For those who don't believe in God or believe in a "supreme being". I am still searching, and yes, I think God may have created the world with the Grand Canyon already there. Perhaps the response is due to the rest of the post that wasn't refuted, to find a hole. Perhaps it is because you haven't heard that theory before. I am open, propose other theories, you CAN change my mind if you offer some insight to me. Simple question about the idea that God creating the world with natural processes already having taken place is stupid or silly: Why?
If you believe evolution your idea is mathmetically and scientifically extremely far-fetched as it is, so don't come down on me for purposing a concept that is not commonly heard of, alot of the current concepts are faulty, henceforth many lead to no conclusion at all, just ignorance of truth for the sake of peace with one's self, and endless debate. Perhaps my idea sounds crazy because of traditional belief and assumption, not concrete fact.

 

Often the most obvious answer is the correct one like the Colorado River formed the Grand Canyon over time. Isn't that fantastic enough? Why search for a more far-fetched explanation unless you have a preconceived notion that all "facts" must conform to?

 

Bronco MTR, Let me get this straight. You think god waved his finger or magic wand or whatever and in a puff of smoke the world as we know it existed. You think the Grand Canyon was already there and a river just happen to find its way into it. You believe that plate techtonics is all a bunch of fooy and that mountains were placed there by god. You think that the beach was put there by god also and you give no credibility to the proccess where plates squish together creating mountains, rain falls on a mountain, runs off in the form of a river all the while eroding little bits at a time that eventually wash all the way down the river to the mouth of an ocean and form a big pile of sand that we call a beach. Even though we can go watch these things happen and see the evidence of the process in motion you believe that it was all done by the snap of God's finger.

 

Creation presupposes the existence of a god(s), for which there is very little solid evidence, save a few books that are of highly suspect origins. Many of which say their god is the one true god, and all others are fakes. If we believe these books it seems there is a heck of a lot of fake gods running around.

Evolution on the other hand, all though in some eyes questionable in the details, has untold amounts of factual verifiable data to support it, and is not based on presuppositions, but first hand evidence.

Now if some god any god take your pick was to show up and start digging up well and truly dead bodies say 10 or 15 years dead and could make them walk and talk and be as normal as you or I, in front of my eyes snap of the fingers, no smoke and mirrors or three days in a hole in the ground. I might start believing this guy is pretty special.

But until this occures I'll take evolution very time.

Later Larry

 

Alright,, alright,,,

I think Bronco's main point may be being overshadowed. This is how I intrepreted what he wrote:

Did God create the Earth as we know it? - I don't know
Could he have done it? - Yes
Did Evolution happen? - I don't know
Could it have? - Yes
etc,,,etc,,,

It seems the evidence that he does hold as "truths" stems mainly from the religious explanation, but he isn't discounting the possiblity of the other answers. Remember,, it is solely Life Experiences that dictate what we perceive as "True" or not. Perception is indeed Reality. Individually and on a societal level.

But that's my Opinion

 

Just because there are two explanations neither of which can be absolutely proven doesn't give them each an even chance of being the truth.

There might be life on Mars and then again there might not be.
So the chance of life on Mars is 50/50?

Evolution wasn't dreamed up just to cause consternation among the faithful. Their is evidence aplenty.

Tough to look a evolution objectively when one is on a mission to disprove it from the beginning. I'll bet many of us who believe in evolution have a better grasp of the creation theory than the creationists have of evolution. Pretty easy to grasp "POOF".

 

Just look at how fast a Virus can mutate and make itself impervious to our Best anti virual Drugs. I don't know the length of the DNA chain for a virus Versus A human but if that isn't evolution at work then what IS..........s.kuteman...

 

Take a look at how complex the human eye and brain are. To think that they perfectly evolved by chance is crazy I think.

But what do I know? I'm just a Chrstian....

 

look how complex computers are, and we didn't just create them
early man saw lightning in the sky and wondered or was scared
over time some men said it was god's wrath and ran and hid, some sought to understand it. over time men came to study it, and define its properties. men learned how to build simple batteries, but they weren't very useful.eventually, men learned how to produce light, and sound, and motion. man has learned how to improve his life, using energy, that once was only visible to him as a frightening and destructive force of nature or god.now we are even using energy to remember and calculate things, with computers, that men could not on their own.

I guess I have gone off on a tangent, but the morals I see in the story are:
very complex things do evolve, just look at your own thought processes as another example.

what we do not understand now limits us, but one day man will understand these things, and the some beliefs we hold now will seem very primative.

there may still be a god, I just do not believe creation happened in 6 days

 

hey! well, i believe that God is the creater of all things... um... i believe it was .... monk or something who originally posted this. how can you compare us to trucks? you said something like trucks had to be created be humans, but that humans could have evolved? and that God learned over time about things? well, God is all knowing, he knew you were going to post that even. well, just wanted to post my opinion!

