Now imagine trying to round all of these up on a big wooden boat, with a small gang of brothers trying to do it, along with every other single living creature on the planet, big and small, in male and female forms, with the sole intent on keeping them safe, while lovely God wipes out mankind.

An interesting tale to tell our kids.

Ah, but it's not literal you'll cry. then what is it? Doesn't sounds like love to me?

I just bundle creationism with the rest of the religious doctrine, complete nonsense.

pald1 said:

because this is a fundamental to modern christianity that you must learn 'the truth' that being there is only one way into the kingdom of heaven and that is thru christ. there! that is why he refers to 'the truth' it is a christian teaching and JWs are a faction of that religion

The mathematical likelihood of primordial ooze spontaneously starting life (this is what you would have to believe, its the goo before evolution that made everything) is 1^39999 thats 1 with a 39999 zero's behind it. So..... I am more worried about people who believe in that. I'm not sure about the mathematical probability of God but its probably better odds than 1:100000(etc.)

So those people don't bother me. Don't worry I don't think either theory should be taught as fact. That would be presumptuous.

Isn't it weird that over the course of 100 years, the unlikelier the ideas become, the more billions of years they add in order to explain away how these things could be possible?

violectrica said:

ETA: by "weird" I meant conveinient.

PopeLeo said:

And so bigotry has a new name.

Some people won't even give creationists the time of day. They are unworthy to be spoken to in some circles. Disrespect is allowed and encouraged. Smug.

I would NEVER do that to an evolutionist. The data presented is so interesting and so widely believed, I wouldn't ignore or disregard them.

I give the idea of 'creationism' the respect it deserves - absolutely none.

violectrica said:

violectrica said:

The reason perhaps is becuase having an invisible friend, who lives everywhere, who watches and knows everything you do, is quite simply the kind of nonsense a child would come up with.

That's probably why people treat you like a child and are terribly condescending.

You should go an live in the Dark ages with your belief system, with the dragons and hobgoblins and mermaids.

violectrica said:

So you think you've done some maths for the likelihood of primordial ooze, and you've come up with a very big number (from who knows where), why do you suppose that the mathematical probability of God is then more likely? Based on what? Entirely on justification of your own belief I assume and nothing else.

This is classic creationist nonsense, on the one hand you try and state a mathematical fact, and then state how ridiculous and unlikely it is, then underpin it with complete absence of counter fact?!!

I'd rather go with the small number (which gets bigger as we ask more questions and learn more) that someone has worked out than the lack of any numbers that require me to 'have faith'.

gotta love a creationist, some one get the white van quick.
[Edited 10/2/08 1:34am]

violectrica said:

What is your source for that calculation please?

To make from the argument from improbability is to fundamentally misunderstand the concept of natural selection. As I sais earlier, chance is not the appropriate alternative to design; natural selection is. If you read up on this, you'll see what I mean (I don't mean to be patronising, so apoligies if it comes off like that, but your argument dictates that you haven't yet grasped the essence of what natural selection means).

To be blunt though, what you think about evolution (or indeed what I think) is essentially irrelevant. Evolution just is, whether we wish it to be or not. You may as well say you think gravity does not exist (that's only a "theory" as well), but that would not make you right. You seem to think the theroy of evolution is some sort of scientific conspiracy against religion. Rather, it is simply observable fact. As you may know, Darwin did not set out to discover evolution, in essence he did so by accident and was as shocked by anyone else by his discovery. Indeed, he did not publish his findings for many years for fear of the reaction of the church (and indeed his wife, a devout catholic). Since then, thousands of sicentists have scrutinised the theory (including many christian ones) and the result has only been a richer and richer mass of evidence, to the point where there is no longer any debate that it has and is occuring. Not one scientist has been to able to provide evidence for any other explaination, or indeed to substantively refute the evidence for evolution. Even the anglican and catholic churches now accept the theory.

Faith is a fine thing, but if it leads to a denial of plain, observable and proven facts, then it suggests a corruptive influence rather than a positive one.

Evolution does not disprove the existence of God. What it does is give us a wonderful knowledge of our herititage and ancestry and a fascinating insight into our development. To deny yourself that is a shame.

With regard to your last paragraph, the evidence for evolution has only strenthened over the last 100 years, not become "more unlikely".
[Edited 10/2/08 2:31am]

These arguments are so silly - no offense, I know that they're an important part of American culture.

This 180 degree contradiction b/n creation and evolution is a Christian invention based on mis-interpretation and mis-translation of the Hebrew bible.
Although some fundamentalist Jews also reject evolution, it's not such a big deal within Judaism - which is interesting since the Hebrew original "Old Testament" where the Genesis story occurs is the canonical text.
In Judaism the literal reading is essential but not exclusive - it co-exists with allusive, interpretative and spiritual meanings. It's fairly widespread to accept that the 6 "days" of creation could be treated as "periods" - it's hard to have time consisting of solar "days" before the sun is even created, or human time before humans!
There's no reason for evolution and creation to be mutually exclusive. There's also no reason to try to treat the Bible as contradiction-free and 100% literal - it was written in Hebrew and in Hebrew it's near impossible to read it that way!!!

vivid said:

Good point. It is no surprise that our bodies can not cope with either very hot or very cold temperatures. We did not evolve to deal with them. Why would God design huamns to be unable to inhabit large chunks of the earth?

statequest said:

No parts 3,4,5,6 & 7 statequest?

It's a shame that when some thoughtful points were put across from the aethists/agnostics that the creationists disapeared from the thread. I wonder if that is a simple inability to answer the points, or just a reluctance to debate something for fear that they may have to accept the weaknesses in their stance?

Which is it?