When's the Flying Spaghetti Monster going to get his noodly tendrils into a museum then?

The museum promises 'life-sized people' - are museums in this part of the world normally run by midgets or something? Or is this seen as proof that the curators did not involve from monkeys like the rest of us?

I was going to write a massive essay about how stupid the Americans are, how this is going to damage their future in science, ecconomics etc. However, I really cannot be bothered.

Good luck to them, I hope they all love it.

I was initially quite impressed that they've avoided the "Intelligent Design" misnomer and adopted good old Creationism.

But then the website says:

"Throughout this family-friendly experience, guests will learn how to answer the attacks on the Bible’s authority in geology, biology, anthropology, cosmology, etc., and they will discover how science actually confirms biblical history."

Oh dear.

I'm hoping that the Flying Spaghetti Monster will save us from this nonsense.

What's this - the Creation Park is open on a Sunday! Do they have devine permission for this flagrant disregard of Christian dogma? or maybe they subscribe to the "Christianity's OK but money's money....." belief system.......

It was bound to happen. With Disney's Blockbuster with Pirates of the Caribbean, it was only a matter of time that the process of Film-based-on-Theme-Park was once again reversed. Having had the requisite success with "The Passion of the Christ", the funding for the Creationist Theme Park was done and dusted.

It would also save the South Park team a lot of time, they just need to walk through the park with a camera and super-impose the characters and their usual "warning" caption.

But half the people surveyed (in the US, of course), believe in either creationism or intelligent design!

As my anatomy prof said. "The appendix, now that's proof of intelligent design"

I got so frustrated at the idea of creationism that I spent a week arguing with one guy via email. The complete absurdity of his argument was freakish, citing that darwin must have been wrong because he converted to Christianity just before he died, (even if that was the case, i could forgive him for that, I'd like to cover all the bases too).

I think the most important point to make about these people is that they are complete nutters, they're extreme right wing, word of the bible is the word of god crazy americans who for the most part haven't even read the bible.

An interesting point to make about genesis;

Genesis as a story is a very very old one indeed, the first written accounts of "Genesis" are in the book of Enoch, which was apparently written about 5,500 years back. The earliest surviving copy of this book of the Torah dates to about 2700 years ago. And there is none of this "And ye God declared that there be light and flowers and trees" and the rest of that nonsense, it is actually very very very weird book of the bible to read, because it doesn't describe God creating anything, it describes this; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disk Which is also known as the accretion theory of solar system formation.

Reading it sent a chill down my spine because for all I don't believe the nonsense of the re-written, political brain washing which is King James' Genesis, the book of Enoch tells a story which isn't fiction. It describes a conversation between God and Enoch, see fit to replace God with aliens, atlantians, or whatever as essentially its an un-named story teller rather than a deity speaking from on high, I also believe that the real name of the teller was removed/changed as it has been in the Torah Elohim replaced Yahway, which replaced an earlier unknown name, the King James' bible God is always written in capital letters because of this break in syntax/textual flow of the original texts it was copied/translated/mutilated from.

Anyway back to my point, the conversation is essentially a banter of questions and answers, Enoch has some questions so he asks the story teller who gives him some pretty compelling answers.

So yes, I agree, there are answers in genesis... Just not the Genesis that is currently published, a much older one... But if you want to go looking for those answers you might as well just read Stephen Hawkings books because in essence its the exact same thing. Except Hawking doesn't tell as much of a good narrative as Enoch did, but they are easier to find, the copy of the Book of Enoch I found took me about 3 months of searching.

"It promises visitors "a fully engaging, sensory experience", complete with "realistic scenery, computer-generated visual effects, over 50 exotic animals, life-sized people, and dinosaur animatronics"."

Can you believe it, I mean LIFE-SIZED PEOPLE! Wow.

As soon as the Pastafarians get their arses in gear and build one!

I would note though that 'Build a museum' is not one of the answers to "What would a pirate do?"

...so his noodly appendages are already present in the aforementioned museum?

If you don't know that then you're a heretic, and must face DEATH BY CAKE!

Even today humans live alongside dinosaurs. They're called "creationists" and they are taking way too long to go extinct.

As soon as the FSM creates his own universe.....

Because the register seems to attract alot of really dumb comments.

First off this whole thing has been in developement as far as I know for the last several years plus.

Secondly... this has nothing to do with the movies.

Thirdly... If it was a museum on evolution... you wouldn't be posting that dribble of a comment(s).

I swear...you only make yourselves look stupid! Try commenting with brains for a change! I sure hope this isn't the face of today's IT industry.... because if it is.. im likely to change careers.

You may think, only in America, but next time (if you ever do) you visit Portsmouth, don't forget to pay a visit to our own version of this superstitious nonsense

http://www.csm.org.uk/expo.php

If they are proposing that ancient man lived at the same time as dinosaurs, don't you think that Jesus's encounter with a 30 tonne Brachiosaurus would have merited a mention in the good book?

"the copy of the Book of Enoch I found took me about 3 months of searching."

Took me less than three minutes to find a few different versions.

Everybody knows that the Earth was created by a giant cheesy globule called Smegma. From his single eye he wept milky tears upon the barren land and thus fertilised it [with the salt of life].

Thus the first male was born, Edam. And with him was also born the first female, Fishee. And their offspring were many, and their lives were content until Fishee forced Edam to use the banned fluid of Cleanit upon his biological idol of Smegma.

With his new shiny wand stood in attention, Edam and Fishee were banished from the Garden of Clevedon - never again were they to find favour with Smegma.

This is how it was.

"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones." Luke Chapter 17

"Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," Jesuit moto based on a quote from Francis Xavier. This one also speaks to bringing democracy and peace to the middle east.

"The mind is its own place,

and in itself

Can make a heaven of hell,

a hell of heaven." Milton

Most of you assume that evolution is true because you presuppose in your own mind that naturalism can explain origins. This is false. You can make many wild guesses but you were not there. Creationists interpret scientific data according to the Bible because we have the Word of someone who was there. It is not science that disagrees with the Bible. It is evolutionary thought that disagrees with the Bible. You interpret the same data creationists interpret, only according to your own naturalistic bias. Either you believe the Bible or you don't. But acting like you are so mentally superior to creationists because they believe the Word of God is childish. To those of you who have not evolved past the point of having an open mind, try checking out www.answersingenesis.org

Danny

Whatever next. Wonderful suggestion. I wonder why boffins didn't think of that sooner...

"If it was a museum on evolution... you wouldn't be posting that dribble of a comment(s)."

What would there be to comment on? Museums and science go together like shoes and socks. Creationism isn't science, therefore this is notable. Retrograde and regrettable, but still notable.

Matthew

If your comment

"Thirdly... If it was a museum on evolution... you wouldn't be posting that dribble of a comment(s)."

was in defence of creationism, please feel free to change career. Also take your views on a flat earth with you. Twenty First century tech workers deal more with science than myths and fairy tales...

First: however long it has been in development makes it none the worse retarded and likely going to set many folks back. Thankfully anyone that believes in this is likely not going into a scientific discipline.

Second: You are right...it has to do with a culture of mis/dis-information.

Thirdly: No because we have those already. And quite frankly it seems the church missed the boat on that...it would have been much easier to look at evolution as a whole and say "Man that God really is something else to come up with this plan!"

instead of the ignorant drivel espoused by some Americans in regards to evolution.

And for my points...religion should be the why...not the how of it all. Ignorance is not wholly an American commodity. I have heard just as much stupid rhetoric in the UK. However I am embarassed that my country seems to keep bringing this nonsense up. It seems to me that religion can be (if people chose for it to be) so malleable (sp?) as to allow whatever science to take hold and then take credit for that! It is like saving the life of a doctor who goes on to save 100s of lives. You get a small credit for everyone that doctor saves because you saved him. Flawed argument I know but it has a better framework than most these days.

What's your take on Enoch's original words there?

Just curious...

I'll be sure to attend anyway! Humans among dinosaurs! Has anyone ever ridden the Disney dinosaur ride in Florida? So awesome.

Seriously though, animatronic bible bullshit or man eating thirty foot sharks, who cares as long as it's entertaining.

Maybe they even have a ride through Sodom complete with fire and brimstone! And maybe they can have a character actor on the ride for every five to ten people who looks back and turns into a pillar of salt.

This would be way more badass than the silly Pirates of the Carribean ride.

I won't fault them for being morons. (It's genetic and the mutation for this gene happened way before the pilgrims came over from the old country. So please don't point fingers at us "stupid Americans." Although, I must concede the inbreeding over here must have caused that gene to be a bit more prevalent than in other places.) I will fault them if they build a shitty ride. If you're going to be moronic make sure you do it so well that at least I can be entertained.

"You can make many wild guesses but you were not there" and now read from the same comment, "...because we have the Word of someone who was there".

Now those 2 lines alone have just broken the laws of logic if they are to be true. More interestingly if you have the word of someone who is that old I would like to meet him (along with the rest of the world probably), sorry what was that, the Word is from someone you've never actually met so that means it's 2nd/3rd etc. hand information that your going on, bit like "us lot" who use wild guesses based on a combination of theory and facts presented to us from Various Sources rather than the Bible, which in todays climate is one book with a number of short stories from authors who are all (currently) dead (leaving room for if/when the son of god rises, to corroborate the whole thing).

