was who people believed he was by just showing everyone very clearly and out in the open, but that denies people the ability to deny God, thus denying them free will and denying us of the inherent dignity that goes with it.

CSflim · 08-30-2004, 02:56 PM

SecretMethod: Does the law of gravity deny our free will?
It seems apparent that the law of gravity forces us to stay on the ground. All rational (and informed) people believe in gravity. People don't have the ability to deny that they are stuck to the ground, which denies them free will and hence their dignity.

How does this argument differ from that claim that we must accept God on faith, for if it was on reason, we would be lacking free will?

SecretMethod70 · 08-30-2004, 10:30 PM

free will is the ability to choose what path one takes in life. Defying the laws of physics is completely different than choosing to steal or not, etc. Free will != you can do whatever you want. Free will != no consequences for your actions. It just means that you have the ability to make choices about your life and who you are.

As for accepting God on faith or on reason, both are equally free decisions. There is a big difference between using your own brain to reason the existence of God - i.e. coming to the conclusion on your own based on your life experiences - and being given irrefutable evidence thus denying your freedom to reject God.

It should be pointed out that, in the case of accepting or rejecting "God," it is a matter of leading ones life in a Good way, not saying the words "I believe in the Christian God." The words are meaningless. The person one chooses to be is what has meaning. Thus, I believe, as does the Catholic Church and I know many other religions (just as well as many DON'T believe this) that accepting God is not necessarily done in a single religion and can be done in almost any religion. We get caught up over the fact we all have different names for a "greater power," when despite the different names many times the ideas of how to lead one's life are the same.

CSflim · 08-31-2004, 02:58 PM

Well what about the existence of mathematics?
We can prove certain things, and thus this apparently removes your free will to believe things contrary to the proof.

You make the claim that the reason Jesus did not provide proof that he was who he said he was because such a proof would undermine people's free will to believe as they wished.

Surely providing proof of his existence would not undermine our free will any more than everyday reality does?

DogmaticTrip · 08-31-2004, 03:22 PM

[QUOTE=raeanna74]What you are speaking of is called the "Gap" theory. There are several modifications of what people believed happened.

Ben Franklin believed God was the "Great Clockwinder". In other words he started things out and things evolved from there. He gets the credit because he started the process in the first place.

Okay, I didn't read ANY of the pages, so I'm sorry for being irrelevent, and having no clue what the main conversation is about right now, but isn't that pure Deism?

If so, hmm, didn't know Ben Franklin was a deist, but alrighty.

Sorry, again.

SecretMethod70 · 08-31-2004, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSflim

Well what about the existence of mathematics?
We can prove certain things, and thus this apparently removes your free will to believe things contrary to the proof.

You make the claim that the reason Jesus did not provide proof that he was who he said he was because such a proof would undermine people's free will to believe as they wished.

Surely providing proof of his existence would not undermine our free will any more than everyday reality does?

forcing people to believe in God and forcing people to believe that 2+2=4 are two completely different things.

CSflim · 08-31-2004, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

forcing people to believe in God and forcing people to believe that 2+2=4 are two completely different things.

How so? What is the difference from the point of view of free will?

spindles · 08-31-2004, 07:24 PM

My take on this whole argument:

Evolution theory and darwinism are not necessarily one and the same thing (the theory of evolution has moved a lot since Darwin's time).

The biggest clash between science and creationism occurred when Creationists wanted the bible taught in US schools, alongside Evolution. The problem: there is no scientific proof to backup the claims of the creationists.

There are some really interesting resources regarding anti creationists, for example:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

There has been a lot of discussion that "Hey scientists are christians, therefore they believe in Creationism". This is obviously false. Stephen Gay Gould in his book "Rocks of Ages" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...796565-6909550)
discusses how evolution and christianity are not mutually exclusive, and this has also been pointed out in this thread. One deals with "how", the other with "why" or perhaps "who". If you get a chance to read this, I would recommend it.

Gould is quite an interesting read on this. For more info:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/

My wife (the christian) and I (the agnostic) have had some interesting discussions about this, and I always find it interesting to read others thought on it.

SecretMethod70 · 08-31-2004, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSflim

How so? What is the difference from the point of view of free will?

You speak of "free will" as though you were Neo, in the Matrix. "Free will" does not mean you can jump off a building and fly, ingest poisons without harm, or bend spoons with your brain.

"Free will" has to do with the conscious decisions we make as normal human beings- acting on, against, and with our environment to produce a desired result. It is in our ability to make choices- not our ability to affect the physical reality of our surroundings- that the concept of "free will" resides.

analog · 08-31-2004, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

You speak of "free will" as though you were Neo, in the Matrix. "Free will" does not mean you can jump off a building and fly, ingest poisons without harm, or bend spoons with your brain.

