Evolution

[Curt Sibling]

Well, I take the bible literraly because i Believe every last word of it.

 

Hundinman

Really?

Well, be prepared for a surprise when it doesn't answer all your questions.

 

How can you say any these dusty religious

tomes (korans or bibles) are true at all?

 

PS

Unflinching belief in something so unreliable as a 2000-years-deceased

writer's opinions is rather dangerous, wouldn't you think?

[Darnoc]

Really?

Well, be prepared for a surprise when it doesn't answer all your questions.

 

Also our sciences today don't answer all questions. In fact, nothing does answer all questions.

 

How can you say any these dusty religious

tomes (korans or bibles) are true at all?

 

How can you say that what is interpreted by our scientists today is true at all?

 

Unflinching belief in something so unreliable as a 2000-years-deceased

writer's opinions is rather dangerous, wouldn't you think?

 

Same counts for everything else. I thinks it's also dangerous to believe blindly in science.

 

 

As I pointed out in another thread in the debate forum, true is only what we can observe with our senses, not how we interprete later on the base of these observations. When one person has a vision of god and the other one makes an observation with his microscope, both are true, because both observed and experienced something (when both didn't take drugs, aren't some kind of psychopath and are by there senses when this happens). But when one person assumes that god must exist, because a guy living 2000 year ago saw him and another one assumes from his findings in the microscope that these bacterias are the descendents of an older species of bacterias they found somewhere as fossils they are both not true, because what they do is assuming something and assumptions are never certain. So both religious and scientific people can't make any real true findings, because most of all people don't have visions of god and no one ever observed how a species changed into a higher evolved species. The only thing we are doing is assuming, assuming, assuming all the time. And so no one really knows the truth, because we just don't have any way to observe all those things like how life originated or how the universe began. And so everything anyone ever thinks about those unobservable things will stay an assumption, and even when it sounds very reasonable and logical it will stay an assumption and therefore potentialy not true. So when someone comes to me and says "I know how it all happened!" I ask "Show it to me, so that I can observe and experience it!". Of course this never happened and until the day someone can really show it to me, I will stay with my oppinion that it is uncertain and so perhaps not true and I will try to find a way to experience and observe it. And of course I will try not to assume something is true, even when it is uncertain, because then I would lie to myself. So at the moment I believe that neither what the scientists nor what any religion can say is absolutely certain, because it is not possible to observe or to experience. I am a believing christian, but I wouldn't say that it is certain that everything is true what I believe, because I just can't prove it. And everyone else should also not be so arrogant and say that what he believes is absolutely certain, when he can't find a way to observe and experience what he believes. We should all live in the knowlegde that what we believe is not necessarily true and perhaps can be disproved someday, even when it sounds at the moment reasonable to us.

[Peregrine]

making such a bold statement as, "No sane person can accept the bible as literal truth....The bible is wrong." is quite unnecessary. (You are in fact calling over 1 Billion people insane) If thats what you strongly believe then state that its your personal belief that the bible is wrong, but dont state it as if its a fact. Because its not.

 

Note the key point: LITERAL truth. Some parts of the bible are clearly wrong, if taken literaly. Or even contradict each other, so you already have to reject some parts! The only way to believe it that way is to ignore all other facts, and refuse to accept any evidence otherwise. Sounds a lot like blindness and ignorance to me.

 

Note: while I don't believe the bible is true at all, my statement here does leave the possibility of the bible being nonliteral truth... metaphors, or things in terms that the average person at the time could understand. So fine, believe in the bible... but you have to admit that you can not take every word as absolute truth. Which I believe the overwhelming majority of those 1 billion people understand.

 

God says that if his believers drink a deadly poison thay will not die. I believe that he meant they will die physically but not spirtually. What I am saying is, God and Jesus' believers are promised eternal life in heaven after they physically die. So if a TRUE beliver in Christ drinks a deadly poison he will most certainly die physically (unless God decides to deliver him/her.) but will then have eternal life in heaven with God!

 

Concession accepted.

 

If you take that statement literally, it refers to not dying at all. Therefore, to believe otherwise, you must consider it a nonliteral explanation. So why does this nonliteral interpertation of the bible only apply when it benefits the christian side? If you're willing to accept this part as not being literal truth, then you must be willing to do the same for the story of creation.

Now drink your poison or concede genesis.

 

 

As for anyone who think's I'm being a bit too harsh with my comments... if I were to write on a my scrap of pizza box "bible" of Yabethism that the earth was flat and come here insisting that it was true because I believe it and my bible said so.... now what would you say? That I'm ignorant for completely ignoring the massive evidence otherwise? That I'm blind for not being able to see the obvious conclusion? Yes, you would.... and you'd be entirely justified in doing so. Claiming the bibe as literal truth is no different... to accept it, you must do the same and ignore all observations in favor of believing what you have already decided to be the "truth".

[Malchik]

It seems rather sad that so many young people have fixed their views in stone when they should still have years of experience to test them out.

