Proof of Creationism (ID)

Carrera

Adaptation of species isn't difficult to see and understand. You can see it looking at nature. You can see how plants, for example, modify and adapt to survive. Some can live with hardly any water and some can live almost in water. Some have thorns and others have spikes. Much depends on the circumstances of nature, climate and survival.
Where I take issue is over the idea apes evolved into homo sapiens without sufficient data to back this up. I don't have any religious objection to the idea but just find it improbable.
By the same token, no way do I buy the Adam and Eve theory and a 6 day creation.
Dawkin is O.K. but I fear he may be going down the same path of fundamentalists in reverse. He seems to have convinced himself we just arrived in a bang and then produces evidence to back up his belief. It's one thing not to believe in a personal God and another to exclude intelligence at work to explain life. He seems to be arguing a point out of stubborness to take a pop at world religion which he rightly assumes causes a lot of strife and war.

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"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

fscyclist

Well for once we agree on something. Dawkins is no different from a fundamentalist. He takes bits and pieces of a theory, presents them as fact then uses them to promote a philosophy.

As I said, life on this planet is incredibly complex and in the grand scheme of things we really know next to nothing about it. I'd love to learn more, but guys like Dawkins and others get in the way by politicizing an issue that to me is completely apolitical.

Bro Deal

But evolution takes time. To have dinosaurs and man exist at the same time screws up the timeline. You cannot have animals that are thought to have evolved from dinosaurs evolve in a few thousand years. Inability to accept the fossil and geological record is one of the "features" of ID. Thus you get idiocy like the assertion that the Grand Canyon was caused by Noah's flood.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

fscyclist

Yes evolution takes time. I gave the example of bacteria and man coexisting as an example that the ancient can exist with the modern (put simply). You posited that birds and dinosaurs couldn't coexist, but they easily could and that in no way disproves basic evolutionary theory. We have species on this planet that have likely existed since life began and their 'ancestors' also coexist. BTW, I'm not saying birds and dinosaurs coexisted, I'm just saying it would be possible. In other words, the appearance of birds doesn't equal the disappearance of dinosaurs. The disappearance of dinosaurs, much like their appearance, is really a fascinating mystery.

I don't know what created the Grand Canyon and I would be suspect of anyone (scientist or religious person) who 'knows' what created these geological wonders.

Bro Deal

I place my bets on erosion by water over a very very long time.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

fscyclist

I gave you a softball. What I was getting at was that I don't think anyone knows exactly how that occured.

Carrera

It's maybe impossible to prove either creationism or atheism. Logic suggests to me that some intelligent force directs natural evolution and I also suspect this isn't confined to only one tiny planet. Still, that doesn't mean I believe in the religious idea of God as a walking, talking being who happens to be a man (not a woman).
If I were to be swung by any belief system the closest I could get would be reincarnation which is what Greeks and Egyptians believed.
Still, neither Dawkins nor the Pope can prove what they believe is true and Dawkins is too self-opinionated that he alone has all the answers.

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"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

limerickman

Agree to a point.

Dawkins and his ilk criticise those who believe - because they (the believers) cannot categorically prove to Dawkins what they believe in.
Dawkins criticisms though fall on stony ground : faith by it's very nature is
not based upon physical/mathematical/scientific verification.
If one believes in God - that faith is of a metaphysical nature (metaphysical meaning that it is outside of human measurement/proof).

Those people who are agnostic/atheist are entitled to hold those views.
As are those who believe in God.

The problems starts when one side or the other starts trying to impose their views upon the other side.

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.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

Bro Deal

Atheism does need to be proved. If one wants to make the extraordinary claim that there is a god then it requries extraordinary evidence. It is no difference than someone cliaming there are little green men on mars. It is not up to the non-believers to prove that there are no green men.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

Felt_Rider

There is evidence, but just not in the form that you would be expecting or willing to see. I say that with all kindness, because until the age of 32 my view points were exactly like yours and like you I would be willing to stand by those very views without waivering, but at the age of 32 I had a life changing experience that changed my views immediately (not by the bible or someone preaching at me) and those views have not changed for the past 12 years and I don't believe anything could be said to cause me to waiver now.

People that knew me before were amazed at the change in my behavior, but they did not understand it so this change is not evidence to many of them, but those who knew me and were Christians understood it and it was evidence to them. All I can say is that if some One had not intervened in my life (my belief is Jesus did) I was on the path of killing someone or getting killed, which both of those things were very close to happening since I was in the drug trade back in that day. I know for a fact that I did not change my own personality and thoughts, but it was like I was reprogrammed internally and almost immediately. I flushed everything down the toliet and walked away to a new life that was given to me.

This statement will still not be evidence to you and I fully understand because again there was a time when I scoffed at the idea as well.

garage sale GT

Carrera, are you messing with us?

If you want proof of creationism, just look at the websites!

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Your mouthwash ain't makin' it.

Crankyfeet

The Hobbits? Too much Tolkien for you.

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Originally posted by Frigo's Luggage...

"[Calling him] 'dickcheese' is the insult of a master. Some people work in oil, some people work in clay. He [thoughtforfood] works in profanity. Open your mind and enjoy its beauty."

Crankyfeet

My reasoning against intelligent life on other planets is that, if it existed, we would be able to read it in the electromagnetic radiation coming from the far reaches of the universe. As yet, there is no evidence of anything artificial in these signals.

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Originally posted by Frigo's Luggage...

"[Calling him] 'dickcheese' is the insult of a master. Some people work in oil, some people work in clay. He [thoughtforfood] works in profanity. Open your mind and enjoy its beauty."

Crankyfeet

Richard Dawkins is considered a jackass because he sticks it right up the nose of the fairy-tale believers. Most scientists have been happy to let people believe in their faith-based beliefs up until recently. In fact over much of history, guys like Gallileo and Copernicus worked under constant risk of execution for their findings. In fact Gallileo was sentenced to die by the Pope if I'm not mistaken.

Except now, religion has entered the political sphere, and we have the most powerful man in the world for instance telling us that he makes decisions from his gut and from what God tells him, and has aides within his administration who promulgate the view that the earth is going to end in the next 50 years with the second-coming apocalypse so worrying about the environment is a waste of time.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to pick up the newspaper one day and hear that we have started a war somewhere because it was prophecised in the Bible to be necessary to spark Jesus' return.

All of a sudden, science has come under attack. Evolution is being witheld from children in schools in Kansas. And BTW evolution is not just some random theory that fits some data here but doesn't there. It fits 100% of the data. Yes there are some gaps in the fossil record. But that isn't a problem with evolutionary theory. That's more of a problem of fossilization only being a rare occurrence.

Doesn't mean that a new theory won't come through in the future, but it will almost certainly be an incremental add-on to the foundation of evolutionary theory. Just because some people can't imagine the intermediary stages of an eye's evolution (ie sensitive skin membrane) doesn't mean the theory is wanting.

When I hear people making opinions about evolution, its like construction workers giving criticism of legal juris prudence or human pathological viruses. Everybody has an opinion based on what they've been told by their "advisers". But not qualified to give an opinion themselves.

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Originally posted by Frigo's Luggage...

"[Calling him] 'dickcheese' is the insult of a master. Some people work in oil, some people work in clay. He [thoughtforfood] works in profanity. Open your mind and enjoy its beauty."