In U.S., 42% Believe Creationist View of Human Origins

[Dakine10 5,452]

And yet we see so much more destruction being carried out in the name of religion than in the name of science.

Rather than blame that on one or the other, I think it's more to do with the fact that human beings have a tendency to be destructive by nature. Whether you ascribe to evolution or creation or something else, the end result is the same. We are what we are.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Dakine10

[aaydrian 479]

And yet we see so much more destruction being carried out in the name of religion than in the name of science.

It depends on how you measure destruction. Both are very guilty of doing things that had/have catastrophic consequences.

[Pooky 3,844]

And yet we see so much more destruction being carried out in the name of religion than in the name of science.

And far more is carried for money than either of the above.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

But we all know you can manipulate data to prove or disprove what we want. IF fixing something makes something else worse in the process is it really fixing? Not to say Science has not proven to be a wonderful tool in life, but we also know it has hurt a lot as well. Like bombs.

And let's not forget we were not broken until man made us broken.

I don't think talking in generalities like this is proof of anything. You can no more blame science for creating weapons of war than you can blame religion for the crusades and suicide bombers. It's a meaningless distinction.

Incidentally there were scientists even in Biblical times - it's because of them that we have a calendar and a means to tell the time. It's because of them that we have mathematics and the alphabet. The device you're posting from, which allows you to connect to friends and family around the world - none of that would be possible without science and technology.

[aaydrian 479]

Rather than blame that on one or the other, I think it's more to do with the fact that human beings have a tendency to be destructive by nature. Whether you ascribe to evolution or creation or something else, the end result is the same. We are what we are.

All living things are destructive by nature, however, some destroy more than the others and this "higher level" destruction is not as a result of necessities.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Rather than blame that on one or the other, I think it's more to do with the fact that human beings have a tendency to be destructive by nature. Whether you ascribe to evolution or creation or something else, the end result is the same. We are what we are.

I agree with you there. It's pointless trying to pin all of our worst qualities on one aspect of human civilisation - the fact of the matter is that if we didn't rub two sticks together and make fire we'd still be living up a tree, picking lice out of our fur.

[JohnR! 5,495]

Fair enough. You can say that if there is a God, she created man with a destructive streak and all this killing is just preordained by her infinite wisdom. All this carnage is part of the master plan.

Rather than blame that on one or the other, I think it's more to do with the fact that human beings have a tendency to be destructive by nature. Whether you ascribe to evolution or creation or something else, the end result is the same. We are what we are.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

And yet we see so much more destruction being carried out in the name of religions than in the name of science.

In these situations it has been more about oppressing others and less about religion. How can you do something, in the name of something that you are not following yourself? Real religious people do not oppress others in the name of religion. Those are called fake believers.

Again, I admit science has done wonderful things, but look at what it has cost the earth, all in the name of "discovery."

https://elginhistory12.wikispaces.com/Bombing+of+Nagasaki

http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

[rlogan 2,036]

You want me to think I changed from a banana to a human.

How ridiculous. This kind of lying is a staple of your kind of Christianity. You have learned to lie about what evolution is, but not what evolution is. Nor are you interested in learning it.

It's what we were demonstrating in another thread: the crab mentality - ridicule knowledge. The Church has been doing this for millennia. To keep the people ignorant and under their control. How repugnant that in the poorest places on earth, what you find is a grand church building with the best materials. Finest clothing for the priest. All off the backs of the poor.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

How ridiculous. This kind of lying is a staple of your kind of Christianity. You have learned to lie about what evolution is, but not what evolution is. Nor are you interested in learning it.

It's what we were demonstrating in another thread: the crab mentality - ridicule knowledge. The Church has been doing this for millennia. To keep the people ignorant and under their control. How repugnant that in the poorest places on earth, what you find is a grand church building with the best materials. Finest clothing for the priest. All off the backs of the poor.

I understand you posted after I posted this and you may not have seen this comment by me.

"In these situations it has been more about oppressing others and less about religion. How can you do something, in the name of something that you are not following yourself? Real religious people do not oppress others in the name of religion. Those are called fake believers."

[scandal 951]

Rare that someone so often indicates how little they know.

We share DNA with just about every living thing on the planet. The Universal Common Ancestor is such basic genetics that phrasing things as you do prove you don't understand anything about it.

Prior to replicating DNA, which is a vertical gene transfer from one organism to the next generation, we had some very interesting horizontal gene transfers that are still evident today: symbiotic relationships like mitochondria in the human cell. People here are speaking loosely about life, and you have to be careful about that - like whether a virus is life in the same sense, injecting its DNA into a host in order to commandeer it for reproduction of itself.

Why does my four year old understand evolution and you don't? It really isn't complicated. He has been introduced to abiogenesis and the most likely kinds of life as we understand it on other planets. The big bang and expanding universe. Not even in kindergarten yet.

