How Much of a Theist or Atheist are You?

[james bond]

Evolution is more religion than science. Maybe science is a religion the way things have turned out. Myself, I don't care what you want to call it as long as it leads to the discovery of truth and further enhances our knowledge of the world because God wanted it that way.

I don't think evolution is a religion at all. I'm quite sure Darwin did not intend for it to be. But I think there are those who make a religion of it and worship it to the point they do not allow themselves or others to question it in any way and/or allow themselves or others to consider any possibilities outside the science of evolution. The Christian, the Jew, the Buddhist, and probably others all allow for the unknowable and the unknown within the realm of both science and religion. And they know that evolution can coexist quite rationally and peacefully alongside other explanations and theories for how it all got from point A to here.

Evolution is a religion in the way that people believe it based on faith. It's not about going to church on Sundays type religion. It's based on faith in atheism and not so much on actual science or facts, reasoning and historical truths. For example, geologic claims of Charles Lyell who was an atheist and wrote a book, Principles of Geology, in 1854, about his uniformitarianism hypothesis, to counter Christian geological thinking of catastrophism during the time. He also mentored and influenced his pupil Charles Darwin. Thus, evolution was born from atheist roots and foundation and why it's the polar opposite of creation science.

I don't question your facts here and, assuming you are correct, your post is quite informative and thought provoking. I myself try to look at the issue with a different and simpler pragmaticism. (Is that a word?)

The fact is science exists. And I am quite confident that evolution is a valid science that studies how various life forms on Earth have evolved over time. Where it becomes a religion these days, in my point of view, is when the Atheist or whomever refuses to acknowledge that evolution cannot answer all questions on how life forms evolved and/or rejects intelligent design as any possibility in the equation. When they demand that Evolution be taught that way, I object as strenuously as I do when Evolution is not taught at all.

Atheists who attempt to use evolution as a means to discredit the possibility of some form of intelligent design, along with their quite absurd dogma that if science cannot prove there is a God, then there is no God, are absolutely inserting their own religion into the mix because they are certainly not being scientific.

The theist of course understands that if there is a God, then that God is the author of science along with everything else and there is no conflict.

>>F: The fact is science exists. And I am quite confident that evolution is a valid science that studies how various life forms on Earth have evolved over time.<<

Sorry, a bit long, but finally had time to write it.

Today, atheist science exists and that is what is taught in schools. The scientific establishment has systematically eliminated the supernatural, the Bible, God, intelligent design as theories from science and schools by saying one is a religion while the other intelligent design isn't a valid science. We could not be created in any way shape or form because the aforementioned can't be testable nor falsified. When I went to school, this isn't the way I was taught science works.

I learned evolution through my Alma Mater's website evolution.berkeley.edu and thought this was what happened for a couple of decades. A couple things got my attention. First was the concept of an eternal universe or the Steady State Theory being rendered pseudoscience and it was replaced by the Big Bang Theory or the universe had a beginning. Second, was the media always telling me how old things were in their "science" articles. If the ages of the universe and earth were facts, then why keep telling me these things? Why keep telling me dinosaurs became extinct 245 million years ago? Facts are things we all know to be true and use them. Third, I started to look at creation science and what they were saying because circa 2011, evolution wasn't panning out like I thought, e.g. Monarch butterflies were not gone from California due to global warming. I remembered they hibernated and migrated for the winter. To challenge evolutionary thinking was unquestionable because prestigious science institutions like The Smithsonian, Nature and Science, top universities, Encyclopedia Brittanica, top scientists from the 90s and today and so on all subscribed to it.

Yet, what they were saying didn't pan out in biology such as coelacanth and the common ancestor theories of tiktaalik, tetrapods returning to the sea to become whales, birds descending from dinosaurs, and even the theory of how dinosaurs all became extinct due to volcanoes were challenged and changed. It was like challenging the theories of the earth being the center of the universe or that Columbus discovered America. The theories of Charles Darwin had been all proved wrong except for natural selection and genetic modification. OTOH creation scientists based their theories on Genesis from the Bible and that we were created in 7 days and formation of the earth was based on Noah's Flood. This was what people believed in the 1800s before uniformitarianism took over against catastrophism. What they were saying didn't change. Only that science provided further evidence for what they were saying. On creation's side, there were famous scientists which I was studied in school like Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal, Carolus Linnaeus, Michael Faraday, Samuel B. Morse, Louis Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, James Joule and others. Sir Francis Bacon is the father of modern science. I started to look at what they were saying and that was from the Bible. What it said was incredulous like people lived to over 900 years old in the old days and we are descendants of Adam and Eve.

Yet, if one looks at the evolutionary thinking and the origins of life, we see that the BBT started from compressed gases and invisible quantum particles from a single point. This seemed just as incredulous. The universe is just primed for life and that multiverses can pop into existence. Life came from primordial soup after it was hit by lightening. Well, that experiment didn't pan out in the 50s. Where was this life? Where were the parallel universes? I read the Brief History of Time and its followup A Briefer History of Time from Stephen Hawkening during the 90s and early millenium. Where were the multiverses and time machines? How can something like that happen or work? Even the theories of quantum mechanics went against the traditional physics of Newton. It went against the laws of thermodynamics. All these invisible particles were doing something, but we couldn't see them because they were too small. All of the aforementioned were disavowed by creation science.

In fact I don't want 'creation science' to be taught in schools as science because it isn't. It is faith based and therefore not science as science is technically defined. But I don't want any science teacher telling students that science has disproved all creation theories and/or any form of intelligent design because that would be incredibly erroneous as it has done no such thing.

