Evolution is faith driven so why is it taught in schools

[truthteller]

I was watching a programme on T.V last night where it quoted an evolutionist as saying the chances of life coming from evolution is 10 followed by 39 thousand zeroes.

That programme was been generous with the odds as I have seen it much higher in other publications.

However, If the odds are bordering on impossible for that theory doesn’t it take faith to believe in evolution.

If I were to ask a Christian what are the chances that a dead person could raise from the dead, the odds would be similar to that of evolution.

Both scenarios are faith driven but why is Evolution been taught in school and not creationism.

 

[JudgeWapner]

Why couldn't have God created man through evolution?

 

[Marco]

I believe evolution is taught because it is more neutral and general.....

Creationism is religious based, and more subject to the separation of church and state.....

Any way you teach the way we came to be is more or less a giant guess, considering what little we know about the early stages of life and the solar system......

Try to imagine a universe that doesn't contain a single star or planet or galaxy, and imagine what was before all these things appeared?

 

[RobFunk]

i think its easier to go from one way of thinking towards the other and not vice versa. i doubt thats the intention though

 

[blueedwards]

Why couldn't have God created man through evolution?

i have heard this arguement before. the problem with it is, neither the evolutionist nor the creationist accepts it. i suppose one could raise it as a possibility but, how is it different than saying "we are all aliens, deposited here 1 milllion years ago".

 

[blueedwards]

i agree with truthteller by the way. imo, it takes much more faith to believe in evolution than creation. to believe in evolution, you must believe that all the complexity and beauty in this world is the result of random, chaotic natural forces acting on our universe. that goes against the way we think about everything else in the world.

for example, if you see a computer...what do you assume about its origin? that it was the result of a random explosion in a hardware store? no, you assume an intelligent person designed and manufactured it for a specific purpose.

in an earlier post, marco said "Try to imagine a universe that doesn't contain a single star or planet or galaxy, and imagine what was before all these things appeared?". i agree that is not an easy thing to imagine. but, to me it is harder to imagine that all we see, the stars, planets, galaxies, oceans, life came to be without anything causing it.

to believe in evolution in the truest sense, you must believe that the universe is eternal (or at least has always been). if you don't, you must believe it was created.

there are tons of problems with the theory that the universe is eternal.

 

[DarrylParsons]

Both scenarios are faith driven but why is Evolution been taught in school and not creationism.

As Judge points out the two don't necessarily exclude one another.

In schools evolution does not attempt to answer the question of how life started on planet Earth. Instead it answers how humans came to be, given that more primitive forms of life existed a long time ago. These are two very different questions.

 

[blueedwards]

As Judge points out the two don't necessarily exclude one another.

In schools evolution does not attempt to answer the question of how life started on planet Earth. Instead it answers how humans came to be, given that more primitive forms of life existed a long time ago. These are two very different questions.

evolutionary theory assumes there is no God. it assumes that the only thing explaining what we see in our world is random, natural forces acting over billions of years. changes in and between species are due to mutations in the gene pool or natural selection. the idea that God is behind the scenes or that he created the world, then let evolutionary forces takeover is not part of the theory of evolution in any way.

i certainly don't know it all but, i have heard enough creation v. evolution debates to know that neither side accepts virtually anything from the other.

 

[DarrylParsons]

Blue,

I think the evolution vs. creation debates center around how HUMANS came to exist, which is a totally different question from how LIFE came to exist, which again is a totally different question from whether God exists or not.

I happen to believe in both God and in Darwin's theory of evolution. Do any of these debating dudes ever wonder why Darwin never came out and said there is no God in his landmark book "The Origin of Species"? Do they think he was just being sly and underhanded to avoid revealing his diabolical plot?

As far as I know the theories about Charles Darwin's religious beliefs are divided between him being agnostic and believing in God. Few consider him to have been an atheist. That alone should make one wonder about these debates, unless of course his diabolical plot included fooling the world about his religious beliefs.

 

[truthteller]

DP, the problem I have with evolution is the concept of life forming from nothing. That is part of evolution that is taught in schools that I have a problem with.