 

A problem with most debates is that anyone who can be bothered to talk is usually (and perhaps has to be) closed minded.

 

And Darnoc may have a point that there is no proof of anything but that philosophical argument is meaningless to me. When my mouth hurts because I believe I have toothache I do not require someone telling me that I cannot prove it hurts because I can't prove I am not a figment of someone else's imagination.

 

There is scope for that debate and Darnoc you have opened a thread to view things philosophically. I don't think we can keep raising the matter everywhere though. Yes we are making assumptions. Some people have faith in the teachings of their church. And these beliefs are based on assumptions. Peregrine, unless I misread him, believes the absence of proof of a higher creative force means there is none, another assumption.

 

If we keep returning to the philosophical approach it prevents a reasoned debate based on informed opinion and experience. Can we leave the abstruse and esoteric to the philosophy thread please.

[Darnoc]

Perhaps we can't take the bible litteraly. But still then I would say that a lot of those things written in the bible are true in a metaphorical way. Like what Jesus said in the mountain preaching (do you call it so in English? I only know how you call it in German and just translated it from there) or the praise of love by Paul.

[Peregrine]

Peregrine, unless I misread him, believes the absence of proof of a higher creative force means there is none, another assumption.

 

Not entirely correct... there's also the (almost always true) rule that the simplest valid explanation is the correct one. So the universe can be viewed two ways:

1) As we see it.

2) As we see it + god.

Since there is no evidence that would require the existence of god, adding it is pointless.

 

 

Darnoc, please... enough of this "nothing is true" argument. If something is proven 99% true, you have to accept it as true. That's basic sanity.

[Darnoc]

OK, I'll accept that when something has a probability above 75% it is very probably true. But then we have the problem: How probable are all those beliefs? I'm no genius on mathematics, so I can't give you any calculated probability. It would also require a lot of work to find all the influenting elements who must be taken into the calculation. So, how probable (approximately) is everything we discussed (evolution, creation etc.)?

 

And Peregrine: You can look at it the other way round.

 

I'll give you an example. Which one is simpler: That a computer chip evolved to what it is now in billions of years or that someone built it? Now just put this sheme on our nature and ask yourself the same question. The more simple answer is of course that it was a plan. So it would be the plan, which is probably true, because it is more simple.

[Mojlnir]

Darnoc, if you're wondering its the "Sermon on the Mount" although your translation was excellent and quite sufficient to get your thought across. I think that a discussion of probability is not going to get us any closer to a consensus. Evolution has been shown to be true through innumerable experiments. Take for example the grosbeak (type of bird) which has evolved to exhibit a very unique beak structure (it is crossed like an x) in order to gain access to the particular types of nuts and seeds that it feeds on. You could of course argue that such animals were created because a higher power created a specific kind of nut/seed and then had to have a bird with a given beak structure to eat that nut/seed but there is nothing to back up an argument like that except faith, and many people (myself included) do not accept faith as an answer scientific questions.

As for your computer chip argument, I think I missed it. The computer chip did evolve, if you want to get technical. Chip manufacturers did not just sit down in the mid 80's and crack out a P4 chip. Computers, and their components, have been a work in progress (evolution) for more than 50 years. So, I'm not really sure where you wanted to go with your point. I'd appreciate it if you could explain it though.

[Eltiraaz]

 

making such a bold statement as, "No sane person can accept the bible as literal truth....The bible is wrong." is quite unnecessary. (You are in fact calling over 1 Billion people insane) If thats what you strongly believe then state that its your personal belief that the bible is wrong, but dont state it as if its a fact. Because its not.

 

 

 

Note the key point: LITERAL truth. Some parts of the bible are clearly wrong, if taken literaly. Or even contradict each other, so you already have to reject some parts! The only way to believe it that way is to ignore all other facts, and refuse to accept any evidence otherwise. Sounds a lot like blindness and ignorance to me.

 

My bad. If the bible was meant to be taken as a literal truth, your right, even I would think it rather incredible.

 

I dont refuse to accept any evidence.. but I take it with a critical.. perhaps overly critical eye.

[Darnoc]

@mojlnir: Yes, good argument. But the computer-chip didn't evolve by accident, it was intelligence behind it. So the next logical argument would be that behind evolution was somekind of intelligence who planned it. This was already suggested and is called "theistic evolution" (at least I think it's called so, I'm not entirily sure about the name). So there we have the compromise between faith and science: Because the word used in genesis 1 has the meaning of "period of time" and not necessarily "day", it could also be some billions of years. Then we could combine it with the results of ressearch and say that god somehow planned and started the process of evolution. Perhaps he created the big bang and then everything began to evolve from itselve, because until today we can't explain how everything started from the beginning, where all the mater and energy came from and why the explosion of the big bang occured. Then god would be something like the overseer of evolution. It does at least make sense to me: We have the intelligence behind it (because a planned action is simpler than just accident) and the mechanics of evolution we found in nature. I think it's the easiest explenation for it.