And when the child from the fundamentalist church/family inquires of the Biblical six days to create the heavens and the Earth or a 6,000 year old Earth, I want the teacher to explain that most scientists believe the process took much longer and over a much longer period of time but they are discerning based on the best available information but they weren't there themselves. The student will be required to know the information in the textbook and in the class lectures, but he/she can then compare what s/he learns in class with what s/he has been taught in Bible class and decide for himself or herself. No public school should ever give the impression that a child's faith is inappropriate in school or that the child's God is unwelcome there.

When we return to that kind of teaching--the kind I in fact grew up with--we will have returned to teaching real science again, teaching students to think critically and thoughtfully about it so that they are actually educated instead of indoctrinated. And that will be a very good thing.

That is what I am saying. Creation science is real science. It was science before the 1800s and it is still a science now. Public schools cannot teach religion, but it can creation science. Creation science says there was a creator. What that creator is/was is not explained. It created adult humans, plants and animals. Thus, it can explain origins of life and how they came to be today. It explains complexity and beauty in life. It explains mathematics found in nature. It explains the earth's geology, paleontology, zoology and biology. The worldview of evolution in that life wasn't created has led us down the wrong path from the beginning. They have systematically eliminated creation science as religion or about the supernatural. Today's science is atheist science as I have pointed out despite the breakthroughs it has made. It's not science, but religion, too. The atheist religion is where there is no creation, so it can't possibly have all the answers. That is not how I was taught science works. From that, I know science when I see it or read about it. I also know about religion when I see it or read about it, too.

Here is a recent example. Francis Crick. Crick and his partner James Watson discovered the structure of the DNA molecule, i.e. double helix and the A-T and G-C model, and with Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins and host of others came up with the following information on DNA: Around the same time, an older creation scientist Linus Pauling was working on the same type of project. Crick and Watson hired his son, Peter Pauling, in order to hear about what his old man was up to.

-Carries information from one generation to the next by coding for traits
-Controls cell division & enables easy copying of DNA for other cells
-Directs the actions of the cell by telling it which proteins to make

Eventually, the work led to the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 or what's referred to as the periodic table of biology.

Crick's personal views on his work led him to think there was no God and that his work destroyed religion. The same with Watson. They believed that this all evolved from the cell. The fiftieth anniversary of their discovery led to celebrations for the Human Genome Project completed at the same time in 2003.

"No More Need For God?
The celebrations have a dark side, however. Many atheistic evolutionists claim that the discovery of DNA’s structure is proof of evolution and a nail in God’s coffin. As they see it, the discovery of a “universal” molecular structure for storing and passing on information to offspring—shared by almost all forms of life1—allows scientists to find a purely physical explanation for the origin and development of life on Earth, without any need for a Creator.

Indeed, both Crick and Watson have been outspoken in their belief that the discovery of DNA’s structure has helped overturn belief in the God of the Bible. Francis Crick has repeatedly said that he sees DNA as a confirmation of evolution, which discredits “the god hypothesis.”2 His co-discoverer, James Watson, says that our understanding of DNA has helped to debunk religious “myths from the past.”

Watson boldly told the London Telegraph in a recent interview, “Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours.”3

Many of the world’s leading scientists will hear this message today at a huge gathering of luminaries (including Watson himself) who traveled to Cambridge to praise the ongoing impact of Watson and Crick’s discovery.

The culmination of the day, after a series of speeches on molecular medicine, cancer, aging, etc., is a lecture titled “Genes and human nature” by Matt Ridley, author of the bestseller Genome. Ridley will speak about the broader implications of human genome research, and it is not hard to guess what he will say.

Scientific American describes Ridley as “an avid proponent of the Darwinian view of the world, [who] perceives the genome not as a cookbook or a manual but as a quintessentially historical document—a three-billion-year memoir of our species from its beginnings in the primal ooze to the present day.”4

Around the world, believers in “goo-to-you” evolution, like Matt Ridley, are repeating the mantra that the human genome holds the key to unlocking the mystery of human nature and the evolution of life on Earth."

I'll stop here. Certainly, it was a wonderful and important discovery that led to the double helix structure and ATGC models, and the Human Genome Project which produced the periodic table of biology. However, what's troubling is Crick's and Watson's need to destroy creation science and the major Abrahamic religions. No need to gloat like that when it wasn't the case.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Evolution and Creation can both be true and co-exist. The problem Creationists have with evolution is not that it disproves our beliefs, because it can't.

Absolutely right, they can both be true. And evolution is not meant to disprove creation. Just remember that creationism explains nothing, provides no useful predictions, and needs to stay out of the way of science. Keep these things in mind, and there will be no conflict.

Well, I disagree with the "explains nothing", but it's not really intended to predict anything. As for science, I guess that depends on whether or not it's true.

Be that as it may, it's never been in the way of science. It's only in the way of people who define "science" as "rejecting and silencing religion as having any validity in life".

I have never met one single person who defines science that way. Let me give you some free advice: when you have to invent people and events to whine about...you dont actually have anything to whine about.

And no, saying "God did it!" does not explain anything at all.

You may not know anyone who ADMITS to defining science that way, but I guarantee that you know some who do it without realizing that's what they're doing. Hell, there are people right here on this message board who do so.

Let me give you some free advice: don't be gullible enough to take people's words at face value.

And I am convinced that you are actually Muslim.

