Evolution vs Creationism---Is there a God? Or is it all just random chance?

Iron-Merc said:
I'm definitely a creationist at heart. I believe that God is real, Jesus is the son of God. Humans are chained to a lie because that is the desire of our enemy. Satan has made his kingdom here on earth and has great influence over the human race. As evidenced in the garden of Eden, he caused the fall of humanity, the turn away from God and this is how "death" entered into our vocabulary.​



In reference to evolution, its still just a theory. For one there are no transition forms in the fossil record. For another 99% of all mutations are bad. Evolution is a mathematical impossibility when you sit down and look at the odds.​


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For example, if evolution were true, what is the deal with all the fraudulent fossils? Surely there would be no need to "fake" the missing links between species, yet this seems to be a re-occurring theme that evolutionists cannot escape from.​
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Please share you views on this, I am eager to gain in insight and knowledge and that is exactly what this thread is about. I don't want this to turn into a political pissing match. Let's not mock or demean, simply list your argument and your evidence and debate your points as you see fit.

Good luck and God speed!​
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Most societies developed 'gods' out of magic hunting-dances when they were forced to take up farming and desperately needed to believe in something better than this ghastly world run by armed thieves, - it made some sort of sense, first to believe in lots of gods, one for each particular 'force' or activity, then slowly to shrink these down to one good God who was all-powerful and would put things right. In other words, the growing knowledge and hope of the human race slowly concentrated on the power to change the world. With Paul's view of Jesus the Roman idea that powerful humans became divine attached itself to the Good God, who had taken human form ready for the total revolution that should change everything - and Jesus' ideas suited such a God. Unfortunately, it is we who will have to move: supernatural intervention seems less and less likely, and as we know more about the vastness of the Universe(s), the existence of a God figure grows less and less likely. Nothing has as yet contradicted the hypothesis of evolution, whereas the god-hypotheses put forward by early societies are extremely difficult to defend - a full-time job, I'd say. 'Faith' and scientific enquiry belong to different thought-worlds, and it seems entirely pointless to pretend otherwise.
 
Cypress said:
I chalk it up to a combination of factors - the way people were raised, poor levels of education, and inability to reason critically. No one should ever consider the Bible an accurate representation of historical events.

On the flip side, there is some valuable historical context in the NT. A Jewish philosopher named Jesus undoubtedly really did exist, and was crucified by the Roman governor as a threat to the State.
And I believe there are valuable ethical lessons and metaphors within the OT and the NT.

In particular, I will always cite the NT as one of the most important pieces of world literature ever created. It is arguably the first literature ever written down that treated the dispossessed, the downtrodden, prostitutes, beggars, peasants, fisherman, etc. not as objects of caricature, ridicule, or derision - but as people with souls every bit as equal, and on a par, with emperors, priests, and kings. That kind of literature, that kind of equality, was virtually unheard of in antiquity. And one can see how Christianity was so attractive to people, because it offered (in theory, if not practice) a sense of equality not found in the pagan religions and political practices of the empires of antiquity.

I mean, one can really see why Jesus is frequently portrayed as a proto-Socialist. The world's first Kenyan-Marxist, actually!
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Meh...you had me till the last sentence. That’s an anachronism. Things such as political parties and economic systems didn’t exist in antiquity.
 
Penderyn said:
Most societies developed 'gods' out of magic hunting-dances when they were forced to take up farming and desperately needed to believe in something better than this ghastly world run by armed thieves, - it made some sort of sense, first to believe in lots of gods, one for each particular 'force' or activity, then slowly to shrink these down to one good God who was all-powerful and would put things right. In other words, the growing knowledge and hope of the human race slowly concentrated on the power to change the world. With Paul's view of Jesus the Roman idea that powerful humans became divine attached itself to the Good God, who had taken human form ready for the total revolution that should change everything - and Jesus' ideas suited such a God. Unfortunately, it is we who will have to move: supernatural intervention seems less and less likely, and as we know more about the vastness of the Universe(s), the existence of a God figure grows less and less likely. Nothing has as yet contradicted the hypothesis of evolution, whereas the god-hypotheses put forward by early societies are extremely difficult to defend - a full-time job, I'd say. 'Faith' and scientific enquiry belong to different thought-worlds, and it seems entirely pointless to pretend otherwise.
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Exactly. The famous evolutionary biologist Steven Jay Gould called that “Non Overlapping Magesteria”.

Just one correction. Biological Evolution by natural selection is a scientific theory and not a scientific hypothesis.
 
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Truth Detector said:
I think it is dumb to believe that man evolved from apes yet there are thousands of species of apes who.....wait for it.....never evolved? WOW!
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Which shows your ignorance of evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory doesn’t predict that man descended from Apes. It predicts that man and apes had common ancestors.
 