 

[blueedwards]

dp, in the debates i have attended and in the books i have read, the evolutionist does not confine his arguements to the origins of humans. they usually go back to the "primordial sea" to attempt to explain the beginnings of life and its evolution to what we see today. most of the time, they go back even further...discussing the big bang theory and the like.

as far as your question on whether charles darwin was an atheist or an agnostic...i don't really know.

 

[DarrylParsons]

If current evolution theory talks about primordeal soup and big bangs then they are saying a lot more than Darwin did. I hope they don't use his name for such theories because he never claimed any of those things.

But I still don't see where those theories contradict the existence of God. I'm quite comfortable with accepting all current scientific thinking and still believing in God. If there were a contradiction, science would have already claimed to have proven God's nonexistence.

 

[xpanda]

DP, the problem I have with evolution is the concept of life forming from nothing. That is part of evolution that is taught in schools that I have a problem with.

You're thinking of the Big Bang Theory. Evolution is a field of study presumed to be separated from the big bang by millions of years. Evolution just says that we started from amoebas. Creationism believes animals all looked just as they do now from the get-go. How do you explain pre-hominid fossils found that virtually verify at least a modest version of evolution?

But, as far as the big bang theory goes, we've all read the odds of it being like 1 to 28 trillion (or whatever) that all the variables could have been in place for the big bang to have happened. Why could it not be that some form of intelligence organised those events to coincide? Why could intelligent design not occur via evolution? Aren't our own inventions largely the products of trial and error, followed by progress?

It's as though you're afraid that the stories of Adam and Eve and Noah can't be perfectly credible if evolution is legit, and then you'd be forced to see parts of your faith as myth. Sorry if that offends, but this is my observation.

 

[eek.]

I think some scientist dude will stumble across the formula/system in future years.

We will find that with the right conditions the basic amino acids will combine to form the simplest forms of life. (Microspheres?)
We'll probaly find that it isn't actually that complicated- once we know.

And that's the way Mr God set things up in the first place so that life could evolve IMO.

 

[blueedwards]

If current evolution theory talks about primordeal soup and big bangs then they are saying a lot more than Darwin did. I hope they don't use his name for such theories because he never claimed any of those things.

But I still don't see where those theories contradict the existence of God. I'm quite comfortable with accepting all current scientific thinking and still believing in God. If there were a contradiction, science would have already claimed to have proven God's nonexistence.

there is no doubt that people that followed after darwin expanded on his theories. the theory of evolution is the atheist's best friend. without it, he has no explanation for the complexity of life. even with it, he has big problems explaining things like, how things as complex as a human eye evolved. his answer always comes down to something like "anything is possible given billions of years and thousands of mutations...".

 

[xpanda]

The only thing that evolution disproves is the story of Adam and Eve (and other such 'overnight' creation stories.) It doesn't disprove the theory of a god, Blue. My uncle is a Roman Catholic priest and he believes in evolution.

If humans are so complex (and they are) to have needed a creator, then how did the creator come to be? Surely our creator would have to be more complex than us? Or do you believe that god is eternal, and didn't need a creator? And, if you do, why are you so quick to object to the idea that the universe is eternal?

 

[blueedwards]

evolution doesn't disprove anything. it is a theory...not a law.

and yes, i do believe that God is eternal. you really must make a choice...neither one is made without faith:

1) God is eternal. he created the universe and exists outside the boundaries and limitations of time and space as we understand them. he chose to create the world and put life in it for a specific purpose. his purpose.

2) the universe is eternal. it has always existed and nothing created it. everything we see in our world is the result of a random, chaotic, natural forces in action. there is no design behind the human brain, the earth's rotation around the sun, the instinct of a bird to fly south for the winter. there is no meaning to life.

i believe #1. the concept that God is eternal and had no beginning and has no end is not an easy thing to wrap my mind around. it certainly takes faith. but, an amount of faith at least that size is required to believe that the universe is eternal.

i think that is the point of the original post in this thread.

 

[DarrylParsons]

the theory of evolution is the atheist's best friend.

It's unfortunate that so many people use evolution as some kind of "proof" of the very big questions like how did life originate -- and I really mean originate -- the big bang theory doesn't even begin to answer that because you can go further back and ask how the conditions for the big bang originated etc.