And I am convinced that your opinions are meaningless.

 

[Foxfyre]

Absolutely right, they can both be true. And evolution is not meant to disprove creation. Just remember that creationism explains nothing, provides no useful predictions, and needs to stay out of the way of science. Keep these things in mind, and there will be no conflict.

I would have to disagree. Compared to creation science, both can't be true. There isn't much overlap if any. For example, in the Bible Jesus says life begat life. In other words, it takes life already created by God to propagate further life. Evolution says we evolved from common ancestors -- fish, tetrapod, ape, human and so on. Another would be Noah's flood formed the earth versus evolutionary geologic layers. The differences are greatest in paleontology, geology and zoology. It's either atheist science of evolution or creation science. There is only one truth.

For sure there is only one truth, and I am pretty darn sure no human has ever come up with the whole truth yet. I suspect when all of us leave this Earthly life and have a chance to find out what was/is on the other side of that glass we now look through darkly, we are going to have a really good laugh at how much of what we thought we knew, we got wrong.

I am a strong creationist. And I believe in and teach evolution. I can do that because I believe God is the author of evolution and also the inspiration behind the Creation stories. But I do not personally take those stories absolutely literally as history as much as I take them as instruction of how we are to think about God and his creation.

If evolution is valid--and I think most or at least much of it is--then God was the author of evolution along with all other science. And his miracles may have been instantaneous and/or done over a very long period of time. I think time is also a creation of God and He is not at all bound to the restrictions of time as we think of time. I also think he knows a whole lot more about the dynamics of space, all that it contains, what it is exactly, and much more that would provide answers for questions we haven't even thought of yet.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I don't think evolution is a religion at all. I'm quite sure Darwin did not intend for it to be. But I think there are those who make a religion of it and worship it to the point they do not allow themselves or others to question it in any way and/or allow themselves or others to consider any possibilities outside the science of evolution. The Christian, the Jew, the Buddhist, and probably others all allow for the unknowable and the unknown within the realm of both science and religion. And they know that evolution can coexist quite rationally and peacefully alongside other explanations and theories for how it all got from point A to here.

Evolution is a religion in the way that people believe it based on faith. It's not about going to church on Sundays type religion. It's based on faith in atheism and not so much on actual science or facts, reasoning and historical truths. For example, geologic claims of Charles Lyell who was an atheist and wrote a book, Principles of Geology, in 1854, about his uniformitarianism hypothesis, to counter Christian geological thinking of catastrophism during the time. He also mentored and influenced his pupil Charles Darwin. Thus, evolution was born from atheist roots and foundation and why it's the polar opposite of creation science.

I don't question your facts here and, assuming you are correct, your post is quite informative and thought provoking. I myself try to look at the issue with a different and simpler pragmaticism. (Is that a word?)

The fact is science exists. And I am quite confident that evolution is a valid science that studies how various life forms on Earth have evolved over time. Where it becomes a religion these days, in my point of view, is when the Atheist or whomever refuses to acknowledge that evolution cannot answer all questions on how life forms evolved and/or rejects intelligent design as any possibility in the equation. When they demand that Evolution be taught that way, I object as strenuously as I do when Evolution is not taught at all.

Atheists who attempt to use evolution as a means to discredit the possibility of some form of intelligent design, along with their quite absurd dogma that if science cannot prove there is a God, then there is no God, are absolutely inserting their own religion into the mix because they are certainly not being scientific.

The theist of course understands that if there is a God, then that God is the author of science along with everything else and there is no conflict.

>>F: The fact is science exists. And I am quite confident that evolution is a valid science that studies how various life forms on Earth have evolved over time.<<

Sorry, a bit long, but finally had time to write it.

Today, atheist science exists and that is what is taught in schools. The scientific establishment has systematically eliminated the supernatural, the Bible, God, intelligent design as theories from science and schools by saying one is a religion while the other intelligent design isn't a valid science. We could not be created in any way shape or form because the aforementioned can't be testable nor falsified. When I went to school, this isn't the way I was taught science works.

I learned evolution through my Alma Mater's website evolution.berkeley.edu and thought this was what happened for a couple of decades. A couple things got my attention. First was the concept of an eternal universe or the Steady State Theory being rendered pseudoscience and it was replaced by the Big Bang Theory or the universe had a beginning. Second, was the media always telling me how old things were in their "science" articles. If the ages of the universe and earth were facts, then why keep telling me these things? Why keep telling me dinosaurs became extinct 245 million years ago? Facts are things we all know to be true and use them. Third, I started to look at creation science and what they were saying because circa 2011, evolution wasn't panning out like I thought, e.g. Monarch butterflies were not gone from California due to global warming. I remembered they hibernated and migrated for the winter. To challenge evolutionary thinking was unquestionable because prestigious science institutions like The Smithsonian, Nature and Science, top universities, Encyclopedia Brittanica, top scientists from the 90s and today and so on all subscribed to it.

Yet, what they were saying didn't pan out in biology such as coelacanth and the common ancestor theories of tiktaalik, tetrapods returning to the sea to become whales, birds descending from dinosaurs, and even the theory of how dinosaurs all became extinct due to volcanoes were challenged and changed. It was like challenging the theories of the earth being the center of the universe or that Columbus discovered America. The theories of Charles Darwin had been all proved wrong except for natural selection and genetic modification. OTOH creation scientists based their theories on Genesis from the Bible and that we were created in 7 days and formation of the earth was based on Noah's Flood. This was what people believed in the 1800s before uniformitarianism took over against catastrophism. What they were saying didn't change. Only that science provided further evidence for what they were saying. On creation's side, there were famous scientists which I was studied in school like Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal, Carolus Linnaeus, Michael Faraday, Samuel B. Morse, Louis Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, James Joule and others. Sir Francis Bacon is the father of modern science. I started to look at what they were saying and that was from the Bible. What it said was incredulous like people lived to over 900 years old in the old days and we are descendants of Adam and Eve.