Nascar Junkie

 

Larry proves the point of taking evolution because their no other explanation other than creation, a theory that many don't agree with. Scutman, you bring up interesting evidence, however that is life changing itself, not beginning from nothing to carbon to life. Also if anyone knows if the genetic code of virus changes and anthing about the anatomy of viruses as they do this, fill me in, cause I don't know much about them.
Haulingboat uses a slippery slope argument. He claims be able to cite a bunch of things I don't believe in as a resuly of my theory. Of course plate techtonics are very real, just like beaches and mountains. To assume what he did about my beliefs is simply illogical and unrelated, the facts of scientific processes can be true in either instance. I am a creationist, but I am open, and that is one of the reasons I propose this theory, because there are time discrepancies in the account in Genesis that contradict modern dating. The heart of this debate will ultimately boil down to biblical inerrancy because that is where the account of creation is taken. I believe that the bible is true, and a debate over that would be intense and cool, as there are many who don't believe that. But, while that is important, i will skip to my theory because the title of this thread isn't biblical inerrancy. If there is a God, then why is my idea crazy? Nobody answered that, they just said it was silly again. I purpose that is possibe that these scientfic process where already in place. Plates were moving and all. Think, if the Genesis account is true, God created man at an adult age, skipped childhood, yet of course he still aged. similarly, earth may have followed that path. That is not insane, most creationists believe the garden of eden had trees already growing, seas and rivering flowing, and animals fully grown. I am purposing that just as man was created in his adulthood bypassing childhood, the world could have been too. And in both, the processes of time continue.
I don't claim that as fact, simply a theory I have.
NascarNut has a simple but good point.
Sinjin is my enemy and i will probably end up debating with him further. JK, no enemy, just makes us both wiser. In response, I don't have precocieved notion of what the facts conform to, I have the creation theory and try to find it's strengths\weaknesses. When I find a discrepency I try to search for an explanation. Sometimes the explanation is easy, sometimes it is a strong argument against creation. But on the same token, discrepancies like carbon forming life from nothing, lack of missing links, and the basic scientific laws of entropy being contradicted should be things you are trying to fix, because possibly you could be predisposed to think that evolution is fact. We are all biased, if we weren't, then nobody would ever make decisions. You may be on a mission to disprove creation, maybe so, maybe not, I don't care, it's still debate. You could be a creationist testing your debating skills for all I know. Also, I did not say it was 50\50. Show me the evidence aplenty. And the concept of "POOF" is actually extremely deep in philosophical nature. that is why we debate it, that is why people write books on it, that is why people try to prove it and disprove it. It is not easy to grasp. Nor is the genetic complexity or mathmatical probability of evoltion, a system of reaction never once simulated by any scientist ever in completeness. Not one cell, ever, in ideal scientific envirments and circumstance that increase probability exponentially, still not one.
In any case, I am a creationist, I believe in the God of the bible. But I am not a fool, show me evidence, change my mind, I am not stubborn. Tell me why my theory is insane, not just "because" or talk about "magic wands" and stuff. This will eventually boil down to a debte over the truth of the bible being that that is where the creation account is derived, inevitably.
Another interesting point: in national debate, guess what university is ranked highest in the country for I believe 11 years standing? Liberty, that's Jerry Falwell's school. They are highly conservative and argue alot of this stuff, and of course are on the Christian conservative side of everything. They beat Ivy League schools, schools twice their size, everyone. I'm simply saying this to point out that creation is not an easy topic, and it has been argued well enough to stump Harvard professors, let alone us truck people. Although we're pretty smart too, smarter at some things. Anyhow, sorry for the long post, and thanks for the replies.

 

Can evolution be the source of life in all its complexity?
The Mystery of Complexity

I'll throw in this link too, it might spark some interest.
Can Raw Energy Create Order?

BTW, nice name Junkie!

 

I see people on both sides of the fence declaring their stance as absolute. BroncoMTR made a very eloquent statement that I concure with. In simpler language I will reitterate my views in that although neither view can be substantiated entirely, they need not be exclusive or seperate. I believe in God as the creator but who am I to limit the means by which He did it. The Biblical evidence only points to Him as creator and really leaves way too much too speculation for us to put definate timelines or propertys to His work. Some good points have been made by both camps and there is actually room for most of them in the equation. While some controversy exists trying to draw the line between evolution and adaptation, I still see a combination of the two as some of the tools God has used to get us where we are today.
I see the Adam and Eve beginnings as the beginning of spiritual man. It is a story lacking in details so I must assume that there are many details of that account that God knew we just couldn't understand. I think He just simplified and capsulized it to make the point that it began at a point in time. After all their sons found wives that had to come from somewhere. Even at that I think these people were much different than us in some ways. Many early Biblical humans lived for hundreds of years, Methusela for example lived 969 years. We can't even comprehend that.
Once agian I will close on this note; While I believe in some limited form of evolution, there is absolutly no real evidence that modern man evolved from any other form. While anthropology has evidence of a series of early bipedal humanoids there is just no evidence that links us to them. By all evidence in our grasp we seem to have just popped up somewhere around 7000 years ago.

 

In Genesis 1:5 it says..."And the evening and the morning were the first day." In verse 9 it says "And the evening and the morning were the second day." And so on, but I take those verses as literal days. Why would God take millions of years?


Yep.

 

And Genesis also states that God created light days before he created the sun to rule over the day. Genesis is a good story about the begining of self-awareness and coming of age, but it is not a literal account of how the Earth was made.

"Why would God take millions of years?" Why not? When have you ever known God to do things according to man's time?

What I find interesting in creation in general is the smiliarities of different species -- 2 eyes, 2 ears, 4 limbs (5 if you count a tail), blood, heart, lungs (or gills), need to consume oxygen and food, etc. Part of a divine plan? I think so. Or you could say the similarities exist due to common ancestors way back when.

You know you could also argue that Jesus was a communist.