Wonder what creationists think of Scientologists (now there's compelling viewing for a Big Brother episode if ever I heard one).

I, for one, would be much more impressed by a god that thought of something as sublime as evolution than I would be by a god that merely went into his workshop and built some animals. It seems to me that what the creationists are really attached to isn't God, but an understanding of God that's understandable to nomadic sheepherders in a society with highly-restricted literacy.

It's like God is a science teacher that has to teach children of all ages. He's trying to tell the older kids about evolution, but they won't listen and keep saying "but when we were five and you told us about this, you just said you made the animals. How can you tell us that there was more to it than that? We won't listen to you anymore."

... that this was in Kentucky and not Kansas. Us poor rational thinkers here (in KS) get a bad rap from all the wackos.

"Creationists interpret scientific data according to the Bible because we have the Word of someone who was there."

Surely it should be 'who they believe was there'. Anyway to get back to the www.answersingenesis.org thing. I did have a look and found that as with many of these things there is always a leap of faith required at the bottom of the explainations.

Each person inherits one gene of each pair from each parent. Unfortunately, genes today contain many mistakes (because of sin and the Curse), and these mistakes show up in a variety of ways.

because of sin and the Curse? Were is the proof for that, oh yeah in the bible. In the end it always comes down to 'We know the bible is true because it says it's true in the bible'.

Oh and they seem to point you to things you need to buy quite a lot. Danny, did you read the texts other posters had suggested or did you dismiss them out of hand?

"Creationists interpret scientific data according to the Bible because we have the Word of someone who was there. "

What so "scientific" about interpreting data

wrt a bunch of allegorical tales!?

Do you think that wolves actually go hunting

by dressing up in sheepskin? (As per Aesop's fable.)

Sorry, but many of the comments against the museum bear the exact same hallmarks of bigotry and intolerance that the standard religious nutcases use. It's mostly "you're different from me, so you're stupid" arguments.

Not everybody sees evolution as the only explanation of life. It's certainly possible that there is a higher power that could have steered life out of the primordial soup into the world we know of. If you evolution nutters would stop putting all of your efforts into your 'all or nothing' arguments and figure that your fellow human beings are just as likely to have a grasp on a kernel of truth in there somewhere, you may learn something.

I think this museum is a sad display of how poorly understood science and a half-read and selectively understood bible can get hammered into an illogical ethos that scores $20 a head. However, it does make somebody a living, and entertainment based upon what people believe is nothing new.

However, just because some Americans are nuts doesn't mean that you can smugly conclude that all of us are. In terms of tolerance, it doesn't line up that neatly. If your fellow man decides to start his own religion on worshipping cheese, if you want your own religion to enjoy its protection, you need to tolerate the foul Camembert worshippers. Otherwise, you're no better than the rest of the world, which does not tolerate dissent.

crashIO: The church (which one?) can't say whatever it wants, it has to tell the truth. It accepts the truth by definition, rather than by democratic development, but it has definitions which it cares enough to use. Your desire to have the church convert itself to science is curiously religious in itself.

Rob Kirton: if creationist belief is inconsistent with tech employment, please explain whether you, or your computer, writes the programs you run. Although the computer touches the code last, doesn't it feel like 'you' wrote it...?

The book of Enoch, while it is an enjoyable read is not verifiable for the time period for which it is supposed to have been written. It was very interesting however.

Danny, I’d just like to pass on my thanks for the link to www.answersingenesis.org. Very funny :)

Most amusing I think were statements like:

“In fact, there is no proof whatsoever that the world and its fossil layers are millions of years old.” (Ham, K., Dinosaurs and the Bible)

which I’m sure a clearly intelligent and educated man such as yourself will be chuckling over just as much as I was. For the rest of you less enlightened folks the deliberate omission here is ‘Carbon Dating’. How we laughed eh Danny?

Thanks for the reply. Actually, you can meet him. His name is Jesus...

"That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9

Hugh_Pym

I am glad you checked out the site. Believing in the Bible as the final authority is the whole point. Yes, I read all of the posts but I would only bother responding to those posts that are not an open attack as opposed reasoned response.

Nev

"What so "scientific" about interpreting data"

Need I say more?

"Sorry, but many of the comments against the museum bear the exact same hallmarks of bigotry and intolerance that the standard religious nutcases use. It's mostly "you're different from me, so you're stupid" arguments."

Most of the arguments are "you're advocating something that has been repeatedly shown to be a load of tosh, so you're stupid". Believing this creationist nonsense is a choice, and there is nothing wrong with calling people out on the irrational and, frankly, stupid choices they make. This is not bigotry, it is discernment.

As for intolerance, do you see calls for the museum to be closed? Suggestions that people should be prevented from going there? No, you don't. You see criticisms of its existence - valid criticism. Tolerating something does not preclude criticising it.

Tom wrote:

'which I’m sure a clearly intelligent and educated man such as yourself will be chuckling over just as much as I was. For the rest of you less enlightened folks the deliberate omission here is ‘Carbon Dating’. How we laughed eh Danny?'

Only in a very few circumstances is carbon dating useful on a geological timescale; the half-life of C14 at 5700 years is just too short for most samples - 2 half lives takes you back just as far as the end of the last glacial. Instead they use other isotopes - potassium 40 -> argon 40, rubidium 87 -> strontium 87 and about a dozen others.

The creationists have got it in for C14 in particular because of the unique way it is made (by radiation bombardment of nitrogen), and like to point out (as if it wasn't originally discovered by scientists working on radiodating) that the recent mass consumption of fossil fuels, and the atmospheric detonation of nuclear weapons have screwed up C14 ratios in modern samples. HOWEVER, this has all been resolved by pinning C14 ratios to known dates recovered from samples of timber, lake sediments and so on.

However, the wackos still have one trump card. Pointing out (like it was new to the scientists who actually discovered it), volcanic emissions are depleted in C14, they say that it was obvious the Biblical Flood must have been accompanied by massive eruptions which would have screwed up the ratios - so you can't rely on C14 at all.

See how believing in one bit of nonsense allows them to dismiss almost anything. Creationism is an intricately woven web of lies with just enough mention of science to make it sound credible to a Panorama producer (sorry separate rant), but with actually no credibility whatsoever.

As for this museum, it's like 'The Flintstones' the themepark isn't it?

Danny

"Believing in the Bible as opposed reasoned response."

I can quote out of context and edit stuff too.

Similar, in some respects, to how the early

church edited the bible.

;-)

...we always hear the term "open-minded" in these discussions from both sides of the argument?

<Facts>

You do not know what happens to you when you die or before you are born.

Anyone who tells you that they know what happens to you when you die or before you were born is deluded.

One day you will die and then I'll respect your opinion on this subject. (honestly, I'd love to hear from you)

</Facts>

I'm an agnostic which doesn't mean I stand on the fence - it means that I accept the fact that I don't know the answer and never will until I die (maybe). It doesn't mean that I profess a belief in God to hedge my bets for an afterlife - any God who would require that of me wouldn't get my vote anyway.

I'm happy in my ignorance, why can't you be? After all, you are all ignorant on this subject and just need to admit it to yourselves. (This applies to Christians, Muslims, Jews, in fact any religious or spiritual group and athiests alike).

Anyone got any empirical evidence?

Thought not!

That's great Danny, I'm free most of next week except Monday. A lunch appointment would be good, would you mind if I brought the world's media with me, I think they'd like to film/photograph/write about the event.

If not I could pass my mobile number on to Jesus and he could give me a bell as to when he's free for a meeting (I promise I won't try and sell him anything, I'm not that sort of consultant).

Looking forward to meeting the lad, thanks for letting me know he has a corporeal form again, that one seems to have missed the world media and even the El Reg.

Joe Jones: You missed my point entirely. My point is religion, if it was nearly as tolerant as its believers claimed...could trump all science without disputing the science. However the church leaders (notice I didn't say spiritual leaders because most spiritual folks, even Christians actually agree with me) have decided to enforce and brace a collection of stories and claim them to be the final authority. Unfortunately that collection of stories has been rewritten so many times as to have diluted (IMHO) much of what it was teaching in the first place. I am not looking for a church of science...we supposedly have that already (ask Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes) and they are every bit as corrupt, and full of misinformation as the rest.

Do I believe in God...perhaps. I believe in something greater than myself and God is as good a label as anything else. Do I believe in evolution? I believe in its precepts. Obviously not having been there myself I have to rely on learned individuals smarter than myself (and you). Do I think the park is a bad idea? Yes because it is teaching and entertaining (beyond all reason and data) that people and dinosaurs walked about the planet 2000 years ago. Yet the oldest copy of the Torah is 2500 years old. Explain the discrepancy please. The theme park is bad but it is at least voluntary. Kansas was by far much worse for FORCING the Creationism doctrine in school.

It comes down to this...you shouldn't want creationism in science class anymore than I should want evolution in Church. Simple as that. Theme parks are okay but I have problems with anything religion themed that makes money for the sake of making money. You cannot get rich on religion and consider yourself spiritual.