Yet, if one looks at the evolutionary thinking and the origins of life, we see that the BBT started from compressed gases and invisible quantum particles from a single point. This seemed just as incredulous. The universe is just primed for life and that multiverses can pop into existence. Life came from primordial soup after it was hit by lightening. Well, that experiment didn't pan out in the 50s. Where was this life? Where were the parallel universes? I read the Brief History of Time and its followup A Briefer History of Time from Stephen Hawkening during the 90s and early millenium. Where were the multiverses and time machines? How can something like that happen or work? Even the theories of quantum mechanics went against the traditional physics of Newton. It went against the laws of thermodynamics. All these invisible particles were doing something, but we couldn't see them because they were too small. All of the aforementioned were disavowed by creation science.

In fact I don't want 'creation science' to be taught in schools as science because it isn't. It is faith based and therefore not science as science is technically defined. But I don't want any science teacher telling students that science has disproved all creation theories and/or any form of intelligent design because that would be incredibly erroneous as it has done no such thing.

And when the child from the fundamentalist church/family inquires of the Biblical six days to create the heavens and the Earth or a 6,000 year old Earth, I want the teacher to explain that most scientists believe the process took much longer and over a much longer period of time but they are discerning based on the best available information but they weren't there themselves. The student will be required to know the information in the textbook and in the class lectures, but he/she can then compare what s/he learns in class with what s/he has been taught in Bible class and decide for himself or herself. No public school should ever give the impression that a child's faith is inappropriate in school or that the child's God is unwelcome there.

When we return to that kind of teaching--the kind I in fact grew up with--we will have returned to teaching real science again, teaching students to think critically and thoughtfully about it so that they are actually educated instead of indoctrinated. And that will be a very good thing.

That is what I am saying. Creation science is real science. It was science before the 1800s and it is still a science now. Public schools cannot teach religion, but it can creation science. Creation science says there was a creator. What that creator is/was is not explained. It created adult humans, plants and animals. Thus, it can explain origins of life and how they came to be today. It explains complexity and beauty in life. It explains mathematics found in nature. It explains the earth's geology, paleontology, zoology and biology. The worldview of evolution in that life wasn't created has led us down the wrong path from the beginning. They have systematically eliminated creation science as religion or about the supernatural. Today's science is atheist science as I have pointed out despite the breakthroughs it has made. It's not science, but religion, too. The atheist religion is where there is no creation, so it can't possibly have all the answers. That is not how I was taught science works. From that, I know science when I see it or read about it. I also know about religion when I see it or read about it, too.

Here is a recent example. Francis Crick. Crick and his partner James Watson discovered the structure of the DNA molecule, i.e. double helix and the A-T and G-C model, and with Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins and host of others came up with the following information on DNA: Around the same time, an older creation scientist Linus Pauling was working on the same type of project. Crick and Watson hired his son, Peter Pauling, in order to hear about what his old man was up to.

-Carries information from one generation to the next by coding for traits
-Controls cell division & enables easy copying of DNA for other cells
-Directs the actions of the cell by telling it which proteins to make

Eventually, the work led to the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 or what's referred to as the periodic table of biology.

Crick's personal views on his work led him to think there was no God and that his work destroyed religion. The same with Watson. They believed that this all evolved from the cell. The fiftieth anniversary of their discovery led to celebrations for the Human Genome Project completed at the same time in 2003.

"No More Need For God?
The celebrations have a dark side, however. Many atheistic evolutionists claim that the discovery of DNA’s structure is proof of evolution and a nail in God’s coffin. As they see it, the discovery of a “universal” molecular structure for storing and passing on information to offspring—shared by almost all forms of life1—allows scientists to find a purely physical explanation for the origin and development of life on Earth, without any need for a Creator.

Indeed, both Crick and Watson have been outspoken in their belief that the discovery of DNA’s structure has helped overturn belief in the God of the Bible. Francis Crick has repeatedly said that he sees DNA as a confirmation of evolution, which discredits “the god hypothesis.”2 His co-discoverer, James Watson, says that our understanding of DNA has helped to debunk religious “myths from the past.”

Watson boldly told the London Telegraph in a recent interview, “Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours.”3

Many of the world’s leading scientists will hear this message today at a huge gathering of luminaries (including Watson himself) who traveled to Cambridge to praise the ongoing impact of Watson and Crick’s discovery.

The culmination of the day, after a series of speeches on molecular medicine, cancer, aging, etc., is a lecture titled “Genes and human nature” by Matt Ridley, author of the bestseller Genome. Ridley will speak about the broader implications of human genome research, and it is not hard to guess what he will say.

Scientific American describes Ridley as “an avid proponent of the Darwinian view of the world, [who] perceives the genome not as a cookbook or a manual but as a quintessentially historical document—a three-billion-year memoir of our species from its beginnings in the primal ooze to the present day.”4

Around the world, believers in “goo-to-you” evolution, like Matt Ridley, are repeating the mantra that the human genome holds the key to unlocking the mystery of human nature and the evolution of life on Earth."

