If You Don't Believe in Evolution, Why?

Dragon_of_red

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sheic99 said:
I assume you mean this post.

Or Genesis is the most that man could understand at the time when said deity revealed the story of life unto them. If God is as powerful as the bible states, then there is an innate possibility that the human consciousness cannot fully grasp the entirety of his powers. Continuing along this line of thinking, the six days of creation that is described in the bible, may have been six days for the supreme being, but for mortal like it could have been 6 million years. As such, evolution can be seen as an attempt to view the process of creation of life on Earth.
... touche

That was very well done.

Could be true, but i doubt that the first HomoSapiens to walk the earth thought about this enough to make that an actual possibility. Because we the nmust have in some time gone down a couple of notches.
 

A Weary Exile

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Bob the Average said:
you know i thought about being an atheist once but i just couldn't manage to be enough of a smug prick.
Really? I manage just fine.
Kalezian said:
I don't think that we've stopped evolving, we just don't live long enough to notice the effects.
 

Snack Cake

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PhiMed said:
Third, and this is the least-reasonable reason, but probably the most important one in terms of creating evolution deniers. The most publicly prominent evolutionary biologists in the world are militant atheist dickholes. I don't know of a single scientific discovery Richard Dawkins has made, but I know of a ton of books he's written about what a bunch of silly bitches the faithful are. If he's a dedicated scientist, why does he expend so much energy on philosophy?
A quick perusal of Dawkins Wikipedia entry shows me this list of Dawkins books:

# The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1976. ISBN 0-19-286092-5.
# The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1982. ISBN 0-19-288051-9.
# The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1986. ISBN 0-393-31570-3.
# River Out of Eden. New York: Basic Books. 1995. ISBN 0-465-06990-8.
# Climbing Mount Improbable. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1996. ISBN 0-393-31682-3.
# Unweaving the Rainbow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1998. ISBN 0-618-05673-4.
# A Devil's Chaplain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2003. ISBN 0-618-33540-4.
# The Ancestor's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2004. ISBN 0-618-00583-8.
# The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2006. ISBN 0-618-68000-4.
# The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press (United States), Transworld (United Kingdom and Commonwealth). 2009. ISBN 0-593-06173-X.

Of that list, only "The God Delusion" is primarily anti-religious. I haven't read "A Devil's Chaplain", but I assume it is at least partially anti-religious. However, the remainder of those books are primarily pro-biology. So, it would seem to me that the idea that Dawkins has spent his career attacking religion, not supporting biology, is primarily born out of the media (and the public) focusing on that aspect of his work. Also from the Wikipedia entry:

n 1995, Dawkins was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field".
So, it makes sense that he has done more in the way of attempting to popularize biology than he has to actually advance the field. Carl Sagan may not have been the greatest astronomer of our age, but he was the most publicly visible.
 

PhiMed

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Cakes said:
sheic99 said:
Cakes said:
sheic99 said:
Why does an atheist have less faith than a creationist? The truth is, they don't.
I'm sorry, what?
It takes the same amount of faith to believe there is or isn't a god.
For some bizarre reason, you used "Atheist" and "Creationist" as your two examples. A more appropriate one would have been atheist and theist, since that seems to be the comparison you're trying to make. It still makes no sense though. Only a strong atheists would say "I believe there is no God".
Actually, that's the definition of an atheist. If you believe that there is a possibility that there may be a God, then you are an agnostic.
 

Snack Cake

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Zallest said:
Snack Cake said:
You Don't Believe in Evolution, Why?
You
Oh, snap! Did Cakes bribe you so that the thread would burn out and he wouldn't have to make good on that bottle of Coke?

Anyway, in response: You are a very nice person. I like you and hope for your unending happiness.
 

sheic99

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Cakes said:
sheic99 said:
Cakes said:
sheic99 said:
Why does an atheist have less faith than a creationist? The truth is, they don't.
I'm sorry, what?
It takes the same amount of faith to believe there is or isn't a god.
For some bizarre reason, you used "Atheist" and "Creationist" as your two examples. A more appropriate one would have been atheist and theist, since that seems to be the comparison you're trying to make. It still makes no sense though. Only a strong atheists would say "I believe there is no God".
Probably, not the best choice of words there, but everything is still a belief, as one can never now for certain.

dragon_of_red said:
sheic99 said:
I assume you mean this post.