That is nothing more than neo-Calvinism. And it is wrong.

Danny: This would seem to imply that you regard the Bible as one coherent statement. I won't even try to explain to you why that's wrong - you either red it and managed to contort your mind to the point where you're so proficient in doublethink that O'Brien would be proud of you, or you haven't and are merely parroting soundbites hammered into you by others.

Let me make one or two comments for thought.

While I was raised in a conservative religious tradition that taught that God created in 6 days, I have chosen to challenge all of those beliefs. I have read the comments and ideas by evolutionists. I have read the biblical interpretations by those who see the Bible as a fairy tale. Yet, I keep returning to the truths that I was taught (mostly).

Neither creationism nor evolution are science. They are philosophies upon which we interpret our scientific data. An evolutionist will approach an experiment from one perspective and will ask himself a certain set of questions. The creationist can approach the same experiment, perform it differently and ask different questions. The reason? They have different basis' for their understanding of the facts.

So is one more or less scientific than the other? No. Neither is scientific. Both are philosophical structures. (And I am creationist and I recognize that evolutionists have greatly impacted science for good.)

When it is all said and done, I believe that neither view can prove their case beyond "a shadow of a doubt." Both will require faith at some point to make up for the gaps in our knowledge. It is my belief that creationism answers the evidence around us more effectively.

And for all the snide comments on both sides of the debate? Both groups fail to respect the other. That is cruel (besides, it makes you look unintelligent). Learn to disagree peacefully and to foster beneficial conversation. You could learn from the other side (and it doesn't require changing you core beliefs).

Rob,

God already left a message but it's not on your phone. I appreciate a good sense of humor but seriously I hope that you will take the time to read the Bible if you have not already. When all of the joking is over there is still a inescapable truth. Now, if you will excuse me I am late for my flat earth society meeting. <--- Sarcasm tag!

What design would be greater? One that describes the whole universe in a single function that could be a single tought or one that puts it together from various bits and pieces that couldn't fit together without help? Making something static is easy. Designing a system that would build itself up from it's basic element (pure energy) into the wanted result (the current universe) is much harder.

I'm asking because many scientists belive in God, but they think the whole universe could be described as one big 'wave function', but this could only be fully understood by someone outside (above) the universe. The strange thing is that even ancient greeks described something similar as the only logical structure of the universe. On the other hand there are creationists, who think everything was created piece by piece without any connection to each other.

When you look at the bible, you can see many things, first that the tale of creation is correct, but the time scale is not linear, but rather logarithmic. If we think as some scientists and assume that the whole current universe was already determined before the first moment of the big bang, that would mean God created the universe with a single 'tought' and that tought contained the 'algorithm' that would build up the universe (actually it's still running). First the time and space dimensions and pure energy (aka. light), then matter (earth), then various lifeforms and as we near the end of this algorithm (or preset function) we humans came around. If you look at scientific evidence then the timeline is correct, except the scale is different. But since we know that people of the old testament used moon cycles to count their age, we can assume that the scale wasn't the same in this case either. (if you take that literally that would mean Adam from the Bible was 77.5 years old when he died, sounds quite correct to me)

So what I'm trying to tell is that there is no collision between the Bible and science, but people tend to interpret both sides wrong. However scientists have to admit an error when someone finds one but creationists doesn't want to think and see. You don't have to belive in something when you can be sure and know the truth.

ps: Yes, i suggest that the universe is deterministic. It's something we don't know for sure, but current scientific results say it looks like it is. If that is true, that means God can see the whole universe as a flipbook and see all past present and future events as an at least 4 dimensional static structure. My favourite quote about this is that we are like the little cells in a game of life and the universe runs as a program (or 'wave function') created by God...

""What so "scientific" about interpreting data"

Need I say more?"

Yes please say more...

If I interpret Data on a book that has unverified facts (just like the Bible) I can come to alot of different conclusions

If you look at the works of the brothers grimm you can say that wolves are known to dress up like lil old ladys and eat children.

So therefor seeing I interpreted data (from a source unverified if it is true (just like the bible)) it is now scientific fact...

So no we can go take it one step further and discern that animals can dress up like people do to the "Truth" in the brothers grimm works so maybe the registers really ran by vultures just dressed up impersonateing people. Seeing wolves can do it, according to a book that I believe is factual that I extracted "data" from, why can't other species..

I hope you see how the based on data from 1 book theory is a pile of rubbish. and how its NOT scientific. But with your attitude I doubt its possible...

..what with T.Rex , a few velociraptors and a pair of diplodoci!

I find this topic quite interesting from a spectators point of view.

Me, I am not religious. But I have studied most of the major religions through general interest, and most of them seem to have something in common. They all seem to start with someone saying "Be nice to each other, treat others the way you wish to be treated yourself."

At the time these religions gained popularity, they became the central legal system for the towns and villages in which people lived. This is fine for small disputes, but it can cause trouble when scaled up. If changing the way a particular phrase is worded in the "holy text" can incite hatred, or be used to gain power over others, then human nature would dictate that this has happened at some point. (Unless EVERY person in every religious hierarchy was never motivated by peer pressure or personal gain.)

This is why the Catholic church objected to the printing press (not that I have anything against them, it's just history). If everyone has a copy of the "holy text" then it's a lot harder to change things.

Even changing a text from one language to another will cause inconsistencies, as there may be no equivalent phrase in the other language, without factoring in regional dialects or changing slang.

Anyway, I digress. I'm all for religion if it can make you a better person. I know a few people who's lives are led in a very religious way (not all the same religion), and they are nice people. (If a little strange)

I know some assholes who are very religious, who seem to think that being nice to others isn't necessary as they are not specifically told to be nice to anyone who wears a hat/ is tall/ looks different to me.

I don't think any of the religious texts are written now exactly as they were when conceived, and by now are just as fictional as whatever the Creationists / Scientologists/ teletubbies have managed to come up with. Think of it like newspapers, each has it's own slant on the story, and if the story is around long enough you could read two different papers and think they were two different events. And sensationalism sells, whether you are selling books, DVD's or religion.

I'm looking forward to visiting the place. Personally, I think you need as much if not more faith to believe in evolution as creationism. Both are theories, not scientific facts as some claim. You can't recreate evolution in a lab.

As for Mr. Watson's comment about educated individuals, believing creationism does not make you less educated. Mr. Ken Ham is among many very well educated scientists who disagree with the popular theory of evolution.

OK, start typing. I'm sure those who put their faith in evolution will be quick to flame my post.

That'd be the Natural History museum wouldn't it?

Note that's NATURAL history, not supernatural history.

Isn't it about time The Bible was placed in the fiction section of the bookshops anyway? I mean the Dead-sea Scrolls and other original Hebrew texts contain a lot good information on the history of Jesus (born of a *maiden* mother in the original Isaiah! :-) but the current versions are more like the Hollywood films "based (only very losely) on real events"...

> Believing in the Bible as the final authority is the whole point.

Except that the Bible tells us explicitly that we're living in a bubble with a big tank of water over the top (with holes that let the rain through) and a big tank of water underneath (lakes and seas). That's what "He made the water above and the water below" means. And it tells us that the Sun goes round this bubble. Oops.

As folk myths for how the world looks, it makes some sense. But it ain't true. The Greeks put a fair hole in the first part of that folk myth, before Yahwistic groups made any impact on Europe, by figuring out that we were on a globe. Copernicus and Galileo scuppered the second bit, and the Inquisition (who believed as you do in the literal correctness of the Bible) did their best to suppress their findings.

Pope John Paul II said, and I quote, "Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven."

I'm all for tolerance, but it needs to be pointed out that the creationists, or at least the loud politically active ones in the USA, are themselves very intolerant. They want their beliefs, and their beliefs alone, taught in the public schools. They think their religious beliefs trump the entire scientific community in determining what is taught in science courses. Many of the fundamentalist "Christian" organizations in the USA have their roots in providing the "moral" framework to justify slavery and later segregation. These groups need divisive issues to keep the money coming in, and are looking for ways to keep the fire burning.

They are free to be ignorant and racists, but they don't have the right to teach my kids ignorance and hatred. They have a right to make a museum, and the rest of us have a right to be critical of it.

Note that I belong to a non-fundamentalist Christian sect myself, and attend services nearly every Sunday with my kids. The creationism vs. evolution "debate" is frequently framed as religion vs. science, but it's not really that. Labels such as "Atheist," "Christian," "Muslim," etc. are not really the point. It's whether you are willing to listen to others and respect them as people, or whether you use your belief system to look down on others, make yourself feel superior, and ignore what others have to say. Most creationists I’ve met fall into the latter category. However, some of the vocal atheist critics of creationism do as well, which perversely helps the creationists.

Intolerance is the core problem, and this whole debate is a manifestation of it.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?

---

(good ol' Epicurus)

"The only thing that stops God from sending a second flood is that the first one was useless." --Nicolas Chamfort

Its been a while since I looked at a bible but I could have sworn that Jesus was not around at the creation. He came in much later - how much later rather depends on your point of view on this topic :)

Steve

The bible is a book written a few hundred years after the fact from a collection of stories put together by people of different faiths in a differing language and then passed round for 2000 years. Accurate???????

