Creation vs. Evolution

[Thalassamania]

The Lord has not let me rest since posting this. Yes, I did know where the post came from as I was doing some research on the opposition when I found it and cut it out.

The rest of the post came from my pride when I read the responses. I had no expectation and only used an opportunity to throw some mud at Thal and the one who pointed it out. I lied and for that I apologize to them and to the board.
I Thank God for His forgiving nature.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled argument

Apology accepted.

Proverbs 16:18.

Shakespeare Merchant of Venice i. iii. 97

 

[shoredivr]

Educate themselves? Who? Creationists? Give me a break, they'll continue to deny any factual evidence that contradicts their world view.

I'm concerned when people try to put creationism into a science classes, as someone posted earlier. And then you get things like this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080620/ap_on_re_us/teacher_bible

"COLUMBUS, Ohio - The school board of a small central Ohio community voted unanimously Friday to fire a teacher accused of preaching his Christian beliefs despite staff complaints and using a device to burn the image of a cross on students' arms. School board members voted 5-0 to fire Mount Vernon Middle School science teacher John Freshwater. Board attorney David Millstone said Freshwater is entitled to a hearing to challenge the dismissal."



I'm a glass half full kind of person. There are a number of posters on this thread who say they were raised in a creationist or fundamentalist family, but went on to get higher education and discarded their previous world view once they could see the facts.

But I was thinking more about those lay people who now have more information on science than they might have had before. That's the good thing that I was referring to.

We have a programme on CBC radio called "Ideas", it might even be a podcast for all I know, that regularly broadcasts shows on science, among other things. There's also a science programme on Saturdays at noon called "Quirks and Quarks". Public radio doing something with my tax money that I approve of.

 

[Thalassamania]

Great stuff!

Best of Ideas Podcasts

Quirks & Quarks Podcasts

 

[nereas]

...You are simply incorrect on every count. Furthermore, if you read the Pentateuch in Hebrew as you claim, you would know better than to claim Moses was the author as the writing style and terminology changes too often.

You scoffed at a dead soldier who happened to be an atheist. You claim to be able to read Greek and Hebrew but cannot muster any discernible evidence of it. When corrected, you switch topics or simply deny reality.

...Welcome to the Ignore List.

The feeling is, of course, mutual.

[I hope he at least got the message that there is no "Y" in Hebrew. The "Y" is a Greek invention. Therefore it makes little sense to try to transliterate the name of a Hebrew god into English letters by using Greek letters that did not exist at the time of the writing of the Hebrew god's name in the original scriptural parchment-scrolls.

Or, maybe he did not get that at all?]

 

[nereas]

Thal, my good friend, I take it from your replies to this thread that you believe in a strong sense of self-reliance and individualism, technically termed in philosophy as "existentialism," and therefore you view religion as mythology and as an unreliable crutch or fantasy?

In other words, you only believe in yourself? And you do not rely on anything else external?

I just wondered where you are coming from on these spiritual topics and your replies?

Not that it really matters; to each his own.

It's just that the clues are all there.

 

[Thalassamania]

No, I'd not self-describe as an existentialist, I'm a zoologist. I know that sounds funny, but it's the truth. I don't really spend much time on the whichness of why, it really doesn't much matter to me. I'm here, in the here and now, and when I'm gone (and before I arrived) I'm not (wasn't). That's that. I live for a strong sense of family and community, not individualism and I view most religion as rather repulsive mythology and most mythology are rather interesting literature.

I rely on those external things that may be relied upon, e.g., that stand up to empirical analysis or that may reasonable be inferred from such analysis, that is to say understood without having to spread the entrails of any animal or group of people for confirmation. But, I do try and stay inside my data set as much as possible. I'm a scientist who uses empirical methods to understand the world around him, I am not an empiricist philosopher.

What little I can stretch myself to actually believe draws rather heavily on Venkmanism ... "Back off, man. I'm a scientist."

 

[T-Dog]

I think one of the best websites discussing modern evolutionary theory is the following:
Issues in Evolution (ActionBioscience)
Genetic sequencing has really advanced human evolution theory:
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html

I'm a geologist, so I'm one of those people who believes ...
If you count the rings from a tree core it tells age of the tree;
If you count the varves (sediment layers) from a lake core it tells the age of the lake;
If you count the layers of ice from a glacier core it tells the age of the glacier;
If you count the layers of rock from cores taken from the Earth it tells the age of the Earth.
OK you take lots and lots of cores all over the world, and you count not just the layers, but count the radionuclides in the rocks to date the layers and then you develop the Earth's time scale.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2007/3015/fs2007-3015.pdf

I personally am an atheist, but I also believe religion and evolution, or science in general, are not mutually exclusive.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Interesting. So, too, I would say, has the creation of the world, the beginning of mankind, the freat flood, the crossing of the Red Sea, some obscure wedding that ran out of wine, a crowd that really liked eating fish and bread, etc.....

However, every time someone tries to explain that as simply life lessons "described in all sorts of colorful ways in speach and literature", your take on that is a bit different...

Bread and fish for thought....

I think you're taking what I said a bit out of context. What you quoted was a response to the insistance on focusing on that one word "firmament" the argument rpesented based on it.

I didn't say anything about any part of the Bible being "simply life lessons".

 

[MikeFerrara]

Hints are not evidence. There is not a scrap of evidence that Moses wrote the Torah. The evidence says that the Torah was combined from a number of sources based on the terminology shifts, separate writing styles. Moses' authorship equates to the Biblical version of an urban legend.

Again, I'll point out that not all "scholars" come to that conclusion. You can state it as fact all you want but the "evidence" doesn't support it.

When people ask, "What would Jesus do?", apparently "Google it" is never the right answer since Jesus knew everything. Being human though, you should probably try it sometime.

Actually, I've read quite a bit on the subject...and even used google. LOL

 

[gangrel441]

I think you're taking what I said a bit out of context. What you quoted was a response to the insistance on focusing on that one word "firmament" the argument rpesented based on it.

I didn't say anything about any part of the Bible being "simply life lessons".

No, you didn't. I did.

However, you did explain the argument about what is meant by "firmament" as the sky being described in "all kinds of colorful ways." I am simply putting forth the not-so-far-reaching argument that most things in the bible are described in "all kinds of colorful ways." If you apply the "colorful ways" argument to entire stories rather than individual words, we will be much closer in our viewpoints than you think.