I really wish I knew the source of this incredible myopia that seems almost unique to Americans that science has all the answers. Why do so many people, including some very intelligent ones fail to recognize that the vastness of what we DON'T know is so many orders of magnitude greater than what we do know? It's almost like they are living in a big bubble and have no desire whatsoever to find out what's outside of it. I cannot relate to that kind of mindset at all.

 

[xpanda]

evolution doesn't disprove anything. it is a theory...not a law.

Let me rephrase: if evolution is true (and I believe it is) the only thing it disproves is the story of Adam and Eve.

2) the universe is eternal. it has always existed and nothing created it. everything we see in our world is the result of a random, chaotic, natural forces in action. there is no design behind the human brain, the earth's rotation around the sun, the instinct of a bird to fly south for the winter. there is no meaning to life.

I don't know that the universe is eternal. It's existence could well have come about via the BBT noted above. What I don't believe is that the requirement of intelligent design can co-exist without the requirement of "creating" the intelligent designer.

Simply put, I don't believe in god or any form of spiritual being nor do I believe that life has any other purpose than to make new life. Judgements and the afterlife are threats to control society and nothing else.

As for whether it takes 'faith' to believe in evolution, I submit that it takes alot less faith than it does to believe in a creator. We do have at least marginal scientific evidence of the former, yet absolutely none of the latter.

May I ask you: how old do you think earth and its inhabitants are? Do you believe me when I assert that humans (in hominid form) have been around for over two million years? What about that homo sapiens have been in existence for over 120,000 years? How do you refute this evidence in light of biblical timelines?

 

[blueedwards]

"I don't know that the universe is eternal. It's existence could well have come about via the BBT noted above. What I don't believe is that the requirement of intelligent design can co-exist without the requirement of "creating" the intelligent designer".



first of all the big bang theory does not explain the creation of the universe. according to the bbt, all the matter in the universe was at one time condensed into a very small clump...then something caused it to explode into what we see now...galaxies, planets, stars, the sun and eventually...oceans, mountains, tadpoles, apes and humans. so, the bbt assumes that the small clump of matter was there before the explosion...i.e. the universe is eternal.

secondly, on your point about creating the intelligent designer...i understand the difficulty in comprehending this. the problem is (assuming there is a non-contigent all-powerful God who created everything) that we as humans are limited in our understanding. its hard to conceptualize a being that has no beginning and no end. a being that is not subject to time and space but, in fact, created time and space.



"As for whether it takes 'faith' to believe in evolution, I submit that it takes alot less faith than it does to believe in a creator. We do have at least marginal scientific evidence of the former, yet absolutely none of the latter."


strongly disagree with you here. again, if you see a computer...do you assume that it came into being as the result of an explosion at the dell computer warehouse? no, you assume that an intelligent being designed and created it for a specific purpose. why do you assume this? because it is so complex that to assume that a working computer was randomly assembled by chance makes no sense...to beleive that takes a lot of faith.

the same is true of this world. take a human being...your brain can store the amount of information that would fill a college library. your eyes...so complex is there design and function that they make hardened evolutionists scrath their heads and scramble to explain how such a thing could evolve. how about the human conscience (sp?)? why do i feel bad when i hurt someone's feelings or steal from my employer? how can a thing like a conscience evolve? ape's have no conscience...

believe me...if science could disprove creation, it would be front page news.



"May I ask you: how old do you think earth and its inhabitants are? Do you believe me when I assert that humans (in hominid form) have been around for over two million years? What about that homo sapiens have been in existence for over 120,000 years? How do you refute this evidence in light of biblical timelines?"


there is a long standing debate amoung creationists on the age of the earth and humanity. plenty of intelligent people in the "creationist camp" believe in the "old earth" theory of millions or billions of years...other intelligent people believe in the "new earth" theory which says the earth is only thousands of years old. i have heard both arguements and haven't made up my mind. its an interesting debate but (imo) not critical to my faith or how i live my life.



"Simply put, I don't believe in god or any form of spiritual being nor do I believe that life has any other purpose than to make new life. Judgements and the afterlife are threats to control society and nothing else."


you are entitled to your opinion and you are certainly not alone in this view. one of us is right and the other wrong...if you're right, we're both in the same boat after we pass away...just a rotting corpse in a grave. if you're wrong...