I'll stop here. Certainly, it was a wonderful and important discovery that led to the double helix structure and ATGC models, and the Human Genome Project which produced the periodic table of biology. However, what's troubling is Crick's and Watson's need to destroy creation science and the major Abrahamic religions. No need to gloat like that when it wasn't the case.

There is no such things as creation science. Period. It wasnt science then, and its not science now.

But go ahead and prove me wrong. Here is the idea to be tested:

"God made all this shit ."

Now, design and then describe your test of this idea. It must be repeatable, yield the same results for everyone, and -- most importantly -- be able to rule this idea out.

Very simple. The ball is in your court.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Absolutely right, they can both be true. And evolution is not meant to disprove creation. Just remember that creationism explains nothing, provides no useful predictions, and needs to stay out of the way of science. Keep these things in mind, and there will be no conflict.

Well, I disagree with the "explains nothing", but it's not really intended to predict anything. As for science, I guess that depends on whether or not it's true.

Be that as it may, it's never been in the way of science. It's only in the way of people who define "science" as "rejecting and silencing religion as having any validity in life".

I have never met one single person who defines science that way. Let me give you some free advice: when you have to invent people and events to whine about...you dont actually have anything to whine about.

And no, saying "God did it!" does not explain anything at all.

You may not know anyone who ADMITS to defining science that way, but I guarantee that you know some who do it without realizing that's what they're doing. Hell, there are people right here on this message board who do so.

Let me give you some free advice: don't be gullible enough to take people's words at face value.

And I am convinced that you are actually Muslim.

And I am convinced that your opinions are meaningless.

What an odd response, when all I did was use the tactics you described on you. I guess you have a pretty low opinion of your own methods. Maybe you should change them.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Well, I disagree with the "explains nothing", but it's not really intended to predict anything. As for science, I guess that depends on whether or not it's true.

Be that as it may, it's never been in the way of science. It's only in the way of people who define "science" as "rejecting and silencing religion as having any validity in life".

I have never met one single person who defines science that way. Let me give you some free advice: when you have to invent people and events to whine about...you dont actually have anything to whine about.

And no, saying "God did it!" does not explain anything at all.

You may not know anyone who ADMITS to defining science that way, but I guarantee that you know some who do it without realizing that's what they're doing. Hell, there are people right here on this message board who do so.

Let me give you some free advice: don't be gullible enough to take people's words at face value.

And I am convinced that you are actually Muslim.

And I am convinced that your opinions are meaningless.

What an odd response, when all I did was use the tactics you described on you. I guess you have a pretty low opinion of your own methods. Maybe you should change them.

I think that we should add "Cecilie's methods" to the long, LONG list of things you utterly do not understand, since you didn't do anything I would ever do.

 

[james bond]

Absolutely right, they can both be true. And evolution is not meant to disprove creation. Just remember that creationism explains nothing, provides no useful predictions, and needs to stay out of the way of science. Keep these things in mind, and there will be no conflict.

I would have to disagree. Compared to creation science, both can't be true. There isn't much overlap if any. For example, in the Bible Jesus says life begat life. In other words, it takes life already created by God to propagate further life. Evolution says we evolved from common ancestors -- fish, tetrapod, ape, human and so on. Another would be Noah's flood formed the earth versus evolutionary geologic layers. The differences are greatest in paleontology, geology and zoology. It's either atheist science of evolution or creation science. There is only one truth.

For sure there is only one truth, and I am pretty darn sure no human has ever come up with the whole truth yet. I suspect when all of us leave this Earthly life and have a chance to find out what was/is on the other side of that glass we now look through darkly, we are going to have a really good laugh at how much of what we thought we knew, we got wrong.

I am a strong creationist. And I believe in and teach evolution. I can do that because I believe God is the author of evolution and also the inspiration behind the Creation stories. But I do not personally take those stories absolutely literally as history as much as I take them as instruction of how we are to think about God and his creation.

If evolution is valid--and I think most or at least much of it is--then God was the author of evolution along with all other science. And his miracles may have been instantaneous and/or done over a very long period of time. I think time is also a creation of God and He is not at all bound to the restrictions of time as we think of time. I also think he knows a whole lot more about the dynamics of space, all that it contains, what it is exactly, and much more that would provide answers for questions we haven't even thought of yet.

Fair enough. You're entitled to your worldview.

 

[BreezeWood]

.

There is no such things as creation science. Period. It wasnt science then, and its not science now.

not when ruled by the overprivileged that worship their desert religions ... who, coincidentally are all members of the same political party of an equally disingenuous presence as their president purposefully at the expense of the real inheritors, the free spirits of the true religion of the Almighty.

 

[james bond]

Evolution is a religion in the way that people believe it based on faith. It's not about going to church on Sundays type religion. It's based on faith in atheism and not so much on actual science or facts, reasoning and historical truths. For example, geologic claims of Charles Lyell who was an atheist and wrote a book, Principles of Geology, in 1854, about his uniformitarianism hypothesis, to counter Christian geological thinking of catastrophism during the time. He also mentored and influenced his pupil Charles Darwin. Thus, evolution was born from atheist roots and foundation and why it's the polar opposite of creation science.

I don't question your facts here and, assuming you are correct, your post is quite informative and thought provoking. I myself try to look at the issue with a different and simpler pragmaticism. (Is that a word?)

