Creationism vs. Evolution

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

Allow me to explain for you the process of logic that my High School uses to turn their ideas into believable fact.

1.) Take a piece of science, and analyze it.

2.) After carefully thinking about your data, make a conclusion about the data that would seem to support your ideas of origin and morality

3.) If you come across something that is an unknown, do not investigate further, but merely dismiss this unknown as "the miraculous power of God, himself" and sit and watch as your students are struck with awe

4.) If a student questions you about your conclusions, and/or the unknowns in your conclusion, and you can't think of something witty to say on the fly, promptly fire back with good 'ol Deuteronomy 29:29 (in other words, "I don't know, and this Bible verse is my cop out")

[city11 0]

Originally posted by: MayorTim

Originally posted by: dalmatianfan2020 Now, I hope this has been mentioned before, but I don't have the time to read all 9 pages of this.

How I, and my church feel (The Episcopal Church) is that evolution is God's doing. I mean, there really isn't anything, that I know of at least, that completely shuts God out of it. Basically, we feel that God got it all started, and it just went from there. We Anglicans take the "accident" part out if Evolution. That's the only difference between us and hard scientists I'd say. God knew what he was doing, and he did it for a reason.

Science says: The Universe started with the "BIG BANG," well, what if God started it? What if God saying "Let there be light" was the Bang?

Also, the 7 day creation story: The Georgian calendar didn't exist back then. 7 Days could be millions of years for all we know.

-The evolution of man does not necessarily mean Adam and Eve couldn't have existed, I don't think anyway

Humans are such stupid creatures, all things considered, that it is really fairly pointless to try and make sense of the Universe.quote>

But to do that, you'd have to throw away Genesis. Also, there is still no scientific proof of what your saying, it seems to me like your simply trying to mold your beliefs around recent scientific findings.

Originally posted by: city11 As a man that believes in Creationism...I have just one thing to say....You may have your single celled organisms that evovled into larger organisms...but how do explain where that single celled organism came from...or where that evolved from...there has to be one great being that started everything....everything has a beginningquote>

I'm not an expert on this, so don't bother quoting it, but I'm pretty sure this has been explained by molecules forming together in tidal pools over millions of years.

I also think that the Christian approach of trying to prove their religion by disproving evolution is really ridiculous.quote>

 

But where then did those molecules that formed the organisms come from?...do you see what I am getting at?

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

Well, I don't know where molecules came from, either. However, those of us who are not so hot-handed as to declare it as a miracle already have a foot up on those who are, for this is the basis of an objective investigation. Conclusions don't come before results, in the scientific realm. Results produce (supportable) conclusions. All other conclusions preceding results are hypotheses, and can never be accepted as fact.

[EDIT] We, as atheists, are not saying that we have all of the answers, but the Christian religion is too quick to deem the unknown as divinity in action, rather than actually taking a step back and looking at the facts that lay in front of you.  You are doing this in this very thread. "Well, if molecules had to have come from somewhere, then it must be God."  We are saying, "Well, molecules had to have come from somewhere, but we are still working on trying to find out where they did come from."

[Palpatine001 57]

Good Lord this debate is still going...

I feel like I am on a Merry-go-round

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

To be considered a sane human being, you have to accept the fact that science is the essence of exploring, analyzing, and defining the undefined. Everything that we know today was unknown at some point, and science has lead us up to where we are now. Heck, I'll bet the first time someone saw lightning, they were just as confused (and may have likely attributed this to some God hmmm... Zeus, anyone?) as we are today about its origin, properties, etc. But, because of science, we now have a better (although not complete) understanding of what used to be considered unknown.

[snickm 2]

A lot of the creationist argument is based on science. I study this subject a lot, not just the "God created the earth in 6 days," purely based on faith side, but the scientific side of it, and there is quite a lot of evidence that supports a young earth. You can take God, Christianity & the Bible out of the argument and look at the evidence - is the earth old or young? I think most Creationist are reasonable, intelligent people who aren't just trying to justify their faith. They are seeking the truth as most of you are.

There are obviously holes in either argument so I guess we all get together in a 1000 years and decide who was right.

It would seem that the big bang seems to ignore a few basic laws of science (matter cannot come from nothing & as far as we know, life has to come from life). That is observable science - regardless of what faith you are.