"Free will" has to do with the conscious decisions we make as normal human beings- acting on, against, and with our environment to produce a desired result. It is in our ability to make choices- not our ability to affect the physical reality of our surroundings- that the concept of "free will" resides.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Sargeman · 09-01-2004, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spindles

The biggest clash between science and creationism occurred when Creationists wanted the bible taught in US schools, alongside Evolution. The problem: there is no scientific proof to backup the claims of the creationists.

Can't the same thing be said about science? There is no real scientific proof of evolution, just a lot of scientific theory.

spindles · 09-01-2004, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sargeman

Can't the same thing be said about science? There is no real scientific proof of evolution, just a lot of scientific theory.

Everything in science is a theory though, but every theory ever put forward has some evidence. Stuff like fossils prove that "different" things used to exist (e.g. Prehistoric man). These are seen as evidence of evolution. It is, however, a theory until someone comes up with a better explanation.

There is no evidence (at least that I have heard about) which can be used to back up the claims of creationists. The bible is definitely NOT evidence of anything.

CSflim · 09-02-2004, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

"Free will" has to do with the conscious decisions we make as normal human beings- acting on, against, and with our environment to produce a desired result. It is in our ability to make choices- not our ability to affect the physical reality of our surroundings- that the concept of "free will" resides.

And how does knowledge of the existence of God do damage to that?

Sargeman · 09-02-2004, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spindles

Everything in science is a theory though, but every theory ever put forward has some evidence. Stuff like fossils prove that "different" things used to exist (e.g. Prehistoric man). These are seen as evidence of evolution. It is, however, a theory until someone comes up with a better explanation.

There is no evidence (at least that I have heard about) which can be used to back up the claims of creationists. The bible is definitely NOT evidence of anything.

Then my conclusion would be that either neither be taught as neither is "proof" only ideas and/or theories, or all angles be taught. Not just Christian creationism but any other creationism. Even the theories/ideas of creationism that leads to evolution.

I do like SecretMethod70's look on what the bible was/is about. It's not a book on proving science right or wrong or whether or not evolution happened the way scientists say it did, but rather a showing of the relationship between God and man.

Now on the "the bible is definitely not evidence" part, I was watching a show on either Discovery or PBS or History Channel that was talking about the "great flood" and how almost every major civilization had recorded or made mention of some great natural disaster about 5 or 6 thousand years ago. Of course I may hve been dreaming that I saw that. Sometimes my dreams have a way of coming to the forefront of my reality.

spindles · 09-02-2004, 02:35 PM

Well, you could decide not to teach evolution, even though it has become generally accepted that there is enough evidence to make it plausible (I'm not talking Darwin's theory, but "the theory of evolution" as is now taught in schools. But, I hardly see creationism as the reason for that. It has zero evidence at this stage.

I agree with you RE the reason for the bible - not that I believe in god, but what the book is supposed to be about

OK - the flood bit of the bible - If the bible said "in 1243 BC, there was a flood that went on for 40 days, and the entire population of river valley X was wiped out except Noah", then that might be evidence. This is not the case. You could also say (probably correctly) that the bible contains true historical references by using other historical texts to show that there was a flood around the time that the bible was written. This does not extrapolate into the bible being evidence in its own right.

SecretMethod70 · 09-03-2004, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSflim

And how does knowledge of the existence of God do damage to that?

Indisputable knowledge of God does not allow one to freely choose to accept God or not. And by accept God I don't mean say "oh, yeah, I believe in God" I mean to lead a life that is not inherently self-serving, etc.

08-30-2004, 01:52 PM	#44 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Again, it's all a matter of perspective. Fundamentalist WASPs like to look at the Bible as a historical book as well as a religious book, however this is not how it was originally looked at by any means. The Bible is a book meant to show man's relationship with God through poetic stories - literally true or not, depending on the instance. It is not a history book and was not intended to be one. Dinosaurs and whether or not they existed has nothing to do with the relationship between humans and God and, therefore, are irrelevant to the Bible. Combine that with the fact that the Bible was written at a time when people knew nothing of Dinosaurs and all the more reason they would not be mentioned. I know a LOT of religious people, and I know, at most, 4 or 5 that actually believe that the story of Adam and Eve is more than just a poetic representation of the idea that God is the source of all creation. This is why I find the whole evolution/creationism debate pretty exhausting because it's essentially a debate over something that only a relatively small handful of habitually close-minded people see an issue in. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