The fact is science exists. And I am quite confident that evolution is a valid science that studies how various life forms on Earth have evolved over time. Where it becomes a religion these days, in my point of view, is when the Atheist or whomever refuses to acknowledge that evolution cannot answer all questions on how life forms evolved and/or rejects intelligent design as any possibility in the equation. When they demand that Evolution be taught that way, I object as strenuously as I do when Evolution is not taught at all.

Atheists who attempt to use evolution as a means to discredit the possibility of some form of intelligent design, along with their quite absurd dogma that if science cannot prove there is a God, then there is no God, are absolutely inserting their own religion into the mix because they are certainly not being scientific.

The theist of course understands that if there is a God, then that God is the author of science along with everything else and there is no conflict.

>>F: The fact is science exists. And I am quite confident that evolution is a valid science that studies how various life forms on Earth have evolved over time.<<

Sorry, a bit long, but finally had time to write it.

Today, atheist science exists and that is what is taught in schools. The scientific establishment has systematically eliminated the supernatural, the Bible, God, intelligent design as theories from science and schools by saying one is a religion while the other intelligent design isn't a valid science. We could not be created in any way shape or form because the aforementioned can't be testable nor falsified. When I went to school, this isn't the way I was taught science works.

I learned evolution through my Alma Mater's website evolution.berkeley.edu and thought this was what happened for a couple of decades. A couple things got my attention. First was the concept of an eternal universe or the Steady State Theory being rendered pseudoscience and it was replaced by the Big Bang Theory or the universe had a beginning. Second, was the media always telling me how old things were in their "science" articles. If the ages of the universe and earth were facts, then why keep telling me these things? Why keep telling me dinosaurs became extinct 245 million years ago? Facts are things we all know to be true and use them. Third, I started to look at creation science and what they were saying because circa 2011, evolution wasn't panning out like I thought, e.g. Monarch butterflies were not gone from California due to global warming. I remembered they hibernated and migrated for the winter. To challenge evolutionary thinking was unquestionable because prestigious science institutions like The Smithsonian, Nature and Science, top universities, Encyclopedia Brittanica, top scientists from the 90s and today and so on all subscribed to it.

Yet, what they were saying didn't pan out in biology such as coelacanth and the common ancestor theories of tiktaalik, tetrapods returning to the sea to become whales, birds descending from dinosaurs, and even the theory of how dinosaurs all became extinct due to volcanoes were challenged and changed. It was like challenging the theories of the earth being the center of the universe or that Columbus discovered America. The theories of Charles Darwin had been all proved wrong except for natural selection and genetic modification. OTOH creation scientists based their theories on Genesis from the Bible and that we were created in 7 days and formation of the earth was based on Noah's Flood. This was what people believed in the 1800s before uniformitarianism took over against catastrophism. What they were saying didn't change. Only that science provided further evidence for what they were saying. On creation's side, there were famous scientists which I was studied in school like Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal, Carolus Linnaeus, Michael Faraday, Samuel B. Morse, Louis Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, James Joule and others. Sir Francis Bacon is the father of modern science. I started to look at what they were saying and that was from the Bible. What it said was incredulous like people lived to over 900 years old in the old days and we are descendants of Adam and Eve.

Yet, if one looks at the evolutionary thinking and the origins of life, we see that the BBT started from compressed gases and invisible quantum particles from a single point. This seemed just as incredulous. The universe is just primed for life and that multiverses can pop into existence. Life came from primordial soup after it was hit by lightening. Well, that experiment didn't pan out in the 50s. Where was this life? Where were the parallel universes? I read the Brief History of Time and its followup A Briefer History of Time from Stephen Hawkening during the 90s and early millenium. Where were the multiverses and time machines? How can something like that happen or work? Even the theories of quantum mechanics went against the traditional physics of Newton. It went against the laws of thermodynamics. All these invisible particles were doing something, but we couldn't see them because they were too small. All of the aforementioned were disavowed by creation science.

In fact I don't want 'creation science' to be taught in schools as science because it isn't. It is faith based and therefore not science as science is technically defined. But I don't want any science teacher telling students that science has disproved all creation theories and/or any form of intelligent design because that would be incredibly erroneous as it has done no such thing.

And when the child from the fundamentalist church/family inquires of the Biblical six days to create the heavens and the Earth or a 6,000 year old Earth, I want the teacher to explain that most scientists believe the process took much longer and over a much longer period of time but they are discerning based on the best available information but they weren't there themselves. The student will be required to know the information in the textbook and in the class lectures, but he/she can then compare what s/he learns in class with what s/he has been taught in Bible class and decide for himself or herself. No public school should ever give the impression that a child's faith is inappropriate in school or that the child's God is unwelcome there.

When we return to that kind of teaching--the kind I in fact grew up with--we will have returned to teaching real science again, teaching students to think critically and thoughtfully about it so that they are actually educated instead of indoctrinated. And that will be a very good thing.

That is what I am saying. Creation science is real science. It was science before the 1800s and it is still a science now. Public schools cannot teach religion, but it can creation science. Creation science says there was a creator. What that creator is/was is not explained. It created adult humans, plants and animals. Thus, it can explain origins of life and how they came to be today. It explains complexity and beauty in life. It explains mathematics found in nature. It explains the earth's geology, paleontology, zoology and biology. The worldview of evolution in that life wasn't created has led us down the wrong path from the beginning. They have systematically eliminated creation science as religion or about the supernatural. Today's science is atheist science as I have pointed out despite the breakthroughs it has made. It's not science, but religion, too. The atheist religion is where there is no creation, so it can't possibly have all the answers. That is not how I was taught science works. From that, I know science when I see it or read about it. I also know about religion when I see it or read about it, too.