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

Originally posted by: snickm A lot of the creationist argument is based on science. I study this subject a lot, not just the "God created the earth in 6 days," purely based on faith side, but the scientific side of it, and there is quite a lot of evidence that supports a young earth. You can take God, Christianity & the Bible out of the argument and look at the evidence - is the earth old or young? I think most Creationist are reasonable, intelligent people who aren't just trying to justify their faith. They are seeking the truth as most of you are.

There are obviously holes in either argument so I guess we all get together in a 1000 years and decide who was right.

It would seem that the big bang seems to ignore a few basic laws of science (matter cannot come from nothing & as far as we know, life has to come from life). That is observable science - regardless of what faith you are.quote>

I was just like you, kid. You sound like me about a year ago.

The problem here, is...  Christianity already accepts their theories as a background truth, and works their data around these background truths. Evolution (and the Big Bag, although these are not interchangeable subject topics) does not define anything as absolute truth.  Anything later discovered can always disprove previously vague and incorrect information.  We, again, are not saying that we have all of the answers, (which is why our ideas are still considered theory, not law) but we take our observations from a completely objective perspective, and don't conform the data to our beliefs.

Example - My High School Biology teacher went on a week-long lecture about Creation v. Evolution.  He said, in this lecture, that carbon dating was an invalid source of obtaining the age of a sample because the date is obtained using one data set, and does not analyze any other data points.  Come to find out, when I get to my public school, my Chemistry Professor (who has a Doctorate degree in Chemistry, unlike my High School instructor) told me otherwise, that these dates are determined, not only through the measurement of the amount of Carbon-14, but a whole host of other isotopes in the sample.

This is just one of the examples of data modification and manipulation that I have come across in my long stay in the Christian religious environment.

[2nerdy4u 1]

Originally posted by: Psycho_Teddy

You are doing this in this very thread. "Well, if molecules had to have come from somewhere, then it must be God."  We are saying, "Well, molecules had to have come from somewhere, but we are still working on trying to find out where they did come from."quote>

Too true.

The thing with science is that some of the major theories are just too confusing to some people. And so they settle with the "ah yes, that was God" idea. Why do people retreat to religion anyway? Back in ancient times it was understandable: they didn't know very much about their universe, so they devised a supernatural force to explain various phenomenon. But now in this day and age, we have progressed and are progressing in scientific thought, so why keep this ancient thing that is religion?

Well, that got a bit off-topic, but hopefully you guys can see what I mean. As for creationism, I just don't like it when people try to pass it off as fact. We as people need to try harder to keep church and state separate.

EDIT: snickm: what could possibly be the "scientific side" of creationism. The two are mutually exclusive. Science and Religion are two separate circle on your Venn diagram of explanations. What are these data that suggest Earth is young? Old rocks? Fossils? Dinosaur bones? Plate Tectonics? Naw, I suppose none of these things matter to your typical creationist scientist...

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

Originally posted by: 2nerdy4u

Originally posted by: Psycho_Teddy

You are doing this in this very thread. "Well, if molecules had to have come from somewhere, then it must be God."  We are saying, "Well, molecules had to have come from somewhere, but we are still working on trying to find out where they did come from."quote>

Too true.

The thing with science is that some of the major theories are just too confusing to some people. And so they settle with the "ah yes, that was God" idea. Why do people retreat to religion anyway? Back in ancient times it was understandable: they didn't know very much about their universe, so they devised a supernatural force to explain various phenomenon. But now in this day and age, we have progressed and are progressing in scientific thought, so why keep this ancient thing that is religion?

quote>

Because history repeats itself, my friend.  Just take a look at the Greeks, who's religion dissolved during and after the classical era in Greek History(which was a time of enlightenment, discovery, intelligent thought, and the challenging of religion) I am taking this class in college, and I am finding many parallels to modern day society at this point, especially concerning religion.

[2nerdy4u 1]

My point is that there really is no true reason for religion anymore. Before, religion and science were one beast, but not today. Human thought has advanced past the primitive idea of religion onto science. Science is logical; religion is not. People are logical; we are not animals in the wilderness. History does repeat itself, but we should be able to abandon obsolete thoughts.

