Calling all Creationists!

[Alyssa88]

That's interesting seeing that nobody can even begin to explain the big bang.
Where did the space dust come from that formed the big bang? What caused the dust to come together? Where did the energy come from that bound the dust together? Where did the heat come form that the dust ball generated? where did the energy come from that caused this dust ball to spin? Where did the energy come from that caused this dust ball to explode?

I would think that answering a few basic questions like this would be a priority of evolution, if not a requirement. So far the only answers I've heard are:
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened

Sounds like a great theory to me. Very scientific.

Of course all of these questions have not been answered, that is the point of science to investigate, instead of accepting what you are told. What you call faith is what I see as a lack of searching. I am way more inclined to believe the big bang theory (which has been explained in some detail and makes sense to me) than some book full of contradictions, written by men (you say inspired by god, I say delusional). I feel religion is just some way to fill in the blanks, but it somily isn't logical to me and I am not willing to blindly follow something when I have the ability to seek more.

I am not knowledgable enough in chemistry to recte what I have learned about the big bang theory but after I re-read a few things (and I realize now that it is something I should do anyway) I can come on and attempt to answer the questions I can. It wouldn't be until Monday though, as that is my next time at a computer.

 

[KeithfromCanada]

"But now let's look at Evolution. You say it's fact not faith.
OK, so how did everything begin?"

- Good question. A field of science known as "abiogenesis" is looking into it. Origins are NOT part of the theory of Evolution.

"Billions of years ago there was a lot of dust in space. Where did that dust come from? Nobody knows. So you have faith that dust suddenly appeared (you obviously can't "prove" where the dust came from, but you believe it happened). Eventually all this dust got drawn together. Why? Where did the energy come from for this to happen? Again, you believe that it happened (faith). This new ball of dust (which contained all the material in the universe but was smaller than a period on a piece of paper - which makes no sense, but again is "believed" to be true) started spinning faster and faster - again why did it spin? Where did the energy, or driving force come from? who knows but you believe it happened. After millions or billions of years this ball exploded (the big bang)."

- Actually, no-one knows anything about what happened prior to the Big Bang. Time and matter did not exist...at least not that we know of. All scientific evidence points towards a Big Bang. You won't find a reputable Cosmologist who will tell you any different.


"Why did it explode? What caused it to explode? answer - you don't know but you believe it happened."

- You're 100% correct...no-one knows why the Big Bang occurred. What is your answer...God did it? That may be true and it may not be...science doesn't care one way or the other.

"1) People who believe that God created all things in a perfect way, all laws, and energy in a perfect ordered fashion."

- and they have absolutely 0 evidence to back this claim

"2) People who believe in mysterious space dust being somehow drawn together to unexplainably start spinning, and for what ever reason exploding, and throwing out all matter that somehow decided to form itself into the incredible world that we now have."

- This is a stawman argument. What it should say is this - Scientists who believe, based on all available information that has been accumulated, that a "Big Bang" event took place and over time, the matter that was released from this event cooled, fused and formed new materials that we see throughout the universe today.

"If I were to say that I was walking along in the desert and came across a brand new computer with all the bells and whistles, and my theory for explaining how that computer got there was that after millions of years, that computer had evolved from a rock. People would call me an idiot."

- I certainly would! This is the standard Ray Comfort/Kent Hovind argument and it is seriously flawed. First, we know that a computer is designed...we designed it! Second, evolution requires reproduction and random mutation. A computer's genes are not altered through reproduction...living organisms can be and are altered through reproduction. Someone designing living organisms in their current form is not the only explanation...it isn't even the most logical.

"Yet if I look at a little baby, and say, wow, isn't that amazing. A creature a billion times more complex and intricate than any computer is here because over millions of years it evolved from mud, the same people would shake my hand and say "you got it"."

- It's a good thing no-one ever claims that we evolved from mud (except Creationists).

"I don't care if you want to believe in Evolution or Creation. But to try and say that one is based on faith (believing) in a creator, while the other is based on fact is just ridiculous. The fact is that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in a creator."

- Believing in the theory of Evolution requires no "faith". Science reviews all available evidence, assess it and draws a logical conclusion based on those "facts". That explanation is called the Theory of Evolution".

"I could go on for a long time about the so called facts of evolution, and give you just as many, if not more "facts" about a young Earth, but I'll stop here."

- Please do...I'm always interested to see how Creationists distort science for their own ends.

Cheers!

 

[KeithfromCanada]

If people are still working on it then guess what - it's not a fact. So many people try to say that evolution is a fact, but as you just said - they're working on it.