Or Genesis is the most that man could understand at the time when said deity revealed the story of life unto them. If God is as powerful as the bible states, then there is an innate possibility that the human consciousness cannot fully grasp the entirety of his powers. Continuing along this line of thinking, the six days of creation that is described in the bible, may have been six days for the supreme being, but for mortal like it could have been 6 million years. As such, evolution can be seen as an attempt to view the process of creation of life on Earth.
... touche

That was very well done.

Could be true, but i doubt that the first HomoSapiens to walk the earth thought about this enough to make that an actual possibility. Because we the nmust have in some time gone down a couple of notches.
I have been known to have the occasional spout of logic coming out of me from time to time.
 

Jack3C

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To OP: I believe the reason Evolution is 'attacked' much more then Germ theory, astrophysics, and geology is because most Atheist I know, use evolution as the stand point of their reasoning.
Most of us in high school are taught about Darwanism and Evolution, while very few are taught about Germ theory, astrophysics, or geology to such a direct extent (or using their evidence to point to how the universe was created), thus we view evolution as the solution to how the world was created without a god.

Now to try and put forward my point (hopefully without starting a flamewar), evolution isn't a 100% garantee yet, there are still a few problems with it, such as the Cambrian Explosion ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion for those who like Wikipedia )
Even Darwin himself stated that it was a huge barrier for his theory (but thought that future fossil records would disprove this)

As for the last point, is Science and God designed to fight each other? I would say no. Thinking logically, if there was a 'God', and he was a logical 'God' (which he would have to be), then shouldn't his creation also be logical, shouldn't it also have laws that it would follow? Could one not view science as a human attempt to find the laws 'God' put in place for the universe to abide by?
 

Credge

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PhiMed said:
Actually, that's the definition of an atheist. If you believe that there is a possibility that there may be a God, then you are an agnostic.
That's just not the case.

An agnostic holds no sway in the belief or disbelief of a god. They are indifferent.

There are two types of atheists - strong and weak. A strong atheist asserts that there is no such thing as a god. A weak atheist does not believe in god because there lacks evidence, however, will believe in a god once evidence is presented.

This is the same as strong and weak theists as well. Strong theists and atheists are similar as they assert with certainty the unknown. Weak theists and atheists believe or disbelieve for various reasons (some find evidence or a lack thereof, some believe because of faith, etc.) but are willing to change their views if evidence is supported to prove them wrong.

It's a distinct difference that is very important when discussing things like this.
 

Eicha

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Well, the main reason religious groups that believe in Creationism try to dismissevolution theory as bullshit is because if you can prove that god never created us as it was told by the accounts we know, then god must not exist. And if god doesn't exist, then there's no reason for our moral structure to continue. Prohibition of murder is a religious concept.

I'm one of those people that belive both, that god created stuff and set evolution into motion. I'm an orthodox jew and have had discussions and read material written by quite intelligent rabbis that believe that evolution doesn't contradict creationism at all, that evolution and the processes of the natural world prove that it had to all have been made by something of a higher existence, cause a biosphere can't come into being of its own accord.

And that's my two cents. ^.^
 

PhiMed

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Snack Cake said:
PhiMed said:
Third, and this is the least-reasonable reason, but probably the most important one in terms of creating evolution deniers. The most publicly prominent evolutionary biologists in the world are militant atheist dickholes. I don't know of a single scientific discovery Richard Dawkins has made, but I know of a ton of books he's written about what a bunch of silly bitches the faithful are. If he's a dedicated scientist, why does he expend so much energy on philosophy?
A quick perusal of Dawkins Wikipedia entry shows me this list of Dawkins books:

# The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1976. ISBN 0-19-286092-5.
# The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1982. ISBN 0-19-288051-9.
# The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1986. ISBN 0-393-31570-3.
# River Out of Eden. New York: Basic Books. 1995. ISBN 0-465-06990-8.
# Climbing Mount Improbable. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1996. ISBN 0-393-31682-3.
# Unweaving the Rainbow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1998. ISBN 0-618-05673-4.
# A Devil's Chaplain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2003. ISBN 0-618-33540-4.
# The Ancestor's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2004. ISBN 0-618-00583-8.
# The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2006. ISBN 0-618-68000-4.
# The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press (United States), Transworld (United Kingdom and Commonwealth). 2009. ISBN 0-593-06173-X.