Can we believe in a book that is.

Taken by word of mouth in a region where dialect differed greatly. Depending if you were hebrew (which never travelled beyonf their own local areas) Or Roman who by there empire like nature had languages from all areas of Europe and N Africa.

Taken by people of opposing faiths, most of which won't have liked Jesus because the romans didn't. Romans did kill people who talked like Jesus.

Taken and written down by people, over and over again. There were no printing press so each copy was hand made.

Taken and amended at will by any country through the years to suit their needs. Let's face it, only monks could, so who can deny what the bishop said when he changed it to get away with one sin or the other. I know, crazy to think bishops abused their level of power in the dark ages.

Once put together was then translated to a language you could read....... And we all know that works well.

Still believe in the bible? I won't ask about the realistic implications of Noah or the Adam and Eve incest question, that would be poking fun.

Religion is a blind faith, you can't see what you believe in after all. It is based on what you are told or read, no proof to be had. Better to believe what you can see and what you can prove. Intelligent design and the usual faiths are all just made up by someone and evolved through story telling. Except Scientology which is based on the work of a modern day certified nutter. :)

I am a devout atheist and I have a degree in geography and geology, I studied for years on fossils and rock, how they formed and why. I know of the evolution of the planet from experiment and data, how life formed from the dead ones preserved. So you can see which side of the fence I am sitting on.

Steven, it must have been a while. Try reading the book of John again. All things were created through God's Son. It was not until later that He took the form of a man to redeem his creation.

To many others who have responded, there is only a couple of creationists posts here. I am curious. Which ones are intolerant? Hmmmm... Looks like were not the ones not tolerating beliefs here. This looks like a double standard.

Many “experts” today who do not believe in a universal standard of truth or morals suggest that we ought to tolerate everyone's beliefs. “But 'ought' implies a moral absolute that toleration is good.”- Sarfati

Best post today.

Somebody mentioned "society with highly-restricted literacy"

That's the key to it all, really... I would just take out "society" and put "world" there to make it more accurate.

I only respect those who deserve respect. By default, all people deserve respect, until they lose it. I don't respect Neonazis. I don't respect rapists. I don't respect corrupt people in government or elsewhere. I don't respect crooks and liars who use religion for profit or political gain (basically every politician nowadays?).

Now, being ignorant is fine, nobody is forced to be born knowing it all. And obviously nobody does (some mentally challenged people believe they know it all, though). What is not fine is being willfully ignorant, being shown you have no clue what you're talking about, but keep doing it nonetheless. Everybody has access to the scientific body of knowledge nowadays (and don't start with that "there are lots of scientists who reject evolution", because that's a shameful lie). You could say that they did get the information but didn't understand it because of stupidity. Nah, I don't think anybody is that stupid. Everybody who's not mentally dysfunctional has more than enough intelligence. And even if the understanding was not complete, at least they would know that there are people who know those things (for example, I'm not an astrophysicist and don't understand the minutiae of what those guys do, so I have to believe what the community of astrophysicists concluded about the universe). So it is all either dishonesty or mental retardation. Sorry if you don't like this and feel like I'm talking about you, but life ain't fair.

That's why I don't respect creationists/ IDiots ("intelligent" design people, in case you haven't got it), and I don't have to. I don't care for all the PC crap (by the way, this is an IT site but I'm not talking Personal Computers here, but Politically Correct... :-) If you say something stupid about my field of work, I'll not stay quiet about it (I'm a professional evolutionary biology, in case you're wondering). First, I'll try to educate you, which is what I'm usually paid to do. If that does not work, I'll try to educate others to the fact you're an idiot.

And what in the warming Earth is a "tought" anyway?

Cheers

J

crashIO: The church (which one?) can't say whatever it wants, it has to tell the truth. It accepts the truth by definition, rather than by democratic development, but it has definitions which it cares enough to use. Your desire to have the church convert itself to science is curiously religious in itself.

Rob Kirton: if creationist belief is inconsistent with tech employment, please explain whether you, or your computer, writes the programs you run. Although the computer touches the code last, doesn't it feel like 'you' wrote it...?

Ha ha, are you serious? The church has to tell the truth and accept it by definition, sounds like the script from 'Silent Hill'.

People like you frighten me, you are the next generation of super facist already starting to get their grip on a super power (America) and imposing your military strength on those who do not conform.

To think that someone could demean their thought process and the human race like this is despicable.

<quote>

It's like God is a science teacher that has to teach children of all ages. He's trying to tell the older kids about evolution, but they won't listen and keep saying "but when we were five and you told us about this, you just said you made the animals. How can you tell us that there was more to it than that? We won't listen to you anymore."

</quote>

EXACTLY! I firmly believe that the Creator teaches us at the level of our own understanding. When we are small, we were taught that babies come from the mommy's tummy. As we mature we get told a more accurate, but complicated, explanation.

BTW, I don't believe that Intelligent Design should be taught as science. It's just a reworking of religion / philosophy.

Money is used to pay for your sins. If you have enough money you can sin all you want and still make it to heaven as long as you have paid your dept.

They even have menu pricing but I'll probably need some assistance starting with the 10 commandments.

1) worship no other gods; Now let's see how many times have we gone out of our way to worship something other than the divine deity? Well some of us love candy, others love sex. So there has to be a cost of this sin to be fair to all.

2) no idols before me; There goes Simon Cramwell. What's this one worth maybe a few bucks, it really can't be that much since this one is a little unreasonable. I mean what if the Smurfs have it right all along? Look how many christians would be in dept, they'd have enough to pay the US dept five times over.

2) the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name; Ok this is normally pretty routine so this has to be a flat rate.

3) the seventh day is a sabbath you shall not do any work; I keep telling my wife I shouldn't be mowing the lawn so I'm going to pawn this one off on her. The wives pay this bill.

4) Honor your father and your mother; This is a tough one cause most of us rebelled against our parents from about 12 to 21 then we learned we had to pay rent! So I think this would have to be the current rental of a flat for 9 years.

5) You shall not murder; This one is easy. Some scientist once took the human body down to it's basic chemical compounds and found that the worth of a human body once broken down was about .27 cents (btw gas was going for that same price at the time). So my basic going human compounds might fetch about $3.20. Also depending on who you murder should have certain multiples added to it. For instance if you murder someone like me who's only got a few years left anyway then you might double that cost. If you murder a child well, don't even get me started but I don't think there would be enough money in anyone account to pay for that one.

6) You shall not commit adultery; This has to be another flat rate thing. Something we can all afford.

7) You shall not steal; Define steal? This one is sort of vauge but if you include things like stealing patents from mankind like the oil companies buy out patents for alternative fuels this should be considered stealing. Then this would be to the extent you've harmed mankind. For instance a man who steals food to feed his children would probably pay less than the oil companies who steal from mankind by buying up any research for alternative fuels. This should be an automatic douse with flames bit.

8) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Yeah come on this one is pretty straight forward, if you're going to be jerk the penalty should be that you become jerky!

9) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor; Whoa this had more to it than when I saw Ceicle B Demille's version. Hey listen if I start to covet my neighbors donkey like his wife then I'm ready for a heavy jacket with belts and buckles.

I see a lot of crazy talk on both sides, but I see more undue poking from the supposedly scientific posters... though I don't see them professing anything other than a dislike of the creationist model and support of the evolution model, so maybe science has nothing to do with it.

1) Before you talk about your religious beliefs please remember that trust in the bible/spaghetti monster/xyz is faith based. Proof is not necessary and trying to incorporate it will often bring about disaster (not always though).

2) Evolution is... well, a theory, or fact (whichever way you want it). In either case remember what all science is based on, not fact (in the sense of absolute truth), not observance which determines the case for the fact, but instead assumption. Yes that's right, it's all based on on the assumption that you understand the cause and effect. A real scientist accepts the continual possibility of being wrong, otherwise they are using faith to justify themselves (Doesn't make them wrong though).

You can put me in the idiot category, because I'm not trolling, but at least I know I'm an idiot.

So, when the flu or some other nasty bug goes around, do you get a new vaccine, which only makes sense if the virus evolved, or do you just pray instead?

FYI, Jesuit colleges and schools around here proudly teach evolution, physics, etc, and not Intelligent Design, Creationism, or Geocentric views. Even when the school is named after the guy who persecuted Galileo Galilei.

It doesn't exactly amaze me that most of the creationists posting here don't understand what science is. (It depresses me, yes, but doesn't amaze me.)

It does slightly surprise me that most of the 'scientists' (/techies/agnostics/whathaveyou) posting here don't seem to understand what religion is.

It seems to me that it is not possible or practical to live your entire life solely using scientific theory. (I hypothesise that I would like a cup of tea. Experiment: don't drink one, see if I get thirstier...nah.) I think that sooner or later everyone takes *something* on faith. (I don't have the math to prove that the sun will come up tomorrow, for instance.)

What people choose to take on faith is entirely up to them. If (for example) believing in a big beard in the sky makes them a better person, then that's cool. But it does bug me when faith pretends to be science. It's not necessary for creationists to prove that god exists; and if they could, it would make their religion redundant.

