I say god. God may not have performed your miracle yet. For a while I may have doubted him, nut then a strange thing began to happen. Whenever I thought of something, it would either come true or happen. Then this thing happened when I was 9 years old (i'm 11) that made me actually believe. One night I had a dream about a car crash. I thought it was unusual. 3 days later, me and my mom got into a car crash which was saddening 'cause we were on our way to Hardys to meet my mom's friend. A few seconds after the after the crash, the doors were supposed to be auto locked- I somehow managed to open them. My mom still thinks it was an angel that unlocked the doors, but I'm her angel-I haven't told her yet, and I probably never will. This is why I go with god.

This post has been edited by NiteFrites: Apr 11 2012, 12:21 PM

Evolution is proven to occur. It's not really a matter of whether I "believe" in it, I just accept the proof that it's true, that 99% of scientists in the relevant fields accept it as true, and that it's the very basis of medical science and biology itself and without it these things would hardly even exist.

And before you say "it's just a theory!!!!!1" I suggest looking up what the scientific definition (not the casual, common use definition) of the word "theory" actually is before spouting that nonsense. Here's a hint: What you think a "theory" is, in science, that actually describes a hypothesis, not an actual scientific theory.

If you don't accept evolution then may I suggest the next time you get any sort of infection, you ask the doctor if you can take an antibiotic from 20 years ago. See how well that works out for you.

Whether or not one believes in God is up to personal faith since it's something that can't be proven or tested. Someone can believe in god while still accepting evolution. I personally don't believe in god, though. I think God is just the product of human imagination, much like other fictional characters are.

Gravity's also a theory, btw.

But I like how Dubbleyew put it and I agree whole-heartedly.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy
2. Car crashes happen to people all the time, just as you have dreams about a variety of things that may or may not happen to you. Just by the law of averages, there's going to be at least one instance where a dream matches up with an actual event as long as you keep dreaming, and events keep happening to you. For example, when was the last time you dreamt about something that didn't happen to you? What about the last time something happened to you that you didn't dream about? Stuff like that happens all the time, the only difference being that we tend to pay more attention to the situations that seem strange, and out of place, especially when it validates a preexisting notion.
3. It would be pretty irresponsible for a car manufacturer to program a car with an auto-lock function that doesn't stop working in the event of an automobile accident...

This post has been edited by Reyo: Apr 12 2012, 04:02 PM

Ignore.

This post has been edited by rubysongtrainer: Oct 10 2013, 07:38 AM

"There is a lot of evidence in favor of the Bible."
Ahahaha, no. Besides the Bible itself(which is poppycock to me imo), there is almost nothing in favor of your Bible.

How about you show me your evidence? Please, name one piece of undisputed true evidence that proves there is a man in the sky that created people from dirt.

While you're at it, I advise you to please go research the evolution theory. Tbh it is a much more likely explanation than anything spewed from a book written about a man who was ~magikal~ and died 3000 years ago.

Plus, science is based on facts. Religion is based on faith and mythical occurrences.

Well I can not say I am religious. I believe in a God, but I do not attend church(my mom and I once did when I was little and she even made me read a kid's bible, but she's not so into it now) and I do not agree with some of the bible's values.
I value both the evidence of science and in the faith in things out there that can't be seen.

I say why not both? Evolution has to start somewhere, so why can't a God have created that starting creature? And if a God created all creatures than that includes each stage of a species' evolution doesn't it?
So I think it makes sense that evolution begun with God or God IS evolution.
Why does fact have to be all that is true? Why must we be able to explain everything we see?

This post has been edited by Solar Eclipse: Apr 12 2012, 06:20 PM

I find it a bit hard to treat you seriously when you say things like this that are completely biased and don't seem to pay heed to any sort of PROVEN FACT.
For example, the finches discovered by Charles Darwin on the Galapagos islands. If not for evolution, how can you explain how they have different characteristics that help them survive on a certain island? Do you suppose that god took pity on them and gave them adaptations?
Or even now, in a more common example, how insects constantly evolve to resist insecticides. For instance, if you spray an insecticide that ends up killing the majority of insects, that small amount of insects that survive will live to reproduce and pass on whatever gene they have that let them resist the insecticide. So that way, the next generation of insects will resist the same type of insecticide. That there is evolution, change in a species that helps them adapt to their environment. And you know what, it's all pure fact, there is nothing you can say that can disprove what scientists have proven to be true with evidence and tangible results.

And concerning evolution of man, I do regard it as fact. Notice how I don't say believe as that would imply that evolution is something like a myth and that you would have to have a scrap of faith to think it is true. Unless there is actual proof that God created everything in the span of a week when we also know that it takes thousands of years for something to fully evolve, I whole heartedly "believe" in evolution.
Also, I've always wondered this, but if the Bible is to be regarded as a source of great fact and knowledge, then how come if doesn't even include mention of dinosaurs? I mean, if God really did tell man what to write, then surely God wouldn't have left out such an important part of the history of the earth.

1. Welcome to the forum, but please post this on the introductions section.
2. Evolutionism? I never thought that word existed. XD
3. Evolution IS scientific. And it was accepted as a theory, and was not disregarded as a hypothesis. If evolution really was ridiculous, then it would remain a hypothesis, not a theory. Hey, gravity's still a theory too! In case you don't know, a theory is sort of an accepted form of a hypothesis. Evolution makes sense if you actually do some research.
You know, I used to be a devout Christian like you, but then I took some science in the brain.

