Religious Topic

[Kristobal]

Hi

I am currently doing a research paper on Evolution vs. Creationism. This is not attempt to persuade people to believe in one or the other but rather to try and give a view on which both ideas can agree. I know this is a difficult subject but I believe it can be done. I am Latter Day Saint, so I obviously believe in Creationism, but the Church also encourages study and the embracing of truth, where ever it is found, therefore I also believe in much of the Evolutionary theories.

A question I have is I know that there are atheists and agnostics and other types of ways of thinking, but I would like to know the difference. I have several questions for this thread. One of which is addressed in the poll I have put up. Regardless of your belief please answer. After the poll you may discuss your answer in a post or choose not to. I know this poll is directed towards people of a particular belief, I am sorry, but it is a question that came up while doing research.

A final question is what is the most important aspect, that you feel, of the evolutionary theories?

Thanks!

[dragon wench]

I know this poll is directed towards people of a particular belief, I am sorry, but it is a question that came up while doing research.

With all due respect, I am afraid this is going to be a problem for many people reading your poll. A lot of Game Banshee members fall into the Atheist/Agnostic/alternative spiritual belief camp.. myself included.

I do not believe in the Christian version of a deity to begin with, so it's impossible for me to answer your question, sorry.

[Kristobal]

With all due respect, I am afraid this is going to be a problem for many people reading your poll. A lot of Game Banshee members fall into the Atheist/Agnostic/alternative spiritual belief camp.. myself included.

I do not believe in the Christian version of a deity to begin with, so it's impossible for me to answer your question, sorry.

I apologize, I probably should have worded that differently. Regardless of you belief in anything, if God or a god, were to come down, make him or herself known to you, and tell you something, would you believe it? Would you have believed it was a form of deity? This is what I wanted to put but the poll question wouldn't allow it, because of space issues.

[fable]

I can't speak for anybody else, but I'd still have problems with this poll by the way it portrays deities as having an external but not an internal reality. Why would any god "come down from on high" to tell me anything? If I believed in a deity and meditated on their nature, wouldn't whatever I learned from them arise from within me, at that place where I/they met in greatest accord? And wouldn't that seem to be something that I already knew, but I didn't previously understand--so it wouldn't come as any great revelation?

[Tricky]

'God' is 'a god'. 'A deity' would have been better. Don't specify one or the other, it is still inherently demeaning.

As for my answer: kill the buddha.

"Do not accept anything by mere tradition. Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures. Do not accept anything because it agrees with your opinions or because it is socially acceptable. Do not accept anything because it comes from the mouth of a respected person. Rather, observe closely and if it is to the benefit of all, accept and abide by it."

[kozeph]

I might believe what said deity says but I would try to confirme it on my own just becouse he/she or it says so doesnt mean you can trust it blindly it applies to everything it doesnt matter if its a deity or a spirit or even a relative of yours. I firmly believe find your own evidence of a subject never blindly trust into somenthing be it an idea or anything else.

thats my response to your question. if it sounds offensive in anyway dont mind it. its not my intension to offend anyone

[endboss]

Evolution is not a belief. It is a fact. The theory of evolution refers to the process of natural selection, which is as secure as Einstein's theory of gravity. It is important to make the distinction between scientific theory and theory, and the distinction between fact and scientific theory. It's amusing how people decry evolution yet except things like gravity and DNA.

As for your question, it would entirely depend on the truth that was revealed. Carl Sagan once expressed amusement in his Cosmos series with how alien abductees never found out anything particularly useful, or how the aliens never contacted any scientists but preferred backwater hicks. If a deity came down and said the secret to world peace is to live in harmony with one another or something equally obtuse, or a fact that couldn't actually be proved with current technology, I would chalk it up to hallucinations and go for an MRI. If some celestial being told me where to find the fossils to unlock the true secrets of the Cambrian explosion... I would assume my brain was solving a problem in an incredibly creative way and that I was a closet genius, because I study anthropology and am familiar with the prevailing theories of the CE and the research behind them.

Now, if the genie came down and told me how to prove string theory, or the existence of dark matter, and it turned out to be true after taking the information to many respectable physicists and astrophysicists, then yes I would believe in a god. Immediately after I would form a religion to put him on trial for allowing all these atrocities in human history just so he could give some 21st century kid a lesson in the cosmos.

And as such I regret to inform you that I also did not vote in your poll because I couldn't agree with any of the wordings. It depends entirely on what that truth is.

[dragon wench]

I apologize, I probably should have worded that differently. Regardless of you belief in anything, if God or a god, were to come down, make him or herself known to you, and tell you something, would you believe it? Would you have believed it was a form of deity? This is what I wanted to put but the poll question wouldn't allow it, because of space issues.

