Try telling that to my two dogs!
Woody
Try telling that to my two dogs!
Woody
I didn't read the thread, so we'll see where this falls...
I'm a firm believer in evolution and a former Christian. I basically reasoned my way in to atheism when I got to the point where I learned enough about history, science and philosophy that I just couldn't honestly say I believe in any religion. Too many things conflicted or started to sound made up. That's not to say I'm antitheist, but atheist. If someone could prove god to me, I'd believe.
Anyway, arguing evolution from a real, scientific and CONVINCING standpoint requires a heavy background in biology and a good bit of chemistry. For the concepts to seem tangible, there are years (or at least semesters) of study that need to be covered for it to not sound like "trust me, it's true." "Trust me, it's true" is a big problem I have with religion, so it's not fair to use it with evolution. Anyway, there are a few books worth reading that lay out the case for evolution through the fossil record and show some logical pathways for abiotic genesis, evolution of DNA and evolution of cellular duplication processes required for life to evolve. One also breaks down statistics of mutation and places them aside the geological timeline to show that the math makes sense.
The books are:
Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evoluton
These authors aren't taking an unbiased approach to this. They are pro evolution and make an argument for it.
EDIT: I went over this and realized that it kind of sounds like "You just can't get it you dumb Christians." It's not that at all. I have just come to realize, through focusing on evolution through my Biology major, that the convincing "holy hell, this makes sense" moments are in the details and they're not in Intro to Biology. My point was, I can't argue for evolution in an convincing manner without explaining a BIG back story that's really damn boring to people that aren't biology geeks.
I'm a firm believer in evolution and a former Christian. I basically reasoned my way in to atheism when I got to the point where I learned enough about history, science and philosophy that I just couldn't honestly say I believe in any religion. Too many things conflicted or started to sound made up. That's not to say I'm antitheist, but atheist. If someone could prove god to me, I'd believe.
Anyway, arguing evolution from a real, scientific and CONVINCING standpoint requires a heavy background in biology and a good bit of chemistry. For the concepts to seem tangible, there are years (or at least semesters) of study that need to be covered for it to not sound like "trust me, it's true." "Trust me, it's true" is a big problem I have with religion, so it's not fair to use it with evolution. Anyway, there are a few books worth reading that lay out the case for evolution through the fossil record and show some logical pathways for abiotic genesis, evolution of DNA and evolution of cellular duplication processes required for life to evolve. One also breaks down statistics of mutation and places them aside the geological timeline to show that the math makes sense.
The books are:
Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evoluton
These authors aren't taking an unbiased approach to this. They are pro evolution and make an argument for it.
EDIT: I went over this and realized that it kind of sounds like "You just can't get it you dumb Christians." It's not that at all. I have just come to realize, through focusing on evolution through my Biology major, that the convincing "holy hell, this makes sense" moments are in the details and they're not in Intro to Biology. My point was, I can't argue for evolution in an convincing manner without explaining a BIG back story that's really damn boring to people that aren't biology geeks.
That's kinda how I feel. I've got years of scholastic studies and research. Trying to explain why I reasoned my opinions is hard on a forum.
No doubt evolution exists but evolution cannot disprove God's existence, rather our existence.
Evolution proves we are animals yet there seems to be something unique about humans as compared to other animals. Science, so far, has not identified what makes us unique.
Explaining what makes us separate and unique would take nothing less than a series of lectures and presentations. So my shortest answer is this;
Yes we evolved, however we did it with a guiding hand.
I agree...to a point. Where I disagree with you is at this point:
I think that evoking the supernatural is a cop out. It's just like ancient civilizations saying that lightning is a god throwing thunderbolts. Jumping to the supernatural for an explanation for things we don't understand is no different than early civilizations thinking up a god of the sun or god or the dead to explain what they couldn't rationalize. For centuries, people have been saying "well, it must be a god" when they hit a scientific wall. For centuries, scientists have been resolving those problems when technology and study reveals natural answers to questions previously only able to be explained by evoking the supernatural.
You can say "it's guided" and I can't prove you wrong. I'm perfectly okay with that and don't have any issue with you believing what you think is true. For me, lack of an answer doesn't mean it must be supernatural. It just means we haven't answered the question, just like the early humans didn't know why lightning happened. If someone came up with real, scientific, compelling evidence that a god guided the creation of life, I'd probably buy into it. I just need more than "trust me" from a collection of books written by a few guys when there were plenty of other guys saying "trust me" about other books/writings/gods/traditions/etc. I used to believe in guided evolution, or evolution sparked and allowed to run free, but the history and philosophy I mentioned made me question that to the point that I just can't say I believe and be honest with myself.
If you like, look at that "Guiding Hand" as the laws of physics. Someone or thing wrote or created those laws of physics. Unless you can come up with a better answer, I'll call the creator and/or author "God."
Woody
I can pretty much say ditto to this. I was born a Christian and now consider myself Agnostic. I hope there is a great and loving God. I refuse to just blindly believe in a religion though. Does life have a certain purpose or meaning other than just living? How could I possibly know? How can anyone know? To have "faith" in something I have no evidence of, and to expect others to lead/follow me in blind faith, to me, is unrealistic.
I've waited a while before chiming in, but it has certainly been a very interesting read. My congratulations for making it such good read without a lot of name-calling and what-have-you that normally happens in controversial topics.
First, I'd like to mention that a totally unscientific "study" on my part seems to show that there might be a higher percentage of believers that allow that God could have used evolution as a part of his "plan." As for the non-believers that would have an open mind for the idea of a creator as a part of their beliefs seems to be a bit less.
While many like to point to the Bible and say it's just a bunch of stories written by a bunch of men, I'd like to point out that there have been a number of archeological finds that "confirm" things written of in the Bible. Therefore, even for just a bunch of stories, there seems to be an element of truth to the Bible, so I don't think it should be discounted.
As for me, I believe in the Bible and do not discount evolution as a possibility of God's plan. What has always interested me were those that accepted evolution as the ONLY answer, and completely discounted any possibility of a divine Creator. I'm not a college graduate, but I like to feel that I've been a man that has done a lot of reading and study.
Also, as a photographer and seeing such wonders of nature, I have to wonder how things came about without that guiding hand.
First, I'd like to mention that a totally unscientific "study" on my part seems to show that there might be a higher percentage of believers that allow that God could have used evolution as a part of his "plan." As for the non-believers that would have an open mind for the idea of a creator as a part of their beliefs seems to be a bit less.
While many like to point to the Bible and say it's just a bunch of stories written by a bunch of men, I'd like to point out that there have been a number of archeological finds that "confirm" things written of in the Bible. Therefore, even for just a bunch of stories, there seems to be an element of truth to the Bible, so I don't think it should be discounted.
As for me, I believe in the Bible and do not discount evolution as a possibility of God's plan. What has always interested me were those that accepted evolution as the ONLY answer, and completely discounted any possibility of a divine Creator. I'm not a college graduate, but I like to feel that I've been a man that has done a lot of reading and study.
Also, as a photographer and seeing such wonders of nature, I have to wonder how things came about without that guiding hand.
I agree Terry. Somebody had to get the whole ball rolling, no matter how it happened.
I also commend the posters for keeping a contentious subject a discussion instead of a name calling free for all.
Great job!
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