[habibi_Joe 5]

Originally posted by: 2nerdy4u

 We as people need to try harder to keep church and state separate.

quote>

You "city slickers" and your fancy ideas....when will you learn? You invade our little worlds with your "logic" and "chain of ever-growing, irrefutable evidence" just to wreck up our day. Well you know what? I don't have to eat that "baloney" sandwich, mister. I'll go to my house of God, give up 10% of my yearly income, go through the motions of yet another sermon contrived to guilt me into obedience and rule my life, and live in fear of a celestial spanking from a supernatural boogey man if I want. In fact, and considering all the logic of a mere theory that suggests "monkeys turned into people," I can't see why everyone doesn't do the same as me. That's why me and my friends pressure "non-believers" into conforming with us and lobby so hard to get the US congress to pass bills that force our beliefs on others. You're so crazy with "evolutionitis" that you've lost your ability to think straight. Let US do the thinking for you. Trust me, I know whats best for you. Also, if you don't go along with it the invisible boogey manI worship will cook you with sulfur and lava. You want that? Didn't think so.

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

Originally posted by: 2nerdy4u My point is that there really is no true reason for religion anymore. Before, religion and science were one beast, but not today. Human thought has advanced past the primitive idea of religion onto science. Science is logical; religion is not. People are logical; we are not animals in the wilderness. History does repeat itself, but we should be able to abandon obsolete thoughts.quote>

I think that this will come with (a lot of) time.  People that do believe these ideas are so convinced that their religion is true, that they feel guilty abandoning it (heck, I feel a tad guilty now). The merging of science and morality has created a bond that is quite hard to break.  Once you start disbelieving in the science (that the religion  presents), you start feeling guilty, and the morality part sets in.  However, once that wears off, you are presented with some more "science" that seems pretty convincing, and you revert back to your old beliefs.  However, some more involvement in the real world gives you a wake up call, and you start thinking clearly again.  Wash, rinse, repeat...

But I think that I have finally hit a point to where I am completely ready to abandon these beliefs and move on.  But it is very hard to break from the guilt that is imposed on you, for deviating from the institution of religion, and that is why we still have it today, the ever-present sense of eminent damnation keeps us in, while we truly know that we want no part of it.

I think, to break this coersive bond, it will take another few major discoveries (at least a couple have to be pretty damning to religion), and a lot of time.

[EDIT]: See above for a good example of what I'm talking about...

[snickm 2]

My belief in God starts when I look at the world around me. I don't believe that such an amazing universe or something as infinitely complicated as our bodies could be produced by millions of random accidents. That takes a lot of faith to believe that. That's what is so ironic to me, that those of us who believe that just maybe this world was created are stupid for our faith, yet evolutionists have just as much faith in their theory and that is perfectly logical.

My belief in God did not begin with guilt or what my parents told me. I observed the world I lived in and have studied science, yes science! to come to my conclusion. We don't all have to agree. That's fine. But to think that Creationists are some backwoods hicks who can't read is pretty short-sighted.

FYI, I'm certainly no scholar on the subject, but there is plenty of evidence for a young earth. If you haven't taken time to research both sides of the issue, then I can't see how you can reasonably debate the issue. Again, we don't have to come to the same conclusion, but if you're not aware that there is scientific evidence supporting creationism, I would suggest you become educated before you accuse those with faith of being uneducated. (This was meant for no one particular, btw.)

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

What I see is a lot of atheists ascribing thought patterns and motives to a viewpoint they do not share and cannot understand. There's a long list of prominent scientists who don't necessarily put all their eggs into the evolution basket, particularly on the subject of biogenesis. Science still hasn't told us how matter got here.

Some of you (no names used, you know who you are) really shouldn't denigrate those with religious convictions. Shame on you. If you don't believe, then don't worry about it. You know all there is to know, be happy and secure in that. There are plenty of us who don't find all the answers in science, either.  So please keep it civil...If I can, so can you. I'm not flame-baiting, or being pushy, but seriously....have some respect.

[Palpatine001 57]

And I think this just went around about 5 more times since I last posted

[gets the pop corn out]

Who wants some?

[snickm 2]

You mean we're not going to solve this debate tonight on the message board?? I was really hoping to wrap this issue up pretty soon so I could focus on something else.

[constchar 0]

The minute I saw this post, like so many others in the past, I already expected there would be overwelming support for

athiesm or other theories that cancel any idea of a creator, supernatural or not, out of the equation.

Personally I believe in creation because to me it seems there are too many holes in evolution and a lack of

explanation as to just how or why the "Big Bang" occured among other things. Personally I've done my homework

between the two with an open mind knowing that creationism itself does not necessarly mean religion although I'm honest

and willing to live by a moral standard as an improvement to my quality of life.