I found this book, called the NEW Bible. And in it are a bunch of stories written by God. Yes, God wrote them himself. I know because it said it was his handwriting. And all the handwriting is the same. Therefore it must be God's word.

In it, he said that the world is exactly One Million Years old. He said yes, yes, he knows, how can it be that old if he took care of everything in such a short period of time. He said that, yes he did do everything in seven days. He said that part was right. But he also said Adam and eve really lived for 100,000 years and Abraham too. He said only recently did people start living so shortly. It became a problem because he drank a lot of Jesus Juice and had to take a wicked piss, bigger than usual because of it and that's what caused the big flood. God also said that the occasional landslide was not a force of nature, but rather the results of him eating a very spicy curry. He said, he's God so he shits water and mud. He said, actually he approves of war and fighting because the world is like one giant game of Command and Conquer to him. He REALLY likes Command and Conquer. He is also very heterosexual and said that he has nothing against "the gays" and that Sodom was totally misinterpreted. God said the fire and stuff was just a result of a friend he had over who was into that kind of thing who decided to wank while he was in the shower. He said "it definitely was not me, but Bill came over and was watching over things while I was in the shower and the next thing I know he is spewing fire all over Sodom that perv." God said him and his friends have semen of fire and brimstone because well, "if you could have semen of fire and brimstone you would too wouldn't you, you sick, sick fuck." God also said he apologizes for the massive fire in Chicago a while back and said that was a result of ashes of an L he was smoking falling on the Earth. God said "whoops, shit, I was so messed up I had it in a Big G roach and an ember fell and God damnit." He also said it's only ok for him to use his own name in vain. Dinosaurs, those were like having a pet lizard to him because it's badass to have pet lizards, but they ate too much food so he shrunk them. He said he was doing some tests with shrinking people too and that's why we have Lilliputians. He thinks people eat too much and are too fat, and damnit, "I can't have my Command and Conquer squads full of fat fucks who can't run or do anything even remotely heroic." He said at least back in the day people got Medals of Honor for killing like 300 enemy troops while yelling like Rambo from the top of a disabled tank. He wants to see more stuff like that. God said "give me more bloodthirsty action or else I will just make midget armies and take over the world. Because they are funny and they eat less." He also said war medals were something he invented and he regularly talks to presidents and prime ministers and other world leaders and that Bush isn't crazy. God said, "I made Bush an idiot because I knew he would tell on me and that I talked to him, so that was his punishment. I'm God ferrchristsakes I can see the future." He also said that the Clinton cigar thing was his idea and that Prince Charles is actually a result of his mom fucking a horse. God says "old queenie was real equestrian if you know what I mean."

And all of this was just the first page of the NEW Bible. I can scan it and put it online if you need more proof but it says it's his word so I know it has to be.

Lets assume God exists in some form or other.

God creates a mountain. The mountain (created directly by God) contains ample evidence of millions of years of existence.

Man creates a book that he claims is the word of god. The book says the mountain can only be a few thousand years old.

Given a choice between the word of a direct creation of God and a man-made work claimed to be the word of god, I know where my belief would lie!

What harm will it do to let them have their museum? I say very little. As a devoted Pastafarian I have little interest in parting with my $20 and paying a visit myself and even if I did visit I fail to see how a walk around a building full of rubber animals, robotic manikins and a knock up scale model of a big boat is going to change my fundimental beliefs on the nature of the universe. If years of religious influence and christian teaching throughout my formative years was unable to convince me that it all sounded like it was made up by primative people in the absence of more acurate evidence or explanation I doubt an afternoons walk around this new museum will.

Those willing to pay their hard earned cash to visit this attraction are already converted or favourable to the point of view expressed by the museum. I sencerely doubt that they will be expecting bus loads of muslims to turn up looking for a fun filled and fact packed afternoon (I suppose if they did they would no doubt increase security and ring fence the building with those concrete barriers that you find around american embassies these days)

If you visit their website you will see that they are promoting museum memberships at around three times the price of a single admissions ticket. This would imply that these customers will visit at least three times a year to get their money's worth. This offer is hardly pitched at those who are skeptical or the unconverted now is it?

Lets be honest, this is an exercise in seperating the gullible from their hard earned money by the use of a good story and some well crafted props.

For those who ask there is indeed a spagetti museum, Rome is not just the home of the vatican. The following can be found in Rome, in Piazza Scanderbeg 117, a few steps from the Trevi Fountain, at the foot of the Quirinale Palace.

http://www.museodellapasta.it/index.php

Now if anyone happens know the address of the nearest beer volcano or the fabled stripper factory and is willing to pass it on I would be most thankful.

Blain,

In response to Galileo:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/galileo.asp

In response to nasty bugs:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/0216bird_flu.asp

I often find this argument in the mouth of creationists. They don't understand evolution (or genetics, or physics) so it means it has to be wrong.

For you creationists: we (scientific thinkers) are not a bunch of self deluded guys that, when we find a hole in our theories, just bury it. That's exactly the opposite of what scientists do: they look for holes and develop rational and demonstrable explanations.

There are no holes in evolution. Evolution has been proved in as many ways as something can be proven. It has been proven by logic (given what we know about the structure of living beings, it is inevitable that it will occur). It has been proven in the lab (by observing the rate of adaptation and evolution in micro organisms, which matches the rate theory would predict). We have NOT observed new species to develop in the lab, which is EXACTLY what theory predicts. If someone had observed in the lab that a new species arose naturally in a short period, then that woudl actually DISPROVE evolution. It has been proven by direct observation, since finding the cadaver of an animal (in the form of a fossil) and using very accurate mechanisms to predict it's date can be considered direct observation. The holes in the fossil record match very well what would be expected.

It has also been simulated in computers and the results match very well the predictions. And it has been confirmed by later findings (Darwin's theory was developed decades before the first findings about DNA were done, but he predicted, based on the evidence, that some form of transmitting information beteen generations, highly but not perfectly reliable and common to all living beings was there, and that's exactly what scientists found in DNA many decades later). It explains extremely well all forms of life we find now, even those that have "design errors" that are sub optimal for their environment but that can be explained by evolution from other forms that were adapted to a different environment.

Evolution and cosmology are WAY more complex than you imagine, and the fact that you, at first glance over a few facts, don't understand everything, doesn't make it wrong. If there's something you don't understand, just ask. There's a perfectly good explanation that doesn't involve "someone must have come up and created it like it is" and the scientists, more often than not, have that answer. And when they don't, it is almost always something that we just, as humas, haven't figured out yet, but it doesn't contradict logic or science.

Apparently telling lies is not something against the creationsts beliefs.

Because Darwin NEVER converted, and NEVER dismissed evolution. There's no record or indication that he did, and all the potential witnesses (family and friends) always said he didn't. It is a later invention by someone that wanted to dismiss Darwin's theory.

But even if he had done such an absurd thing (again, he didn't) a fact is a fact and a change in mind of his author doesn't change it.

Now gentlemen, you know its best not to feed the trolls like Danny.

Intelligent adults give up their imaginary friends at about 10 years old, and

Its pointless arguing with the deluded/mentally challenged creationinsts.

And before Danny rabbits on about more scripture quotes, I studied the bible extensively as a youth and concluded very quickly its a load of rubbish.

Dave

<quote>I see a lot of crazy talk on both sides, but I see more undue poking from the supposedly scientific posters... though I don't see them professing anything other than a dislike of the creationist model and support of the evolution model, so maybe science has nothing to do with it.</quote>

You know, Adrian Crooks, all very nice and well. I kinda used to think along these lines too: why don't the scientists go there and debate, why don't they go there and teach the people, why aren't they nice and all that. Are they afraid? Yeah, I was a young and naive student, wondering why my professors wouldn't do those things and show people our best understanding of how things are. One of them once said that she did not have the patience and the time. How could she be so selfish and snobby? thought I.

Well, time and quite some experience in this type of situation have shown me why the vast majority of scientists do not even try anymore. How much fun (and return for your time investment) do you think it is to discuss a technical/ scientific issue with somebody who is illiterate in that issue? In this case, not just illiterate, but also highly delusional to boot, so no matter what you say, it won't make a difference? Just take a look at the posts from this Danny, who seems to be the resident nutter of the day (there is always one when these discussions come up), or others who popped up here and there. How can we humanly be able to be patient and explain something to this kind of "argument"? So we just get mad instead, and the cycle repeats itself. As it would if we did actually try to be nice and got ulcers unsuccessfully arguing and explaining.

If you are an economist, do you tell the brain surgeon that he is really all wrong about the latest in pre-frontal surgery? Hardly. Then, shut up until you are a brain surgeon too.

It's appeared more than once in this thread, so it bears correction. Evolution hasn't been a scientific theory for numerous decades - the process is directly observable and is studied and utilised by researchers all the time. It is the ***mechanism*** of evolution that isn't wholly understood or explainable (to be more precise, I should say the mechanism of speciation as the evolution of genetic traits and their transfer is quite well, if incompletely, understood at the molecular level for many species studied in the lab).