Well, they found "Noah's Ark" on Mt. Ararat. Which I believe is a hoax.

This post has been edited by Wings of Sorrow: Apr 12 2012, 10:24 PM

If you would please tell me the primary difference between parapatric speciation, and sympatric speciation, and then what example of speciation the North Eastern Coywolf is an example of, I would gladly have a discussion with you on the specifics on Evolutionary Theory.

Would you kindly explain to me what the hell the ones in bold mean?

This post has been edited by Wings of Sorrow: Apr 13 2012, 09:19 AM

Fact and belief, iirc
Also google is nice.

Fair enough. If you believe that, then believe it. However, how do you explain mutations in things, hm? Surely that's evolution. Different strains of flu and other things...

That or am I getting the wrong end of the stick..?

If evolution didn't happen, then we wouldn't have to worry about bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, because evolution is how that happens.

Say you have a bunch of bacteria, most of it dies from antibiotic treatment, but a few of them have a mutation that makes them resistant to it.

Because they're resistant, they're able to reproduce and multiply, then you have a new strain of bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics, and then medical scientists need to come up with new antibiotics to kill them.

That's the basics of natural selection and how a species evolves.

If evolution didn't occur then we would never need new medications for bacteria we already had medications for.

They're both trends in speciation. Allopatric speciation is the easiest since it involved differentiation of a species by way of geographic isolation, like through a mountain range or river. Parapatric, and sympatric speciation are a bit more complicated. Parapatric speciation has to do with differentiation in a species where a species develops a niche, and becomes a new species by way of becoming unable to breed with the "other" species usually by some passive geographic factor. For example, if a species lives on a niche of land bordering some extreme difference in landscape, differenciation in that species is going to arise as the organisms on one end of the border has to adapt differently compared to the organisms on the other end. It's usually rare, though it happens. An example is a type of grass that can grow on soil contaminated by runoff from a mine shaft. The grass has always held that special ability to withstand the toxins in the soil, but without the presence of the toxins, there's no need for that adaptation, so it's suppressed. So what you have is an area around a river of mine shaft run off that contains populations of this grass with the adaptation to live in that area while the area immediately outside of that range, a little farther from the river, contains populations of the same species of grass, only without that ability to live in the toxin contaminated soil. The two different populations will live RIGHT next to each other.

Sympatric speciation is harder to conceptualize...just a bit, but easier to explain. Sympatric speciation is purely genetic. It usually happens in plants that are able to undergo haploid/diploid reproduction. When a plant reproduces to form offspring with double the amount of genetic information as the parent plant, they're a completely different species of plant, and can even have completely different phenotypes. These offspring can be so genetically different that they can't reproduce with the parent plant (incest doesn't exist in the plant world), so by definition they are a completely different species. That's fine because the new plant can just breed with itself (neither does masturbation). What we'd have there is a large population of plants with a small niche of a completely different species of plant spawned from the individuals int he larger population. Animals can do that, but hybridization needs to occur.

Allopatric: Complete geographic isolation
Parapatric: No isolation, differentiation comes from passive geogaphic factors, or life cycle differences
Sympatric: No isolation, purely genetic shenanigans giving rise to a new species within a population of an "original species"

This post has been edited by Reyo: Apr 16 2012, 07:16 PM

*** MRSA.
*** Dog breeding through artificial selection (granted, it's artificial instead of natural, but the genetics process still works on the same grounds).
*** New species starting to biologically emerge (why weren't they 'created' back at the Creation?).
*** The appendix (an essentially useless organ, but it can still kill a person if it becomes infected and ruptures), wisdom teeth, and the coccyx aka "tail bone" all bring up questions of why an "Intelligent" Designer would include these features in a human.

Here's four. Is that a good start?

Today during my regular Friday lunch with my friends, my best friend made an interesting point was made which totally backs up my views and I am surprised I did not think of this when I was making my last post in this thread. So I want to amend that.
I still stand by this. I don't believe proven fact is everything, but I do not believe in the bible although I kind of believe in a God. So I am open to the combined possibility that a God could have created evolution while I also appreciate the proven facts of evolution.
The bible though, it's only a book, written words no different than a novel. The point that was made at my lunch is that it may tell of God's word but it was written, re-written, dissected and put back together throughout time BY MAN! So what is the bible's authority? That is my question to the closed minded people who take the bible way to seriously and use 'the bible says so' as their excuse for their opinion. Which says to me that they don't really think for themselves.

Close mindedness annoys me and religion is like the most closed minded thing in the world I think.

well i just cant understand why it has to be either evolution or god?????

why cant it be both??????

i mean why cant we imagine evolution(if generalized then science) as a proof of the existence of god?????

I'm currently in uni studying to be a geneticist so the idea of creationism is side splittingly laughable. I'll probably end up doing evolutionary genetics because that stuff makes sense and is so interesting. I do believe there is a higher being or beings but I do not think they created the universe nor care about the goings on in our insignificant planet. They're just all knowing and all seeing.

Wow, I sound more like a crackpot than those who believe in the Ark. xD

God created us, true. But he didn't continue creating us. So, he made evolution. Because, it says that God stopped on the 7th day, and watced over us, miracley even communicating personally to us.
So, I believe in both.