You might want to review your evolution theory. Where do you think evolutionists say that the first life came from? From an inanimate object. The primordial sludge if you will. So yes, I agree that it is a ridiculous thing to say, but I'm afraid that is exactly what evolution says. From non-life came life. So I think the computer illustration is even less ridiculous than the actual theory of evolution.

Evolution says no such thing. You are talking about a completely separate and distinct field of science call Abiogenesis.

 

[KeithfromCanada]

"Actually here's the problem - Evolution is not a testable model. You can't test dust appearing, you can't test life coming from non-life. You can't test one species evolving into another. None of the major tenants of evolution can be tested. Evolution is un-testable. You also can't observe evolution (thus the need for adding a billion years or two every so often to the theory)."

- You are again outside of the realm of science that is covered by evolution. Evolution says NOTHING about origins.


"Actually here's the problem - Evolution is not a testable model."

- Evolution certainly is testable. One simple example is this: Scientists studied strata and identified what layer and where they should find a fossil link between fish and tetrapods. They dug in that area and presto -- Tiktaalik!

To prove evolution wrong, all anyone would have to do is find a single fossil in a layer of strata where it could not possibly be. Scientists have been finding fossils for a long time and have yet to come across a single one that contradicts the theory of Evolution.

"Evolution says that over a time of millions of years one species evolved or mutated into another. We can't observe that so we must believe it. And don't try to say that we can see dogs evolving into other types of dogs. That's not evolution that a change in the same species."

- Yes, evolution states that based on the scientific evidence, species have diverged from one another and formed new species. This is based on a number of observations including the fossil record and DNA. If you wish to argue against either of these "facts", please elaborate.

- Why would anyone point to dogs as an example of speciation?

 

[KeithfromCanada]

By the way, I notice that they don't even try to touch the most basic questions - Where did the dust come from. Where did the energy come from. Where did the heat come from. How did life come from inorganic matter. If evolution is a fact, why can't they even answer (or try to answer) these most basic questions?

You really should understand what a theory says before you attack it. Again, Evolution says NOTHING about origins.

 

[KeithfromCanada]

Actually I have read these, and many, many more besides these (most of which are even better presented than these). I have also taken the time to learn why I believe what I believe (not just taking someone else's word for it). I have spent literally hundreds of hours researching this subject. Believe me, the only thing that evolutionists have is opinion and interpretation of the facts in a way that they want.
I know you want to say that I'm willfully ignorant, but the truth be told most people believe what others tell them without studying it. I have studied this for many years.

Yet you don't even know that the Theory of Evolution does not address the question of origins? Listening to Kent Hovind and Ray Comfort does not qualify as research.

 

[Buckalew11]

Well, the Bible does say God created man from the dust of the earth so that's a bit like "sludge" an is an inanimate object, Goofster.

I also take the thousands years as different from the day and night in the beginning, but, who knows? I'm a believer of Genesis going back 6,000 years. I think the Bible goes back to Adam and Eve for a specific reason showing the lineage of Jesus Christ. No idea whether they were the only ones created then or there were others.
My mind wonders if there was something before the earth as told about in Genesis. That could be why, if scientic dating is done correctly and is right about time being more than 6,000 years, it shows earth as much older. How do we know? I always wonder when on the time line did the fall of Lucifer happen? If Satan showed up in the Garden, the fall happened before that.

I don't get into all the evolution vs. creation stuff. Maybe someday if we have concrete answers I'll get interested in exploring all that. Otherwise, I have enough to learn about God and follwing Him to keep me busy.

 

[Pop Daddy]

Well, the Bible does say

that settles everything for me, dont have to "guess" a postion by which scientist Im gonna believe. its the old "God Said it, I read it, that settles it" for me

 

[gmboy95]

Why are we happy to contribute to science to cure diseases, map the human genome, heal the sick, blow crap up, make weapons, build things.....we are pefectly Ok with that.

But when every scientist around the world agrees that man evolved like most of nature, we get freaked out. Why is is not Ok to say god created heaven and earth and then all things eveloved?

 

[Buckalew11]

LOL, Pop Daddy. We certainly agree on that. It is funny because for a lot of Christians the Bible is where we get our beliefs. Our own ideas about how we'd like things to be may not match up to God's Word. So, we look to the Bible for that. However, to a non-Christian, that is just crap, fairy tales and all that garbage. It always amazes me because if someone is telling me some man-made rule, I'm saying "show me, show me in the bible where it says that. Otherwise, don't tell me some rule you think sounds good or the world in how you'd like it to be. JimmieJ proves evrything he believes with scripture. People really hate that about him, LOL. Yet, for me, that scripture means everything.

I see you like Mrs. Palin, who'd a guess it?! And yay for you, she does not like sleeves either! I guess she is so hot, she does not even need them in Alaska!

 

[Shel]

That's where faith steps in, when there's no explanation. We WON'T be able to explain it or understand it - on this side of heaven.