Here is a recent example. Francis Crick. Crick and his partner James Watson discovered the structure of the DNA molecule, i.e. double helix and the A-T and G-C model, and with Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins and host of others came up with the following information on DNA: Around the same time, an older creation scientist Linus Pauling was working on the same type of project. Crick and Watson hired his son, Peter Pauling, in order to hear about what his old man was up to.

-Carries information from one generation to the next by coding for traits
-Controls cell division & enables easy copying of DNA for other cells
-Directs the actions of the cell by telling it which proteins to make

Eventually, the work led to the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 or what's referred to as the periodic table of biology.

Crick's personal views on his work led him to think there was no God and that his work destroyed religion. The same with Watson. They believed that this all evolved from the cell. The fiftieth anniversary of their discovery led to celebrations for the Human Genome Project completed at the same time in 2003.

"No More Need For God?
The celebrations have a dark side, however. Many atheistic evolutionists claim that the discovery of DNA’s structure is proof of evolution and a nail in God’s coffin. As they see it, the discovery of a “universal” molecular structure for storing and passing on information to offspring—shared by almost all forms of life1—allows scientists to find a purely physical explanation for the origin and development of life on Earth, without any need for a Creator.

Indeed, both Crick and Watson have been outspoken in their belief that the discovery of DNA’s structure has helped overturn belief in the God of the Bible. Francis Crick has repeatedly said that he sees DNA as a confirmation of evolution, which discredits “the god hypothesis.”2 His co-discoverer, James Watson, says that our understanding of DNA has helped to debunk religious “myths from the past.”

Watson boldly told the London Telegraph in a recent interview, “Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours.”3

Many of the world’s leading scientists will hear this message today at a huge gathering of luminaries (including Watson himself) who traveled to Cambridge to praise the ongoing impact of Watson and Crick’s discovery.

The culmination of the day, after a series of speeches on molecular medicine, cancer, aging, etc., is a lecture titled “Genes and human nature” by Matt Ridley, author of the bestseller Genome. Ridley will speak about the broader implications of human genome research, and it is not hard to guess what he will say.

Scientific American describes Ridley as “an avid proponent of the Darwinian view of the world, [who] perceives the genome not as a cookbook or a manual but as a quintessentially historical document—a three-billion-year memoir of our species from its beginnings in the primal ooze to the present day.”4

Around the world, believers in “goo-to-you” evolution, like Matt Ridley, are repeating the mantra that the human genome holds the key to unlocking the mystery of human nature and the evolution of life on Earth."

I'll stop here. Certainly, it was a wonderful and important discovery that led to the double helix structure and ATGC models, and the Human Genome Project which produced the periodic table of biology. However, what's troubling is Crick's and Watson's need to destroy creation science and the major Abrahamic religions. No need to gloat like that when it wasn't the case.

There is no such things as creation science. Period. It wasnt science then, and its not science now.

But go ahead and prove me wrong. Here is the idea to be tested:

"God made all this shit ."

Now, design and then describe your test of this idea. It must be repeatable, yield the same results for everyone, and -- most importantly -- be able to rule this idea out.

Very simple. The ball is in your court.

Easy peasy.

1. All this shit had a beginning and began to exist.
2. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
3. All this shit began to exist.
4. Therefore, all this shit has a cause.

God.

There you go.

 

[james bond]

There is no such things as creation science. Period. It wasnt science then, and its not science now.

Like I said, atheists and their scientists are usually wrong. I just finished talking about a creation scientist in Dr. Linus Pauling and how he was robbed by atheist scientists Francis Crick and James Watson. Others famous creation scientists are the father of the scientific method -- Sir Francis Bacon. Galileo Galilei, Leonardo da Vinci, Blaise Pascal, Sir Isaac Newton, Carolus Linnaeus, Samuel F. B. Morse, Michael Faraday, Charles Babbage, Lord Kelvin, James Joule, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur and many more.

Some of the greatest breakthroughs in science are attributed to creation science.

It's tough to be wrong, but you'll get over it in this life. The trick is to get over it in the next life.

 

[Foxfyre]

Evolution and Creation can both be true and co-exist. The problem Creationists have with evolution is not that it disproves our beliefs, because it can't.

Absolutely right, they can both be true. And evolution is not meant to disprove creation. Just remember that creationism explains nothing, provides no useful predictions, and needs to stay out of the way of science. Keep these things in mind, and there will be no conflict.

Will gently disagree that creationism explains nothing or provides no useful predictions. Spinoza and Einstein who admired his theories both embraced a concept of some kind of cosmic intelligence guiding the process that could explain so much that evolution/natural selection cannot. He did not believe in a personal God as the theist believes. He said: “I believe in Spinoza’s God,” and went on to explain that as not a God who concerns himself with humankind but rather a lawful harmony of all that exists. He said: “What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos.”

I like to think of Einstein's amazement and delight to find out that how much of his theories were right and how close he got to God's truth before he was face to face with God and got the rest of the story.

The Creation stories are not useful to teach science as they cannot be taken literally and also be squared with the science that we are pretty sure we know. But if they are taken symbolically or metaphorically they fill in the blanks that evolution cannot. What exists that we know exists, as well as that we have not yet discovered, is because God made it happen. Many things are the way they are because they fit into a divine plan and/or because of sin that spoiled God's perfect creation. And because there is some great purpose to it all, then prayer makes a difference, obedience to God (i.e. fitting into his greater purpose) makes things better, and we can enjoy confidence that there is a brighter future/existence for us.