Personally I believe in the Bible as a whole

(A lot of people have the tendancy to take scriptures out of context to their own advantage)

and in line with what snickm said earlier

I thought that these might be worth mentioning:

Snickm:

"My belief in God starts when I look at the world around me. I don't believe that such an amazing universe or something as infinitely complicated as our bodies could be produced by millions of random accidents."

Romans 1:20

"For his invisible [qualities] are clearly seen from the world's creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable;"

As apart of evidence of an almighty god's existance the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Roman congregation

that god's existance could be reinforced by what we see before us in our own world as we know it.

An example might given that we know that the infamous painting Mona Lisa was created by a talented artist and we know

it would be rediculous to think otherwise due to the complexity and insight that went into its creation and like the Bible tells of

god's existance, plenty of books tell us of Mona Lisa's creator's existance, Leonardo Da Vinci, and archeological evidence supports

the claims of many encyclopedias and other literature of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Snickm:

"That takes a lot of faith to believe that. That's what is so ironic to me, that those of us who believe that just maybe this world was created are stupid for our faith, yet evolutionists have just as much faith in their theory and that is perfectly logical."

Hebrews 11:1

"Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld."

In the Apostle Paul's letter to the Hebrew congregation he reminded them that Faith is not blind, contrary to what many

people believe today, but rather hope assured by knowledge.

This would be consistent with the rest of the Bible, paticularly the part, in where I think is 1st Peter, that talks about "exercising faith"

which would be to carry out knowledge learned from the principles given throughout the Bible

which reinforces hope in god's promises though most of which have yet to happen, paticularly knowledge in prophecies in Daniel, Matthew, 1st Timothy and Revelation parts of which describe our day and age.

Regarding the age of the Earth and the topic of the thread:

First, Genesis account of creation does not describe 6 literal 24-hour days but rather it could be anything since the Hebrew, the language the old testament was written in, word translated into the English word "day" does not mean a 24-hour day as we

think of it but rather it could mean any period of time, a good example of this might be "Back in my grandfather's day" where "day" in this case refers to his entire lifetime.

Careful reading of Genesis will reveal that the idea of the planet being created in 24-hour days is indeed incorrect, in fact

if this were the case then this means that dinosaurs would have been extinct almost immediately if not until the next "day"!

[coolotter88 2]

an extremely complex universe like ours can take place because of millions of accidents because there were an infinite number of accidents out there. life doesn't need to be on Earth. there are a mind-bogglingly large number of planets out there. if 1/1000th of those planets had earth-like conditions, and if on all of those earth-like planets, billions of random accidents take place, we have a virtually infinite number of random accidents. hence, it is highly probable that a planet like ours is created. not to mention, what if different intelligent life can be sustained on non-earth like planets? then it is definitely true that life can be created. however, this is not evolution.

the earth is several billion years old, not 600 million.

[snickm 2]

To think that billions of random accidents produced the world around us is, in my mind, much more of a leap of faith than the world being created. If observable science shows us that life comes from life and we've never actually seen anything evolve, how is the theory of evolution anything other than faith? There's an awful lot of assumptions with this theory.

Do you really believe that a fish grew lungs and legs and lost its scales and eventually became you? I admit that the Bible has some pretty fantastic stories (Jonah and the whale), but that is up there with the best of them!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

But these assumptions are based on pretty solid fact.  Just think of Brownian motion in particle systems.  Things are always bouncing off each other.  If conditions are right, you can get a coalescence, and so on.  Then you only have to fall back on Mr. Murphy's principle "If anything can happen, it will".  In the broad sense, I think we can ignore the corollaries.

Creation as outlined in the various religious books are myths.  That doesn't mean they are mythtakes, just attempts at an explanation.  Man is the animal that explains, you know.

Christians are not the only people with creation myths.  Look around and you will find that any even slightly organized society will have a smash at it.

The main thing here is that the Creator is unknowable.  If there is a mind behind all this, we probably can never know that.

[ShortStraw 1]

Christians are not the only people with creation myths.  Look around and you will find that any even slightly organized society will have a smash at it.