FWIW, Darwin's text was about 'the theory of evolution by natural selection' and not 'the theory of evolution' per se. It is the natural selection part of this phrase that was theoretical at the time, not the evolution part. But if creationists want to perpetuate their tired saw that evolution is "only a theory" on the back of their mis-interpretation of this statement, why let a few decades worth of biochemical and genetic research get in the way of the espousal of their own ignorance, huh?

OK, If god made everything, who made him?? and dont go quoting 'infinity' !!!

I think any faith is for people to answer 'irritating questions' about where did I come from?, etc, etc...

- and once they have matured enough to see the 'bigger picture', that *any* sufficiently advaced people will seem like a god to a cave man, they can then start looking in depth at possible scenarios...

consider a tiny bug about the size of a dot, walking on a flower... you pick it up, and put it on a diffrent one... just suppose that bug is fully aware - what would it make of this 'god' of such immensity, that can move with such speed ???

Another thought.... most people know about the 'structure of the atom' - what if our entire universe is actually 'the atom' in another, even larger universe???

You should read the books by Douglas Adams - there are many ideas there...

Another good story is 'the matrix' - we are just a simulation that has been left running!!

Or even an experiment that failed, and no-one bothered to stop....

It is amazing that people like you who supposed to think thoroughly and reach a wise decision have been so absorbed with their genitals that they accept the unbelievable as the “Modern Solid Facts and fashion” and view people who believe in “love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you” as intolerant???. The so many comments written above about Christians are a solid proof at least to me as who really is intolerant. My detailed study in Biology, Biochemistry, Human Medical Sciences challenge my brain when it come to Evolution

To begin with for your grand ma the Cosmos to make a primitive life that lead to millions of utterly sophisticated creatures there have to be a simple equation. That life whatever primitive it can be have to be 1- alive. 2-able to capture food, use it and to grow 3- able to divide and multiply 4- able to move otherwise it will die after exhaustion of resources around 5- have to be at least capable of some defense against the elements 6- Have at least a fraction of intelligenc to avoid harmful insults and enforce a good stimulus and this is only some. There is no life form that we know of capable of this so far except DNA and RNA life. Go to any Medical or Biology library to see the basic composition of these wonderful components and how complex they are “ as some of you may know this is the building blocks of Genes which in turn decide the above mentioned characters. To make a single lonely Gene it takes millions of chemical reactions each under special condition and some even requires other types of enhancing chemical called substrates.Oops, I forgot to tell you that DNA OR RNA can not live by it self, it need a wall to protect it and pass only the required chemicals to make it survive and even correct its code it something wrong happen, also it need supporting tissue “they call it Plasma” and so many other components beyond this short comment.

Now to all of you Geniuses out their who think the unlife can create life and the unwise can create the wise, please read about life itself and you will see God in it. If you can believe that your computer have a manufacturer “ and not a product of your gand ma the Cosmos” then you may reach a different conclusion and let me tell you that one simple living cell is way too more complicated than any of your computers

For the wise one who concluded that God is not omnipotent because of all the evil in the world, My Question is if God true love vanished and every person who lie, steal, lust or cheat “and the list is long” get zapped by a heavenly thunder or whatever would any of us survive including the punch of people who by there own admittance prefer to be mutated monkeys rather than wonderful creatures made by a wonderful maker

It might be worth going if only for the planetarium, to see the earth at the centre of God's universe....(o:

I simply cannot resist pointing out that you studiously ignore Pope Jean-Paul II's words.

Let me re-quote from above : <<Pope John Paul II said, and I quote, "Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven.">>

So, Danny, any comment ? Or are you simply going to continue ignoring this declaration from your infallible spiritual leader, just like you ignore education and science as a whole ?

If God created all things then I sure he could create a book that would tell you what you need to know without the need for some hate filled arsehole telling what 'god really meant'.

Read the books, believe what you want, don't let people tell you what to believe. It is as it always has been - God is great, religion stinks.

If there is no such thing as evolution, then it must be assumed that god or the inteligent designer made everything Lions, Tigers, Cheetahs and Pumas and all other things from scratch.

Lions did not evolve from Tigers, and Tigers did not evolve from Lions and the same for everything else.

The Bible says god created man in his own image.

Since the argument goes no such thing as evolution. White men can't evolve from black men or oriental man or mouri.

If god made Adam one skin colour and evolution does not exist god must also have made each other skin colour seperately.

So which race was made in gods image and which are the inferior skin colours?

Or is creationism just racist garbage?

For an easily digestible, enjoyable yet detailed read on this very subject, try reading Science of the DiscWorld 3.. Darwins Watch.

I say let them rip the fools for their $20 - the church of god usually gives way to the church of money at some point.

I won't picket their events, tells them who they can sleep with, on which days and in which positions. I sure do think they're daft, ignorant and can't help but wander how it is they need to be led so blindly into a place where fear and hatred rule - but ya know, that's their choice.

Just as long as they don't try make me do the same.

I forget who said it (a leader of one of the Lesbian/Gay groups), and I'm sure I'm misquoting but it went something like this:

We should be compassionate towards the simple people in the world who still feel it necessary to have their lives led for them by the churches.

Me - I tend to treat them the same way I do stupid children - let them play, but not near anything sharp, and away from other children.

Shame.

This Brother Consolmagno puts it all into perspective. People used to attribute thunderbolts to gods before they understood them. More here...

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=674042006

A Danny wrote the following defending creationism

" ... It is evolutionary thought that disagrees with the Bible. You interpret the same data creationists interpret, only according to your own naturalistic bias. Either you believe the Bible or you don't. ... "

Waw, that is a scientific statement: - either you believe it, or you don't -.

I rest my case.

Wrong. Evolution is a scientific theory: logical, evidence-based (yes it is) and most importantly *falsifiable*.

Creationism is the lacks logic, is based on written religious dogma and is very definitely not falsifiable.

Suggesting that the two are equal is like suggesting that my uncle Keith's theory that space aliens run Channel 4 is as valid as General Relativity.

IMHO, accepting the unbelievable, is something one can more aptly apply to those who believe continual intervention by a deity is necessary, than to those who believe there is a mechanism by which life changes and becomes more fitting to its environment.

But yes all should be tolerant of others' views, and remain polite. But in fairness it is difficult to remain tolerant of those who seem to be encouraging belief in the outrageous, and thus encouraging humankind to revert to unenlightened beliefs. Most wish us all to progress rather than go backwards.

1. Life has to be alive.

Ok, but hardly worth mentioning. Although. of course, initially something considered to be non-living has to "stumble" into replicating itself, so that life can emerge.

2. Life has to be able to capture food.

It depends on your definition of capture. Do plants "capture" food ? Not really.

3. Life should be able to replicate.

Well yes, but again hardly worth mentioning. That's fairly obvious surely.

4. Life should be able to move.

Well you can tell that to the trees in my backyard if you wish. Well I suppose they sway a little in the wind, but I wouldn't count that. No, this criteria is incorrect. So long as there is a perpetual source of energy it can use, life may flourish.

5. Life has to have some defence against the elements.

OK but how much ? You do realise the extremes that life have been discovered living in ? I'm unsure that this criteria means a great deal.

6. Life has to have some intelligence.

No it doesn't. It merely has to react to its environment in such a way that it survives to reproduce.

Given that the above shows you base your point of view on shaky foundations, I think one should conclude that it isn't really convincing. You seem to consider some of today's complex life forms in order to claim that they are unlikely to have evolved, But complexity doesn't suddenly appear. Simplicity does, and it changes to become more complex gradually. Knowing that, that must be so, any initial, "Oh wow, that can't be", feeling should rapidly disperse.

BTW computers do not reproduce themselves nor are unsuitable computers naturally removed from the PC pool, so, unfortunately your comparison doesn't work. And it's not that folk prefer to be "mutilated monkeys". Preference has nothing to do with it and surely it is rather telling that you believe it does. It's that a natural system whereby all existing species are the result of changes to earlier species, is the answer that best fits the known facts. And fitting one's belief to the facts is that which is of paramount importance.

Please do have a nice day and I hope something it my post helps you to understand the evolutionists' viewpoint and sympathise with it more.

That all said, the fact that there is a creationist museum is little more than a curiosity. It is unlikely to convince any but the already converted, or those who are about to be anyway.

Depending on your temperament, it may be hard to suffer fools gladly ... but it may be necessary if we are to get beyond the evolution / creation ping-pong we read here.

Why is it only people from a white/western/christian background that get into Creationism?

Many of the earlier religious books mentioned here (Torah etc) make up the bulk of the existing religious books that modern religions use. So, in the Bible and the Koran there are old Jewish texts. So if Creationism was as pervasive as it seems to make itself out to be then we would see the same thoughts and movements in other parts of the world who still worship the same God (read Muslims, Christians and Jews).

However, we dont see that happening do we? We only see Creationism in developed Western cultures and we dont seem to see any of it in any of the developed Eastern cultures.

I like reading about religions, kind of a hobby of mine. I like to see where they all meet up in the dim and distant past. Creationism, to me - this is my opinion only, seems like an ultra radical offshoot from Christianity that doesnt seem to take any other input to build its own view of the universe. They will often mention that all you need is the bible to define your role and position in the universe. However, Creationism seems to ignore other siginificant facts. For instance, they state that there were dinosaurs happily running around with us up to a few thousand years ago - about the same time as those clever chaps called the Romans and Greeks.