Fable just replied with an answer very similar to one I would have responded with.
To add though...
Basically, it's still impossible for me to answer this question because it is so extremely hypothetical and I cannot put myself into the mindset of believing in a more conventional deity that is assumed to have a "personality."

If I have any conception of a "presence" at all.. I view it as an immense energy that can't be pinned down and neatly defined.

I understand what you are trying to achieve, and I do respect that. The difficulty is that for people who don't subscribe to a more conventional belief system, this is like asking somebody their career plans after they die...

[endboss]

Fable just replied with an answer very similar to one I would have responded with.
To add though...
Basically, it's still impossible for me to answer this question because it is so extremely hypothetical and I cannot put myself into the mindset of believing in a more conventional deity that is assumed to have a "personality."

If I have any conception of a "presence" at all.. I view it as an immense energy that can't be pinned down and neatly defined.

I understand what you are trying to achieve, and I do respect that. The difficulty is that for people who don't subscribe to a more conventional belief system, this is like asking somebody their career plans after they die...

I don't believe in any god at all and I was able to answer the question. Yes, it is extremely hypothetical, and those who ask these questions normally don't realize that it is extremely hypothetical, but indulge yourself for a moment to ask yourself what would happen if today your entire belief system was shattered.

I would ask though if you cannot put yourself in other spiritual mindsets how do you know your current belief is firm? It's all hypothetical anyways because no one experiences actual spiritual revelations, so it's not like trying to put yourself in the mindset of a black man from the 1930s.

[dragon wench]

I don't believe in any god at all and I was able to answer the question. Yes, it is extremely hypothetical, and those who ask these questions normally don't realize that it is extremely hypothetical, but indulge yourself for a moment to ask yourself what would happen if today your entire belief system was shattered.

I would ask though if you cannot put yourself in other spiritual mindsets how do you know your current belief is firm? It's all hypothetical anyways because no one experiences actual spiritual revelations, so it's not like trying to put yourself in the mindset of a black man from the 1930s.

Yes, and you did it well.

Ah.. but here's exactly the rub, you see, I don't know my current belief is firm, and truthfully, my beliefs vacillate from agnosticism to a kind of metaphysical outlook, depending on any number of factors.
Yep, I know that sounds flaky, but I don't think it is, really, because there is no way of proving or disproving the existence of a deity, spiritual presence, whatever you choose to call it. In my own view, due this lack of proof, doubt is actually inherent to any kind of spiritual or religious belief. I realise that many, many people do not doubt their faith, and in a way I envy them, but I personally can't do anything but doubt.

@Kristobal,
something I meant to do in my first post, but I was dealing with RL distractions, welcome to Game Banshee

[Tricky]

I view it as an immense energy that can't be pinned down and neatly defined.

Does it tend to give mass to other subatomic particles?

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

I am currently doing a research paper on Evolution vs. Creationism. This is not attempt to persuade people to believe in one or the other but rather to try and give a view on which both ideas can agree. I know this is a difficult subject but I believe it can be done.

Strictly speaking the two aren't actually incompatible as ideas, evolution explains the current diversity of life and creationism posits an origin for life. Intelligent Design, for example, meshes both ideas. There's not actually a conflict there in and of itself, where the divide comes in is if you take the Bible (or Qur'an etc, but I assume this is a more Christianity-centric topic) literally (i.e. hard-core creationism, which rules out evolution altogether) or if you try to claim Creationism is scientific a la many proponents of Intelligent Design. C Elegans can undoubtedly put it better than me, but science deals with observable evidence and more importantly requires results to be repeatable, whereas creation is a once-off event that can accordingly never be repeated for scientific purposes and thus never scientifically verified.

[fable]

Hi

I am currently doing a research paper on Evolution vs. Creationism. This is not attempt to persuade people to believe in one or the other but rather to try and give a view on which both ideas can agree. I know this is a difficult subject but I believe it can be done. I am Latter Day Saint, so I obviously believe in Creationism, but the Church also encourages study and the embracing of truth, where ever it is found, therefore I also believe in much of the Evolutionary theories.

Creationism denies the principle (not theory; it's a fact) of scientific evolution, as I understand it. Am I wrong in this? If I'm not, it would seem that the two are about as opposed as you can get, without being siblings.

[Bloodstalker]

Creationism denies the principle (not theory; it's a fact) of scientific evolution, as I understand it. Am I wrong in this? If I'm not, it would seem that the two are about as opposed as you can get, without being siblings.

I've heard some christians saying that the Genesis account of creation might be saying roughly the same thing as evolution and all that. They read the account as saying that creation follows the same general order as the scientific community thinks it does. Basically, the creation account details a formless void, the formation the Earth (And other planets and such), seperation of the land and the water, creation of life in stages starting in the sea and moving forward from there. Basically they big problem these people have is with the creation of man himself, which they say has never been concretely linked with evolution. In a lot of ways they see God as the force behind the Big Bang and the guiding hand that set evolution in motion and all that.