In my experience, the key concept that proves difficult for people to understand how evolution (i.e. random mutations + natural selection) could possibly lead to complex organisms and the diversity of life we see around us, is the notion of time. The sheer, vast amount of time which is required to lead to this diversity and complexity. And the fact that our world offers precisely this amount of time. Evolution works slowly and incrementally, over thousands of generations and ultimately over 10s of millions of years. Occasional random mutations occur in individuals a population. Beneficial ones that offer improved reproductive success tend to accumulate in offspring and are passed down to the next generation. Neutral or harmful mutations tend not to accumulate. Regardless, it takes many, many successive generations for cumulative mutations to lead to observable phenotype changes, and ultimately to speciation (branching off of new species).

Consider that a human generation is ~20 years, and the thousands of cumulative mutations it necessarily took to develop opposable thumbs, our large braincase and enlarged cerebral cortex, and bipedal locomotion, it is easy to see why our branch point from our nearest living relatives occurred some 300,000 generations or 7 million years ago.

The trouble for many laypeople trying to internalize how evolution works in practice is that such timescales are very difficult for people to grasp. We intuitively understand time on the order of our own lifespan. We are fine with the notion of a year, a decade, perhaps a century. But the Flintstones charicatures of cavemen frolicking with dinosaurs are symptomatic of the problem: we tend to blur the "ancientness" of paleolithic man (~10^5 - 10^6 years) with the "ancientness" of the Jurassic (10^8 years). We're talking 2 to 3 orders of magnitude. That's simply an inconceivable amount of time for people to comprehend on a human scale. Yet it's precisely the time needed to slowly evolve species which adapt to their environmental niches.

Is evolution a true and satisfying account of the origins and development of the diversity of life? Of course. Unquestionably and undoubtedly.

Is it difficult for people to wrap their minds around? At first. But not once you get used to thinking of these time scales. And not once you see the evidence of beautifully adapted creatures which exploit their environmental niches so superbly. Blind bats using sonar to "see" in pitch black caves. Emperor penguins who have evolved incredible mating procedures with precise timing to lay their eggs, incubate them, and afford males and females opportunities to feed themselves and their hatchlings in the unforgiving climate of Antarctica. The examples are everywhere around and provide unassailable evidence.

[Curmudgeon 227]

It does. Scientist are hellbent on taking God out of our life and making us practice Scientology.

Scientists are hellbent on no such thing. Scientology is a rather spurious cult that has no basis in scientific learning at all so not sure why you wish to link the two but it doesn't make for a rational or credible argument.

[rlogan 2,036]

I understand you posted after I posted this and you may not have seen this comment by me.

"In these situations it has been more about oppressing others and less about religion. How can you do something, in the name of something that you are not following yourself? Real religious people do not oppress others in the name of religion. Those are called fake believers."

My comment is your lying about evolution.

I don't say Christians worship worms or that Jesus preached ####### sex. But many Christians like yourself really love making moronic false statements about evolution. You apparently think that saying such extremely stupid things makes evolution look bad. One of the reasons why people "disagree" with evolution is that they've listened to false witness about what evolution is.

The ninth of the ten commandments is not to bear false witness, and that is EXACTLY what you are doing when you lie about evolution. You think it is joyful and funny to lie and say men came from bananas according to evolution. But you are just proving the hypocrisy of your own post above - how you with glee violate the ninth commandment in bearing false witness against millions of people who know the truth about what evolution is.

It is no different from calling an honest man a thief: to change his words in an attempt to defame him. To say he claims men came from monkeys is a LIE. To claim he says men came from bananas is a LIE. It is false witness, and I see you doing this all over the forum, hypocrite.

Edited October 29, 2014 by rlogan

[DavenRoxy 1,073]

What do you mean by 'practicing science'? Being a scientist isn't a worthwhile profession?

I think being a doctor is a worthwhile profession. Most would. Even the doctors who actually PRACTICE MEDICINE.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

My comment is your lying about evolution.

I don't say Christians worship worms or that Jesus preached ####### sex. But many Christians like yourself really love making moronic false statements about evolution. You apparently think that saying such extremely stupid things makes evolution look bad. One of the reasons why people "disagree" with evolution is that they've listened to false witness about what evolution is.

The ninth of the ten commandments is not to bear false witness, and that is EXACTLY what you are doing when you lie about evolution. You think it is joyful and funny to lie and say men came from bananas according to evolution. But you are just proving the hypocrisy of your own post above - how you with glee violate the ninth commandment in bearing false witness against millions of people who know the truth about what evolution is.

It is no different from calling an honest man a thief: to change his words in an attempt to defame him. To say he claims men came from monkeys is a LIE. To claim he says men came from bananas is a LIE. It is false witness, and I see you doing this all over the forum, hypocrite.

Uhhh the bible says God created us. And he didn't say he created us from banana and gorilla and then split out a man. So with this being said, how can I be bearing false witness when it is clearly written in the bible.

Don't get your panties in a bunch with me because I choose to believe in God and the bible.