 

[evenflow1969]

Everyone seeks the truth, agnostics simply acknowledge that we haven't found it yet.

Please. 12% think Elvis is alive, people think we never walked on the moon and half of America thinks Islam is a religion of peace.

You are correct to infer that only agnostics are right. Why? What did you choose?

I never said athiests are right. I said they think they have no possibility in their thought process that maybe they are wrong.

ag-nos-tic, not atheist.

An agnostic is someone too lazy to make up their mind in the most important issue in their lives.

I know neither the bible nor the Koran can be right. You realy think god wants to be praised all day? He has got to be thinking shut the fuck up you brown noser suck ups! I already know what I did was cool!

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I have never met one single person who defines science that way. Let me give you some free advice: when you have to invent people and events to whine about...you dont actually have anything to whine about.

And no, saying "God did it!" does not explain anything at all.

You may not know anyone who ADMITS to defining science that way, but I guarantee that you know some who do it without realizing that's what they're doing. Hell, there are people right here on this message board who do so.

Let me give you some free advice: don't be gullible enough to take people's words at face value.

And I am convinced that you are actually Muslim.

And I am convinced that your opinions are meaningless.

What an odd response, when all I did was use the tactics you described on you. I guess you have a pretty low opinion of your own methods. Maybe you should change them.

I think that we should add "Cecilie's methods" to the long, LONG list of things you utterly do not understand, since you didn't do anything I would ever do.

You need to pay attention. You clearly said you knew peoples thoughts , regardless of what they actually say or do. I tookyour amazing advice to heart and used your awesome methods to discern that you are a secret, crazy Muslim, trying to infiltrate a good, Christian message board. I also realized you are big fan of Precious Moments figurines.

Are you now denouncing your own methods, professor?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Spinoza and Einstein

You undermine your own point and support mine. The assumptions they made from the magical nonsense led them to incorrect conclusions and bad science. Seriously, what a perfect illustration of my point.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You may not know anyone who ADMITS to defining science that way, but I guarantee that you know some who do it without realizing that's what they're doing. Hell, there are people right here on this message board who do so.

Let me give you some free advice: don't be gullible enough to take people's words at face value.

And I am convinced that you are actually Muslim.

And I am convinced that your opinions are meaningless.

What an odd response, when all I did was use the tactics you described on you. I guess you have a pretty low opinion of your own methods. Maybe you should change them.

I think that we should add "Cecilie's methods" to the long, LONG list of things you utterly do not understand, since you didn't do anything I would ever do.

You need to pay attention. You clearly said you knew peoples thoughts , regardless of what they actually say or do. I tookyour amazing advice to heart and used your awesome methods to discern that you are a secret, crazy Muslim, trying to infiltrate a good, Christian message board. I also realized you are big fan of Precious Moments figurines.

Are you now denouncing your own methods, professor?

No, dumbshit, I didn't. I said, and will continue to say, that words mean things, and I'm fully capable of reading your words and discerning what they say about your thoughts, opinions, and attitudes. That's WHAT THEY'RE FOR.

If you don't want to reveal your stupidity, don't talk. In fact, that would be doing everyone else a tremendous favor.

 

[Foxfyre]

Spinoza and Einstein

You undermine your own point and support mine. The assumptions they made from the magical nonsense led them to incorrect conclusions and bad science. Seriously, what a perfect illustration of my point.

Sorry but I think their conclusions are spot on and their science was both precise and pretty wonderful. I would argue basic theology with both but not their observations of creation science which should be apparent to anybody with an open mind and discerning spirit. And they made their argument much more convincingly than any of the nay sayers have done so far. But do have a pleasant evening.

 

[BreezeWood]

.
creationist linger for a time past they never deserved from their literature unlike mythology who's pleasant past though never proven remains a meaningful respite for the complexities it served to define.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Please. 12% think Elvis is alive, people think we never walked on the moon and half of America thinks Islam is a religion of peace.

You are correct to infer that only agnostics are right. Why? What did you choose?

I never said athiests are right. I said they think they have no possibility in their thought process that maybe they are wrong.

ag-nos-tic, not atheist.

An agnostic is someone too lazy to make up their mind in the most important issue in their lives.

I know neither the bible nor the Koran can be right. You realy think god wants to be praised all day? He has got to be thinking shut the fuck up you brown noser suck ups! I already know what I did was cool!

I have no idea, I have not seen God yet.

You think God wants you to saw the heads off all unbelievers?

 

[evenflow1969]

You are correct to infer that only agnostics are right. Why? What did you choose?

I never said athiests are right. I said they think they have no possibility in their thought process that maybe they are wrong.

ag-nos-tic, not atheist.

An agnostic is someone too lazy to make up their mind in the most important issue in their lives.

I know neither the bible nor the Koran can be right. You realy think god wants to be praised all day? He has got to be thinking shut the fuck up you brown noser suck ups! I already know what I did was cool!

I have no idea, I have not seen God yet.

You think God wants you to saw the heads off all unbelievers?

Nope, I doubt he would give a shit!

 

[Cecilie1200]

.
creationist linger for a time past they never deserved from their literature unlike mythology who's pleasant past though never proven remains a meaningful respite for the complexities it served to define.

Oh, yeah, you're taking over the world with your theology of "Believe nothing, behave like an animal until you die and cease to exist". That's totally going to appeal to the vast majority of humans.

Good luck with that.