Originally posted by DadRabit
ok, but that still does not explain why the monkeys (apes) did not evolve along with humans. Who was this "common ancestor"? Was it Lucy? All I am stating is this, at some point our ancestors began to exist. How did this existance start? Big Bang? Did we all elvolve from primordial goo that somehow mixed together?
Well you don't expect much from this thread do you?
OK the monkeys: they did evolve along with humans. They just did it differently - because they are different from humans.
Lucy: Scientists posit that Lucy is a genetic ancestor for all humans living today - not all primates & monkeys - so no.
Big Bang: The big bang is really not my cup of tea - all that stuff makes my head swim. So I don't understand it well enough to explain it. Ask someone else. Or try "The Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. In my opinion, though neither god nor the big bang do the trick - they both beg a further question: "So what/who created God?" and "So what came before the big bang?" respectively.
My position is obvious. I believe in God. I believe that he created me. If you were to look at everything around you, plants, water, your body, cells in your body, the fact that if the earth were just a little closer or farther away from the sun we would not exist. This all points to being created by an intelligent being.
Why does it "all point to being created by an intelligent being"? If it's the staggering odds against it, look back in the thread a bit (I think it's on page 5) for my post with the "calculating probability after the fact is useless" bit - basically the odds against
anything happening are outrageous - here's a small example - think of your best friend's telephone number - then calculate the odds against you knowing someone with that exact number - they're fairly silly. So silly in fact that it points to god having given your best friend that phone number on purpose? I feel we don't need divine intervention for that to happen - I mean really, do we need to bother god with all these phone numbers? Bear in mind god has his own problems - everything he makes dies.
If you want to believe that it all started from an explosion in space, being mixed together, crawling on the ground, walking upright and then evolving into modern day man, thats fine.
Thank you. Although I like to think of it less as belief and more as model agnosticism: I don't believe in any model 100% - but based on the current evidence, evolution seems the most sensible alternative. It seems to actually work as predicted when transferred to software simulations and used for chip design (evolved hardware is on its way soon, IMHO). I am however always swayed by good evidence, and the whole thing requires further study, of course. As to the beginning of everything as i stated above - I remain unconvinced by either argument. I am confident that in 500 years we will all seem really naive and dumb to the humans around then. I know the humans around 500 years ago seem really naive and dumb to me.
Nonetheless I reciprocate the courtesy: if you want to believe an invisible male vertebrate, who's name no one can speak and who is everywhere, made everything in the universe out of water (which was "just there"), with the aid of a light with no source, and some dust, all so that humans could fart about for their three score and ten and choose which out of the invisible vertebrate or his ex-favourite employee to like and pay heed to, as a preamble to either eternal life or eternal torture, then that's fine too. "Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy", as Bokonon says.
What about evil? Do you believe evil exists? I do. What about good? It would seem that for there to be good, there must be evil. What causes evil? Is it a chemical imbalance in the brain? Or is it just someone who is mean? Were apes evil? I can go on an on.
What Good and evil "are" relies entirely on the social group you belong to, and the taboos of that society and the timeframe. For example whilst most people nowadays would reckon buying and selling people as slaves "is" evil most of the founding fathers in the US felt it "was" perfectly ordinary. Good and evil "are" social conventions - so what causes evil: laws and the alpha males that make them. I'm sure apes can "be" evil - all social creatures can, as evil/good "are" basically societal game rules. And so I don't believe evil exists as a separate entity - rather that social groups define what "is" evil, as a societal game rule.
My point is this, my belief in God also produces a belief in evil (satan). Is it possable satan is behind all this evolution theory just to get you mind from believing that there is a God?
Perhaps satan reworked xianity just to rile god by getting all these people to do evil in god's name (that'd be what I'd do if I was satan). Possibly satan inspired all this creation science to make xians look silly... In religious speculation, anything is possible, which is why I prefer science - you always have to have explain why.
However, according to god, satan doesn't actually get the credit for evil - Isaiah 45:5-7 "I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
Granted he may have been misquoted.
Cats begat cats, dogs begat dogs, oranges oranges, apples apples, apes begat man? To me it would take more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in creationism.
Well I find if you view humans as moral, rational, superior creatures, the news on TV every night seems appalling, disturbing and thoroughly perplexing. However, if you view humans as a bunch of irrational apes, bouncing up and down, throwing stuff at each other and banging on their chests, the news makes perfect sense.