I believe with all my heart that 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth'. Genesis 1:1.

 

[KeithfromCanada]

You seem quick to attack anyone who dares suggest that evolution is only a theory, yet almost all honest scientists will quickly tell you the same thing - Evolution is only a theory, and nothing more.

The VAST majority of scientists and virtually every single Biologist or Biochemist (with the exception of the discredited Michael Behe) will tell you that Evolution is a theory that has about as much scientific merit (or more) as the theory of gravity.

You really do need to understand what the term "theory" refers to when it is used by a scientist. It means that it is an explanation of the FACTS that has been repeatedly tested and has yet to be proven wrong. Over 150 years of testing, much of it by Creationists such as yourself, has tried and failed to disprove evolution. When you state that it is "only a theory", you insult the scientific method and mislead other readers.

 

[KeithfromCanada]

That's interesting seeing that nobody can even begin to explain the big bang.
Where did the space dust come from that formed the big bang? What caused the dust to come together? Where did the energy come from that bound the dust together? Where did the heat come form that the dust ball generated? where did the energy come from that caused this dust ball to spin? Where did the energy come from that caused this dust ball to explode?

I would think that answering a few basic questions like this would be a priority of evolution, if not a requirement. So far the only answers I've heard are:
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened
we don't know but were sure it happened

Sounds like a great theory to me. Very scientific.

Evolution does not cover origins.
Evolution does not cover origins.
Evolution does not cover origins.
Evolution does not cover origins.
Evolution does not cover origins.
Evolution does not cover origins.

 

[KeithfromCanada]

Do you even know how a fossil forms? Not too long ago there were millions of buffalo in the great plains. Now they are pretty much all gone. So how many fossils of buffalos do we have? I'm not familiar with any, but perhaps there might be one or two. Why not.
Very simply because a fossil is only formed when a creature is wrapped suddenly in a substance that will prevent the decaying process (usually mud). Do you realize that there are hundreds of millions of fossils in the earth. Now two things can explain that.
1) there were a lot of clumsy critters that kept falling into mud to be fossilized.
or
2) a catastrophe happened that caused this huge number of fossils.

the Bible states that a few thousand years ago, God sent a flood to destroy the world and most of the creatures on it. Guess what, the Genesis flood easily accounts for all of the fossils.

Did you know that near the top of Mount Everest they have found thousands of seashells, and fossilized sea creatures? How can you explain that? The Biblical account of the flood easily explains it. Evolution has no explanation for it.

I'm sure that you would like to use fossils of cavemen. Unfortunately every single "man" - Neanderthal, cro-magnon, Lucy... has either been proven to be false (and in some cases deliberate fraud), or is so sketchy as to be a joke (finding one part of the creature in one location, and another 500 yards away). I don't think you would read it, but there's a book called "Bones of contention" that gives a very clear explanation for each and every one of these "missing links" (of course it's only creationist propaganda though).

Few things help prove the creationist theory as much as do fossils.

O.K. My apologies, I don't know how to do multiple quotes...

First, you are correct about fossils...they are rare in the grand scheme of things. We would expect to see two things that if the earth is 4.5 billion years old: 1) we would expect to find a number of fossils but not as many as we would like (because it is rare) and 2) we would expect those fossils to range from 'simple' organism to 'complex' organisms as we move through the strata. Lo and behold, that is exactly what we find.

So, on to the "flood". 1) seashells found on Everest...Creation says it was a flood - science says that Everest was once on the bottom of a tropical ocean. There is ample evidence of this and virtually every geologist on the planet will tell you that this is indeed the case. Plate techtonics can do astonishing things over the course of 4.5 billion years. 2) How do Creationists explain strata? Had their been a worldwide flood, there would be a single layer of strata left in it's wake and it would be a massive, easily spotted layer. If the earth was only a few thousand years old at the time of the flood, there would only be a few layers of strata under that global layer. This is NOT what science sees. Let's ignore the fact that strata can be dated for the time being; 3) How do Creationists explain the thermal implications of a global flood? It quite literally would have destroyed ocean life completely, let alone a football field sized ark floating on top. And yes, that's even if we count the notion that there was some form of "water canopy" hovering over the earth; 4) Hominid fossils - There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the bulk of these fossils are "fake" or "sketchy". In every instance that there was a fake (e.g. Piltdown man), it science that identified it as a fake. As for "Lucy", what about this fossil is problematic? I'm assuming you're referring to the false claim that pieces of the fossil were found at different sites? Several hundred scientists studied the bone fragments to search for "duplication". Had there been duplicate bone fragments, the fossil would have lost its value...there were zero duplicates.

Keep the arguments coming...I find them very entertaining.