The main thing here is that the Creator is unknowable.  If there is a mind behind all this, we probably can never know that.quote>

That pretty much sums it up for me.  Science and Scientific theories are able to cross cultural and ethnic boundaries and offer a collective pool of real data from which an opinion can be formed.  The personal spiritual faith of a typical evolutionist is irrelevant to his/her ability to study the origins of our species.

Creationist theories usually require faith in a specific religion that is generally exclusive to a particular nationality or cultural background. 

Still, as has been mentioned already, both creationism and evolution require "blind faith" in some particular "belief" at some point.  Neither creationism or evolution are irrefutably proven.  I tend to side with evolutionists just because they present evidence that I can get my mind around.  Personally, I don't have the capacity to allow simple faith to over rule physical evidence.  Because of this, I just can't take creationism as a serious explanation. 

I don't feel as strongly about this as I used to.  As long as our government keeps church and state separate and continues to teach evolution in public schools then I won't complain if a person chooses not to accept physical evidence and decides to go with some sort of "faith based" theory.  I try not to be too critical of religion and its foibles since it is often the only thing keeping some folks from going on spontaneous shooting sprees .

[Joesocwork 4]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body But these assumptions are based on pretty solid fact...  quote>

I wouldn't say that.   The current theories beyond simple adaptation w/in species require a belief in laws of nature that currently contradict what we know now about mutations and complex systems coming from simpler systems.

Again (and yes I agree this thread is a merry-go-around) I don't see science or religion as contradicting each other; they're both simply tools to answer different questions.  And I see view points on the origins of life as a matter of faith using the same evidence (i.e. the similarity between the species) wherever one is at on the spectrum, with one end believing that the evidence implies that groups come from other groups and the other side believing that the evidence implies sentient engineering.

[DragonStallion 0]

Hey Psycho_Teddy, here's a quote that would rock your world, "We don't know a millionth of one percent of anything." - Thomas Edison

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 7, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[outriderdriver 4]

I believe "things" exist. How they came about does not matter to me. We are here, "God" is not. Now lets all cry out with tears running down our faces that we cant put ourselves onto a pedestal because some god made us priority above all other forms of life in existence to be most important. Lets just kill eachother...I think that made sense and explains my idea.

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

100th Post! Yay!

I, at least, am not trying to paint the Christian religion as unintelligent, and completely unfounded religion.  The Christian religion does have  evidence that supports it.  However, I think  that Christians get so wrapped up in their own beliefs that they have a hard time analyzing the facts from an objective perspective.  I think back to my time studying Physics and Biology in the Christian school that I went to, and I remember how taboo it was to speak out and question the ideas behind the religion.  There is this undertone of rebellion and indignancy when someone does, and it, thus, keeps people form analyzing things from an objective perspective.  Then, they try to manipulate their data to fit that of their beliefs. They have no intention of misleading you, as they think that everything that they are telling you is true as well. But it is based on background assumptions that create an inherent desire to make the data conform to those background assumptions.

This was an actual classroom debate that I can remember from biology:

"But Dr. Scott, what about viruses that mutate in the presence of medicine?"  Dr. Scott: "Well, these are micro evolutions, not macro evolutions.  I think that God has given life the capacity to adapt to environmental change, but not on a large scale."

You see what just happened?  The teacher (who actually is a biology instructor at my school) stated his belief that micro evolution does exist.  However, this evidence suggests that evolution, whether large or small, is an active force today.  The teacher simply wrapped the data around his own beliefs, not to deceive his students, but because this evidence is fairly damning to anti-evolutionists, and there has to be some reasonable explanation for it, using Christianity as a background assumption.  The injection of Christian scientific theory here is quite invalid, as there is no way of proving that God did in fact give us the capacity to "micro-evolve".  This is a supposition, and not a fact, and therefore, not an objective analysis.  This data explicitly gives some hard proof that evolution has some credibility in the scientific realm, and completely counterpoints Christian scientific theories.  However, they allow their presuppositions to control their thinking on the topic (rather than accept the fact that they were wrong, as many other scientists have done in the past), and thus, manipulate the data into conforming to their beliefs, in an attempt to redeem their seemingly incorrect logic.

And then, of course, if all else fails, quote Deuteronomy 29:29, works like a charm.

[coolotter88 2]

not billions, nearing infinity number of random accidents. it's a mind bogglingly large number for most of our small minds, but think of it this way

since the universe is so big, the probability of ANYTHING happening is 1.

it's like the infinite improbability drive, as you approach infinite improbability, everything you can think of that could happen, will happen. there's no leap of faith required (unlike creationism) all you have to do is trust the numbers. numbers are constant, you can't change what they say.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Hehe, wait till you start discussing history curriculums in schools, and you'll see how willing we are to distort the issues to fit around our own belief system.