Funny how they never really talked about them much isnt it?

The most worrying thing about this is that our kids may actually beleive it.

Quote: "It is amazing that people like you who supposed to think thoroughly and reach a wise decision have been so absorbed with their genitals that they accept the unbelievable as the “Modern Solid Facts and fashion” and view people who believe in “love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you” as intolerant???. The so many comments written above about Christians are a solid proof at least to me as who really is intolerant. My detailed study in Biology, Biochemistry, Human Medical Sciences challenge my brain when it come to Evolution"

Christians don't have a monopoly on treating people nice. I always treat people how I'd like to be treated - these are humanist morals in action. Keep on persecuting homosexuals while you preach love for your brother man. Christians cannot claim the moral high ground and I resent the fact that so many of them try to.

Evolution is both a theory and a fact (or more accurately a body of facts). Theists so frequently and consistantly mis-interpret the scientific use of the word 'theory' (as if it meant 'an unsubtantiated hypothesis') that one can only assume they're doing it willfully. In the sense of the word used by scientists (i.e. the correct use), a theory is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena. Would you seriously argue that the theory of gravity is baseless simply because it has the word 'theory' attacyhed to it? If I posited that 'the Earth sucked' would you give it equal weight just because I wrote it down?

There is ample EVIDENCE (as opposed to 'proof', which is something else) supporting all of the aspects of evolution in general, and evolution of species through natural selection in particular. In some cases there is CAST IRON PROOF, and in other areas there is supporting evidence that could not be considered proof in and of itself, but is compelling, and perhaps more importantly consistent with the areas for which there is proof.

Those theists who continue to insist that 'evolution' as they like to call it is baseless, some sort of pseudo-religion, a position of faith, and no more valid or proven that Intelligent Design, are, I'm afraid simply either wrong, or being deliberately deceptive.

On another note, I'm seeing a lot of comments here from theists asserting that atheists are either rude, intolerent, close-minded or arrogant. I would point out that a theist that asserts to not only know a God exists, that claims to know the mind of God, that claims to have a personal relationship with God, and that claims to have a mandate to impose the will of God (whether by argument or coercion) on others, is the quintessence of arrogance, close-mindedness and intolerance. Their belief-system leaves no room for maneouvre. Any scientific theory can be demolished - simply find a better theory. What can possibly impact the obscurantist circular logic of baseless faith?

As I understand it, part of creationism is the belief that all human beings descended from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

I recently read a copy of Genesis (from the Standard American Bible) and this is what it said :

1/. Adam and Eve were put in the Garden of Eden by God, the Creator.

2/. Adam and Eve had 2 sons, Cain and Abel.

3/. Cain killed Abel and settled in "the Land of Nod" (to the east of Eden) where he met his wife.

So, Adam and Eve were the only 2 human beings until they had Cain and Abel.

Cain killed Abel, and was banished to the land of Nod, where he "had relations with his wife".

BUT, apart from Cain, Adam and Eve were the only 2 people left on earth.

So, was Cain's wife also Eve ? his Mother ? or Who ?

I can do no better than to quote Hitchens, when it comes to the arrogance of theists:

"The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did. Still less can they hope to tell us the "meaning" of later discoveries and developments which were, when they began, either obstructed by their religions or denounced by them. And yet—the believers still claim to know! Not just to know, but to know everything. Not just to know that god exists, and that he created and supervised the whole enterprise, but also to know what "he" demands of us—from our diet to our observances to our sexual morality. In other words, in a vast and complicated discussion where we know more and more about less and less, yet can still hope for some enlightenment as we proceed, one faction—itself composed of mutually warring factions—has the sheer arrogance to tell us that we already have all the essential information we need. Such stupidity, combined with such pride, should be enough on its own to exclude "belief" from the debate. The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species. It may be a long farewell, but it has begun and, like all farewells, should not be protracted."

Well, maybe a little.

The Bible, as I understand (and interpret it) is a collection of /stories/ for the common folk who lived many centuries ago. They're designed as a way to encourage a responsible and fair way of life.

They're no more a factual representation of history than Star Trek is a factual representation of the future.

I believe in evolution. Scientific method. Even the 'Big Bang' (as we understand it).

Shock, horror - I'm a Christian!

Even the Pope is a bit iffey on the whold Creationisum "thing" and anti ID. That should tell you something.

If I remember my bible stories correctly, god created Eve from one of Adams ribs. They then went on to have a family, so effectively anyone promoting this theory of the development of man is backing incest. Hmmm, interesting. This explains a heck of a lot.

At school I was taught Evolution and the Big Bang theories together.

Do all those who believe in Evolution also believe in the Big Bang?

Surely it takes a lot of Faith to believe that Life and the world was created by chance and from nothing??

(oh yes there was the gas that was floating about in the "nothing")

I find it easier to believe in a Creator.

Christians are often told that they only have their belief because of what they are taught by parents etc. I suspect that many who belief in Evolution only do so because they have been taught it as fact.

Pse understand that not all us Christians are creationists. I understand why some want to defend the Genesis creation allegory but I believe they are sincerely wrong. I find it distracts from and undermines the credibility of Jesus' message of forgiveness etc...

Anyway pse bear with us. I'm sure that in a few hundred years the church will look back with incredulity on this pointless debate in much the same way we now look back at the Copernincus/Galileo thing. At least you ought to be grateful that we don't burn 'heretics' like you lot anymore ;-)

Umm, if you've been keeping up with science results recently, there have been quite a few instances of bacteria evolving to outperform anti bacterial agents, and othe rmuch larger creatures adapting to changing environmental conditions. The more evidence we gather, the more there is for evolution. Can't really say the same about creationism/ID as it takes for its basis the 'fact' that anything we can't explain is God's work. It's only going to get worse for ID if that's the case...

What y'all need to realise about the folk who created this theme park, and, sadly, most christians, is logic has no room in the headspace.

They can not think about what their hard back fiction books really says, because if they do for just 2 minutes, they'll see all the contradictions and deceits. This causes them to suspend *all* thought in favour of that great catch-all called Faith. They seem entirely ok with deciding which sections of their myth-book to adhere to (or, more importantly, make other people adhere to) and yet be able to ignore other bits that are emphasised as much - think homosexuality and divorce, and how the various churches relate to both those issues.

Lets also not forget that religion came about when man was barbaric and needed a moral code. Sadly, societies own moral code has, by and large, bypassed that of most christians (anyone remember the downright lies propagated during the section 28 debate?, or more recently during the Equality of Services act, or how blatantly US evangelicals lie about pretty much everything).

Most religions are completely ok with an End-Justifies-The-Means approach - hence lying is ok if its for a good cause, its ok that those thugs tied Matthew Sheppard naked to a fence because he was gay, its ok that the catholic church condemns millions to die of AIDS in africa. And lets not forget the child molestation that seem endemic to christian organisations.

No - society, by and large, now own the moral high ground when it comes to real morality. And this, of course, scares the religious folk into a fervour of splendid proportions. My own view is this is the beginning of the end for them. I hope that I'm right.

I'd suggest you don't bother pointing out the glaring inconsistencies to guys like Danny - for all the reasons above, they won't see them and will point you to those self referential bits in their story book.

As much as I dislike the notion of making this exhibit profitable, I'm curious to hear what they have to say.

I consider myself to be scientifically minded. I do not dispell the notion of a divine creator entirely; there is the potential, however unlikely, that such a being exists.

I am also wary of anything labeled as 'scientific fact'. The science that I was raised with deals with probabilities and never believes that it has arrived at the final solution. Scientific theories can go for hundreds of years without someone disproving them. We can base great knowledge upon these theories but must not fall into the trap of believing that science can produce irrefutable facts.

I, for one, think that the theories of evolution are the best we've got. They're way way more likely than anything I've read in the Bible (or at answersingenesis.org for that matter).

the folks at www.conservapedia.com have a good resevoir of creationist hilarity. the folks at www.rationalwiki.com have a good index of the highpoints.

"For the wise one who concluded that God is not omnipotent because of all the evil in the world, My Question is if God true love vanished and every person who lie, steal, lust or cheat “and the list is long” get zapped by a heavenly thunder or whatever would any of us survive including the punch of people who by there own admittance prefer to be mutated monkeys rather than wonderful creatures made by a wonderful maker"

To paraphrase a wise man "The dignity of man lies in his ability to face reality in all of its meaninglessness" - Martin Esslin.

I do believe that I evolved from a monkey and it, from smaller organisms over millions of years, but my dignity lies in the fact that i am not so pious to believe i owe my existence to a deity which has never shown me why i should that is my comfort and my freedom, i owe my existance to evolution which has given me ways to protect myself and survive and also to the planet on which we live.

I do not care to thank anyone without prior reason. Where does your dignity come from?