I have no idea if this is a common belief at this point or not. It's kind of interesting to me to see some christians trying to move the religion to a closer realtionship with the scientific account though. Granted, the folks I'm refering to are not interpretting the Bible in a literal sense. They don't take seriously the belief that the world was actually created in seven days, and tend to view the term "day" in this instance as a much broader amount of time. Anyway, whatever you make of it, I just thought it was interesting enough to share.

[Dottie]

If I experienced an unknown being appearing to reveal something to me I would seek out psychiatric care.

If this being proved its existence outside my head by some means, and in addition appeared in such circumstances that it was unlikely to be a fraud, then I would believe that this being most likely existed, but I would not assume that it had any properties apart from those that I could observe.

My problem with your question is that you assume that deities are readily identifiable, even to people who don't believe in them to start with.

---

Regarding you second question, the most important fact about the theory of evolution is in in my opinion that all life on earth share a common ancestry.

[endboss]

I've heard some christians saying that the Genesis account of creation might be saying roughly the same thing as evolution and all that. They read the account as saying that creation follows the same general order as the scientific community thinks it does. Basically, the creation account details a formless void, the formation the Earth (And other planets and such), seperation of the land and the water, creation of life in stages starting in the sea and moving forward from there. Basically they big problem these people have is with the creation of man himself, which they say has never been concretely linked with evolution. In a lot of ways they see God as the force behind the Big Bang and the guiding hand that set evolution in motion and all that.

I have no idea if this is a common belief at this point or not. It's kind of interesting to me to see some christians trying to move the religion to a closer realtionship with the scientific account though. Granted, the folks I'm refering to are not interpretting the Bible in a literal sense. They don't take seriously the belief that the world was actually created in seven days, and tend to view the term "day" in this instance as a much broader amount of time. Anyway, whatever you make of it, I just thought it was interesting enough to share.

It's a popular and interesting view that the creation account just describes evolution in a more easy to digest form (after all, explaining evolution would have been just too darn hard for God to do with all those little brained Roman era people!). There are some snags though.

Light was created before the sun.
Earth was created before the sun.
Plants were created before the sun.
Plants were created before any living creatures.
Fruit bearing plants were created before any animals.
Birds were created before terrestrial animals.
Cattle were created before humans.
Humans were the last species to be created.

The Genesis account does not describe even in the simplest sense the series of events that actually happened. I used to subscribe to that thinking in my younger days before I really read the Genesis account and realized everything was out of order.

Most of my family consists of hard core Christians, and either they have no idea of the existence of certain things in the Bible until I point it out to them or they had just willfully ignored the stuff.

[fable]

I've heard some christians saying that the Genesis account of creation might be saying roughly the same thing as evolution and all that. They read the account as saying that creation follows the same general order as the scientific community thinks it does. Basically, the creation account details a formless void, the formation the Earth (And other planets and such), seperation of the land and the water, creation of life in stages starting in the sea and moving forward from there.

But even so, this isn't what's meant by the term "creationism." That's a belief in a literalist biblical interpretation of Genesis, complete with 6 days of work on the universe, and a period of time that's 5000+ years long. And as I recall, the LDS accepts the OT, so it presumably accepts that, as well.

[Kristobal]

would anyone object or care to comment on the idea that God or some form of Deity created the Earth and everything else by science? Would that be fathomable to say that this was all created by the laws of science as we know them now and possibly laws that we are not aware of yet?

[Dottie]

would anyone object or care to comment on the idea that God or some form of Deity created the Earth and everything else by science?

Yeah, I would object to that for the reason that the addition of a god doesn't increase the explanatory value of any scientific finding.

I still find it reasonably easy to coexist with this kind of idea, however. The idea of a god that has no power or bearing on anything real is to me only slightly offensive.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Been there, done that.

would anyone object or care to comment on the idea that God or some form of Deity created the Earth and everything else by science? Would that be fathomable to say that this was all created by the laws of science as we know them now and possibly laws that we are not aware of yet?

Strictly speaking the two aren't actually incompatible as ideas, evolution explains the current diversity of life and creationism posits an origin for life. Intelligent Design, for example, meshes both ideas. There's not actually a conflict there in and of itself, where the divide comes in is if you take the Bible (or Qur'an etc, but I assume this is a more Christianity-centric topic) literally (i.e. hard-core creationism, which rules out evolution altogether) or if you try to claim Creationism is scientific a la many proponents of Intelligent Design. C Elegans can undoubtedly put it better than me, but science deals with observable evidence and more importantly requires results to be repeatable, whereas creation is a once-off event that can accordingly never be repeated for scientific purposes and thus never scientifically verified.