I went to a high school in Texas were the issues surrounding the U.S. Civil War could NOT be mentioned in terms of slavery. Failing grade if you anywhere used the politically incorrect S-word. Instead, you had to limit yourself to describing the issues of the "War of Northern Aggression" in terms of northern economic domination and the struggle for "States Rights" while carefully avoiding mentioning just exactly what right it was that the states wished to exercise (such as engaging in slavery *gasp*) or the most controversial pillar of the economy of the South (slavery, doh!). It was reduced to arguing Douglas's points in refutation of Lincoln while never analytically looking at the bigger historical picture...it was absurd!

Here we are teaching our children political self-censorship and doublethink, and science classes are the other battlefield. On the same grounds of protecting religious beliefs, maybe at the requisite equal airing mention of Christian Creationism before lauching into evolution, I should have also demanded an equal hearing of Hawaiian creation myths centering on the gods Kane and Pele. Of course, doing that would have gotten me get hauled off for disrupting a class by administrators blind to the hypocrisy of the situation. That is why school boards who devise overall curriculum guidelines are the other favorite political battleground, and why science, which by its nature undercuts even the most tightly held assumptions, remains a populist target.

[Joesocwork 4]

Originally posted by: Psycho_Teddy

I, at least, am not trying to paint the Christian religion as unintelligent, and completely unfounded religion.  The Christian religion does have  evidence that supports it.  However, I think  that Christians get so wrapped up in their own beliefs that they have a hard time analyzing the facts from an objective perspective.  I think back to my time studying Physics and Biology in the Christian school that I went to, and I remember how taboo it was to speak out and question the ideas behind the religion.  There is this undertone of rebellion and indignancy when someone does, and it, thus, keeps people form analyzing things from an objective perspective.  Then, they try to manipulate their data to fit that of their beliefs. They have no intention of misleading you, as they think that everything that they are telling you is true as well. But it is based on background assumptions that create an inherent desire to make the data conform to those background assumptions.

This was an actual classroom debate that I can remember from biology:

"But Dr. Scott, what about viruses that mutate in the presence of medicine?"  Dr. Scott: "Well, these are micro evolutions, not macro evolutions.  I think that God has given life the capacity to adapt to environmental change, but not on a large scale."

You see what just happened?  The teacher (who actually is a biology instructor at my school) stated his belief that micro evolution does exist.  However, this evidence suggests that evolution, whether large or small, is an active force today.  The teacher simply wrapped the data around his own beliefs, not to deceive his students, but because this evidence is fairly damning to anti-evolutionists, and there has to be some reasonable explanation for it, using Christianity as a background assumption.  The injection of Christian scientific theory here is quite invalid, as there is no way of proving that God did in fact give us the capacity to "micro-evolve".  This is a supposition, and not a fact, and therefore, not an objective analysis.  This data explicitly gives some hard proof that evolution has some credibility in the scientific realm, and completely counterpoints Christian scientific theories.  However, they allow their presuppositions to control their thinking on the topic (rather than accept the fact that they were wrong, as many other scientists have done in the past), and thus, manipulate the data into conforming to their beliefs, in an attempt to redeem their seemingly incorrect logic.

quote>

 

Sounds like you had a pretty bad experience.  I wish more adults would better appreciate how their communication impacts youth they interact with.   Unfortunately there are many other students who have also had nearly similar experiences only to have their teachers or professors dogmatically link the myriad concepts of evolution as 100% congruent.   If one those students dare question the limits of an aspect of a supposition or observation then it means that the student is throwing out science.   The key though, regardless of one's orientation, is to continue to ask objective questions and keep an open mind.

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

Originally posted by: coolotter88 not billions, nearing infinity number of random accidents. it's a mind bogglingly large number for most of our small minds, but think of it this way

since the universe is so big, the probability of ANYTHING happening is 1.

it's like the infinite improbability drive, as you approach infinite improbability, everything you can think of that could happen, will happen. there's no leap of faith required (unlike creationism) all you have to do is trust the numbers. numbers are constant, you can't change what they say.quote>

That one took me a while, but I get it now.   Good point.