Into the Night said:
According to the Theory of Evolution, everything evolved from single celled life. Forget the apes.
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Well yea if you go back in time far enough but your missing the important point of common descent. Evolutionary theory predicts that all life as we know it now has evolved from common ancestors.
 
Cypress said:
The gospel of Luke and Acts is practically the world's first Communist manifesto. The Jesus of Luke counsels rich people to share everything they have with the poor, and the first Christians in Judea lived in communes where all property and wealth was shared.
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And I would still argue that’s an anachronism as those concepts did not formally exist in antiquity and therefore it would not be reasonable to apply those modern concepts historically to antiquity.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
And I would still argue that’s an anachronism as those concepts did not formally exist in antiquity and therefore it would not be reasonable to apply those modern concepts historically to antiquity.
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You are right, and that is why I said Luke/Acts was practically a communist manifesto, not literally one.

Communist political theory did not exist in the first century CE. But the concept that rich people need to share their property and wealth with the poor, and that property and wealth should be shared collectively by communities of people have been with us for 2000 years. And in my opinion, that concept of inclusion of the poor and oppressed is Christianity's greatest contribution to the Western philosophical tradition
 
Cypress said:
You are right, and that is why I said Luke/Acts was practically a communist manifesto, not literally one.

Communist political theory did not exist in the first century CE. But the concept that rich people need to share their property and wealth with the poor, and that property and wealth should be shared collectively by communities of people have been with us for 2000 years. And in my opinion, that concept of inclusion of the poor and oppressed is Christianity's greatest contribution to the Western philosophical tradition
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Yup - everything depends on the state of human development. American Republicans, for instance, have not developed to the point when they can even conceive of socialism. On the other hand, from very early on, many, many people knew that the codswallop the bosses had made of Christianity was exactly that. Way back in the Fourteenth Century they were saying,

'When Adam delvEd and Eve span
Who was the gentleman',

and they were far from the first. Knowing what's wrong inevitably precedes knowing how to put it right, and people knew something was wrong from the moment they were first made to pay 'rent' for the land they thought God made.
 
Penderyn said:
Yup - everything depends on the state of human development. American Republicans, for instance, have not developed to the point when they can even conceive of socialism. On the other hand, from very early on, many, many people knew that the codswallop the bosses had made of Christianity was exactly that. Way back in the Fourteenth Century they were saying,

'When Adam delvEd and Eve span
Who was the gentleman',

and they were far from the first. Knowing what's wrong inevitably precedes knowing how to put it right, and people knew something was wrong from the moment they were first made to pay 'rent' for the land they thought God made.
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"The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: "Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!"

- Jean Jacques Rousseau
 
Cypress said:
The gospel of Luke and Acts is practically the world's first Communist manifesto.
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No it's not.

Cypress said:
The Jesus of Luke counsels rich people to share everything they have with the poor,
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No he didn't. Nowhere in the book of Luke did Jesus teach such a thing.

Cypress said:
and the first Christians in Judea lived in communes where all property and wealth was shared.
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I don't know how the first Christians in Judea lived.
 
Cypress said:
You are right, and that is why I said Luke/Acts was practically a communist manifesto, not literally one.

Communist political theory did not exist in the first century CE. But the concept that rich people need to share their property and wealth with the poor, and that property and wealth should be shared collectively by communities of people have been with us for 2000 years. And in my opinion, that concept of inclusion of the poor and oppressed is Christianity's greatest contribution to the Western philosophical tradition
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Well yes...the golden rule. Though I'm not sure that this is comparable to governments controlling the means to production as a form of wealth redistribution as a biblical analogy.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
he also didn't propose that government heal everyone in the country or feed them for free....
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Jesus never ran for Office, but he did tell the rich people in Matthew that they should give away their possessions, and that it's easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than get into heaven. And he did tell the Jews to pay their taxes to an occupying army that literally crucified their people. So I think it's pretty obvious that if you wanted a people and their government to reflect Christian values they should help the poor. Are you a Christian?
 
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gfm7175 said:
No he didn't. Nowhere in the book of Luke did Jesus teach such a thing.
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Quote: When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” - Luke 18:22
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Well yes...the golden rule. Though I'm not sure that this is comparable to governments controlling the means to production as a form of wealth redistribution as a biblical analogy.
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Then there is the anachronism that there is a clear distinction, a bright dividing line, between government and religion. That is also a modern age conceit. Ancient Judea and Israel were theocracies as were many ancient civilizations.

I agree that any literal analogy between Marxist theory and the Gospel of Luke/Acts is fraught with peril, which is why I tried to qualify my analogy as imperfect, but perhaps should have done a5 better job doing so.
 
Casual Leftist said:
Quote: When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” - Luke 18:22
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He was saying that to his disciples and not to the rich.

Why do you find it necessary to lie and misrepresent, just to try and make a point??
 
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