Of that list, only "The God Delusion" is primarily anti-religious. I haven't read "A Devil's Chaplain", but I assume it is at least partially anti-religious. However, the remainder of those books are primarily pro-biology. So, it would seem to me that the idea that Dawkins has spent his career attacking religion, not supporting biology, is primarily born out of the media (and the public) focusing on that aspect of his work. Also from the Wikipedia entry:

n 1995, Dawkins was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field".
So, it makes sense that he has done more in the way of attempting to popularize biology than he has to actually advance the field. Carl Sagan may not have been the greatest astronomer of our age, but he was the most publicly visible.
I didn't say he'd never advocated biology, and I didn't say he'd spent his entire life espousing atheism. I said he'd expended a lot of energy advocating atheism. I stand by that statement.
I think you unintentionally made my point, though. The most popular evolutionary biologist of our age is also one of the most vocal anti-theists (as in, not only does he not believe, but he thinks belief is destructive, and so he anti-evangelizes). Don't you think that can cause people of faith to view this scientific discipline with caution?
 

A Weary Exile

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Kalezian said:
wouldyoukindly99 said:
Kalezian said:
I don't think that we've stopped evolving, we just don't live long enough to notice the effects.
its possible, after all we were not built in a day [har har.]

but if you look at it in the long run, we might be in a rut. and its still a good possibility that the next evolutional step will be, yet like most everything, man made.

I for one cant wait for neural interfaces.


and IM NOT A LINUX USER! >:|
Keeping my fingers crossed for laser-beam eyes!
 

PhiMed

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Eicha said:
Prohibition of murder is a religious concept.
I don't think that's really true.

Non-human primates typically don't kill members of their own species. They don't have religion.

We have religion, but we kill each other by the hundreds.
 

SonicKoala

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Sep 8, 2009
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Religion and science can co-exist (at least I think they can), and I don't understand why religious groups feel so threatened by things like evolution. The whole "God created the Earth in 7 days thing" was written thousands of years ago by PEOPLE who had absoloutely no concept of science as we know it today. Seriously, you gotta take that bible with a grain of salt now and then.
 

Alexnader

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May 18, 2009
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Reading through the warnings of flame-wars and actual good discussion it's come to my attention no one has mentioned this.

Someone said that evolution could liberally be interpreted as the tool of gods will in "creating" us. Extrapolating I think it was meant that evolution is simply the means to the end and that it doesn't change anything.

However many mainstream religions make a point of viewing man as separate from animal. That god created this world for us to live in, paradise for us to go to later if we're nice and hell if we're not. The texts infer that everything in the earth was made for our use.
I'm not saying that all Christians think we should burn the oil and take the earth down with us, this does seem to be one plausible origin of Western cultures disregard for expansion at a large cost to nature.
Anyway evolution implies that we are no different from animals, if we were not created separate then who can say we're separate now?

Sonic Koala
Religion and science can co-exist (at least I think they can), and I don't understand why religious groups feel so threatened by things like evolution. The whole "God created the Earth in 7 days thing" was written thousands of years ago by PEOPLE who had absoloutely no concept of science as we know it today. Seriously, you gotta take that bible with a grain of salt now and then.
That's rather the point I guess, if you take it with a grain of salt who's to say you can't ignore any of the other stuff in the texts that may still be relevant? It's no good saying "this is the word of god... except for here, here and here. That was just made up." It makes a farce out of organised religion.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Jun 17, 2009
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Well I'm an atheist, but what gets me is why religion and evolution have to be mutual exclusive.
Anyone with any sense would realize that your scriptures are about 2000 years out of date (bear with me on this before you flame me), however that fact doesn't negate your faith. (see I told you to bear with me here) Maybe this "God" or whatever is responsible for evolution? Did anyone ever think of that?