08-30-2004, 02:56 PM	#47 (permalink)
CSflim Sky Piercer Location: Ireland	SecretMethod: Does the law of gravity deny our free will? It seems apparent that the law of gravity forces us to stay on the ground. All rational (and informed) people believe in gravity. People don't have the ability to deny that they are stuck to the ground, which denies them free will and hence their dignity. How does this argument differ from that claim that we must accept God on faith, for if it was on reason, we would be lacking free will? __________________

08-30-2004, 10:30 PM	#48 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	free will is the ability to choose what path one takes in life. Defying the laws of physics is completely different than choosing to steal or not, etc. Free will != you can do whatever you want. Free will != no consequences for your actions. It just means that you have the ability to make choices about your life and who you are. As for accepting God on faith or on reason, both are equally free decisions. There is a big difference between using your own brain to reason the existence of God - i.e. coming to the conclusion on your own based on your life experiences - and being given irrefutable evidence thus denying your freedom to reject God. It should be pointed out that, in the case of accepting or rejecting "God," it is a matter of leading ones life in a Good way, not saying the words "I believe in the Christian God." The words are meaningless. The person one chooses to be is what has meaning. Thus, I believe, as does the Catholic Church and I know many other religions (just as well as many DON'T believe this) that accepting God is not necessarily done in a single religion and can be done in almost any religion. We get caught up over the fact we all have different names for a "greater power," when despite the different names many times the ideas of how to lead one's life are the same. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

08-31-2004, 02:58 PM	#49 (permalink)
CSflim Sky Piercer Location: Ireland	Well what about the existence of mathematics? We can prove certain things, and thus this apparently removes your free will to believe things contrary to the proof. You make the claim that the reason Jesus did not provide proof that he was who he said he was because such a proof would undermine people's free will to believe as they wished. Surely providing proof of his existence would not undermine our free will any more than everyday reality does? __________________

08-31-2004, 07:24 PM	#53 (permalink)
spindles Mine is an evil laugh Location: Sydney, Australia	My take on this whole argument: Evolution theory and darwinism are not necessarily one and the same thing (the theory of evolution has moved a lot since Darwin's time). The biggest clash between science and creationism occurred when Creationists wanted the bible taught in US schools, alongside Evolution. The problem: there is no scientific proof to backup the claims of the creationists. There are some really interesting resources regarding anti creationists, for example: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/ There has been a lot of discussion that "Hey scientists are christians, therefore they believe in Creationism". This is obviously false. Stephen Gay Gould in his book "Rocks of Ages" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...796565-6909550) discusses how evolution and christianity are not mutually exclusive, and this has also been pointed out in this thread. One deals with "how", the other with "why" or perhaps "who". If you get a chance to read this, I would recommend it. Gould is quite an interesting read on this. For more info: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ My wife (the christian) and I (the agnostic) have had some interesting discussions about this, and I always find it interesting to read others thought on it. __________________ who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?

08-30-2004, 12:59 PM	#42 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	To quote bill hicks, "Dinosaurs, man. How come nobody in the bible ever mentioned anything about any fucking dinosaurs, man?"

08-31-2004, 03:22 PM	#50 (permalink)
DogmaticTrip Upright	[QUOTE=raeanna74]What you are speaking of is called the "Gap" theory. There are several modifications of what people believed happened. Ben Franklin believed God was the "Great Clockwinder". In other words he started things out and things evolved from there. He gets the credit because he started the process in the first place. Okay, I didn't read ANY of the pages, so I'm sorry for being irrelevent, and having no clue what the main conversation is about right now, but isn't that pure Deism? If so, hmm, didn't know Ben Franklin was a deist, but alrighty. Sorry, again.

09-02-2004, 02:35 PM	#60 (permalink)
spindles Mine is an evil laugh Location: Sydney, Australia	Well, you could decide not to teach evolution, even though it has become generally accepted that there is enough evidence to make it plausible (I'm not talking Darwin's theory, but "the theory of evolution" as is now taught in schools. But, I hardly see creationism as the reason for that. It has zero evidence at this stage. I agree with you RE the reason for the bible - not that I believe in god, but what the book is supposed to be about OK - the flood bit of the bible - If the bible said "in 1243 BC, there was a flood that went on for 40 days, and the entire population of river valley X was wiped out except Noah", then that might be evidence. This is not the case. You could also say (probably correctly) that the bible contains true historical references by using other historical texts to show that there was a flood around the time that the bible was written. This does not extrapolate into the bible being evidence in its own right. __________________ who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?