Mark Rendle:

"Creationism is the lacks logic, is based on written religious dogma and is very definitely not falsifiable."

er, anything that can be written, can also be falsified... that is why all legal documents are on 'headed paper' , and include a signature and date - so it can then be referred back to the person, for verification...

the point is, science is *always* challenged and verified, unlike religious dogma...

and evidence can be falsified, as in the 'missing link' scandal.. it just depends how far you want to go - if you dont mind all your good work being discredited!!

you make a good point about 'space aliens' ... just **how gullible** are some people???

To Pascal Monett,

I'm not Catholic and the Pope is not God.

To the rest of you who say that evolution has been observed today you are mistaken. Adadptaion and natural selection can be observed but this does not support molecules to man evolution. Neo-Darwinian molecules-to-man evolution requires genetic information to be added. According to evolutionary thinking, increases in genetic information over time, usually through mutations, leads to new species. However, Darwin's finches do not support this definition of evolution. In fact, they work against it. The finches that recently made headlines have been observed to have shorter beaks and this change has occurred over a very short period of time. The problem is that natural selection does not lead to an increase in genetic information, it leads to a decrease. Organisms that have the ability to adapt to their environment do so by genetic variety. In other words, they already have the genetic information available to make the necessary change. Once an organism adapts to an environment it may lose its genetic ability to change back to its original form. This can be seen in places where a species adapts to the point where it no longer interbreeds with the species it branched off from.

A loss of genetic information works against the idea of evolution. Take dogs for example. All dogs are descended from a wolf-type animal. There are thousands of types of dogs today. The problem for evolutionists is that they are all still dogs. Many breeds that people spend hundreds of dollars for today have serious health problems because they do no not have the genetic variety that their ancestors possessed. This explains why mutts are generally hardier than a pure breed. They have regained some of their genetic information that was lost to specialized breeding.

Natural selection and the loss of genetic information fits better with the biblical idea of the created “kinds”.

"And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:24-25

"mutated monkeys " eh?? another fantastically arrogant statement ...

Is there not a phrase "those who are without sin, throw the first stone" - nevermind what 'sin' is, I dont think many would get thrown!!

and Danny, where are your qualifications as a genetic scientist?? you obviously do not understand the basics... go on, have a look-up on the Copernincus/Galileo thing, and decide whether the earth is at the center of everything, just like the old kings of arrogance! (yes, women had NO say back then...)

they tried to 'explain away' the strange motions of the planets as well - it would move to a point in the sky, and then start moving backwards for a while, and then change direction *again* - it was called 'the dance of the planets' I believe...

As many authors have said, this tiny planet is just a tiny dot, going round a tiny boring sun, in an insignificant outer part of the universe, that no-one really visits, like some of the deepest deserts on earth, where no-one would expect to find anything remotely interesting...

A perfect spot for an experiment.... at the first try, it did not work out, so it was flooded and destroyed...

The second try got a bit further, but still not quite there.... so it was abandoned - waste of time, and the technology and materials needed elsewhere..

No problem, no-one goes there, too far away, and it will most likely self-destruct anyway....

Fon, where are anyones qualifications that are posting here? Do you need them just because I don't agree with your position? First of all, if read my previous posts I have addressed the misinformation concerning Galileo. Go on, have a look:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/galileo.asp

Maybe I should explain the basics of how to debate a point with someone. I make statement such as the above about natural selection, and then you make a rebuttal. Simply saying that I don't know the basics does not refute my argument.

and

"As many authors have said, this tiny planet is just a tiny dot, going round a tiny boring sun, in an insignificant outer part of the universe, that no-one really visits, like some of the deepest deserts on earth, where no-one would expect to find anything remotely interesting..."

I find that a planet that is just the right distance from its star with just the right size moon and the exact tilt to be fairly interesting. Looks like were an oasis in a desert.

Adaption and Natural Selection are the drivers for evolution. Eventually resulting in species change as an inevitable result of multiple changes. So, there's no problem to go from molecules to man given sufficient time.

If I understand you correctly, you seem to be missing the point. Natural Selection doesn't have to increase the amount of genetic information. As far as I am aware no one claims it does. Mutation adds information, Natural Selection reduces it to that which proves useful in terms of being more fit for the environment. The loss of information not only doesn't work against the ideal of evolution, it is vitally important to it.

How can one claim that finches with shorter beaks deny evolution rather than support it ? It is a matter of no importance whether a change occurs relatively rapidly or slowly. If a population is capable of creating mutations and if a mutation is sufficiently advantageous, then the change can occur within a few generations.

The fact that dogs are still all dogs is hardly surprising and proves little. To achieve a separate species, even if one wanted to, would need sufficient time for the accumulating mutations to ensure that two groups of resulting creatures are no longer compatible for breeding. No reasonable person would claim that was likely to occur in the short time humans have been guiding animal breeding.

The reason that a pure breed tends to be hardier is that hardiness is not the characteristic usually breed for. It is less important how hardly an species is if the farmer is going to look after it until it is slaughtered anyway.

. , now here is a post worth responding to. You said, "Adaption and Natural Selection are the drivers for evolution. Eventually resulting in species change as an inevitable result of multiple changes. So, there's no problem to go from molecules to man given sufficient time."

Then you said, "Natural Selection doesn't have to increase the amount of genetic information. As far as I am aware no one claims it does. Mutation adds information..."

So we are both claiming that natural selection supports our opposing theories. The difference is that I believe we started with more information and are slowly ending up with less. You believe (if I may make the assumption) that life started with no information and eventually mutations led to the genetic information we have today. First of all, information can not come from non-information but I suppose that is another debate. The biggest difference between us is our belief in mutations ability to add useful genetic information. Certainly, mutations have been observed, but most are not helpful to an organism. There are few (and I stress few) situations where you could argue that a mutation has been helpful. But, as far as a mechanism to progress from a single celled organism to a human that seems like a stretch. Either way, natural selection and speciation are not exclusive to evolution and do not conflict with my view.

If God created earth then what happened to the other 8 plants? Or maybe earth is the mistake? If God in fact created life why is there not life everywhere? Why is our planet so special? And exactly where does it say that earth is special in any version of the bible? Also, I'm just asking here so don't bite my f**King head off, is there anyway to submit amendments to this book called the bible cause it sure needs a serious upgrade to reality.

As to the origins of the Bible as the word of god see below....

http://www.deism.com/biblevotes.htm

Nuff said...

"I find it easier to believe in a Creator."

Hmm, so you're argument is 'I don't get it, the big bang's too difficult for me to get my head around, so God must have done it?" That's weak man, weak. Who says the formation of the universe has to be a simple concept? In any case, believing goddidit simply difers the complexity back a level - who did God? You're just dodging the complexity. Weak.

I need to understand why it is concluded that Christians hate homosexuals just because they disapprove this kind of behaviour. I love my kids , my friends and my colleagues and yet I do not agree on a lot and disapprove a lot as well of what they do. Disapproving a behaviour and hating someone who does this behaviour is entirely different issues and the lines should not be blurred, since it is a simple way to justify hating anyone who object on anything?

I hope the museum will be able to answer some questions for me, and I'll focus only on the idea that man co-existed with dinosaurs :

1) if man co-existed with dinos, where is the evidence? I'm talking human bones in with dino bones, or the remains of dinos in old human settlements, dino bones with obvious human activity marks (cutting, scraping etc), artifacts made of dino bones. And, dont bother me with a single dubious "footprint" in sediments for which there are other credible explanations.

2) How did Noah fit all the dinos on the ark? It must have been massive by any standards, and it was supposed to have been built of wood.

3) What wiped out the dinos? If it was so catastrophic to them why not to humans? Perhaps it was because Noah didn't get them onto the ark at all, so the Bible is wrong?

4) What happened to the water dwelling dinos during the great flood? If other water dwelling animals survived, why did they not?

5)Why does none of the ancient rock art anywhere in the world feature dinosaurs? Some of it is easily old enough to have been done by Adam and Eve's close relatives.

6) How did humans cope with animals that the evidence suggests, were fast moving carnivores that lived and hunted in packs?

7) Why were none of the dinosaur species domesticated for food, protection, transport etc.

As soon as someone comes up with substantial credible evidence that humans co-existed with dinosaurs, I'll believe it.

You see, Science is about first collecting evidence, and then formulating theories that explain what the evidence means and how the pieces of evidence are connected. ( ever heard of alternative theories as to why giraffes have long necks? ) Then, when further evidence is collected, the theory is modified to accomodate it. The key here is the word THEORY. The THOERY of evolution fits the evdience best.

ID is not a science, it is much more as it is based on faith. ID starts with an assumption that the Bible is the absolute source of all truth. Then evidence is collected to support that belief. This is not the way the scientific method works.

So, I challenge ID'ers to answer my questions coherently and without referring to the Bible, God, Jesus or any other deity or religious tome.

There are probably plenty of further questions other posters will think of.

Rather than Creationism or Intelligent Design I ascribe to the Happy Accident theory.

At one instant of time some magic had leaked into the set of dimensions we call the Universe. The magic was unstable so flashed off into energy and matter. In this instant called the Big Shazam trillions of life bearing world were fully formed each with an ecosystem and all the rudiments of civilisation. Almost all where, as is the way with random events, unworkable and quickly died out. Only one proved to be sustainable and survived. No one knows where the magic had come from. Some say it leaked in from a better universe with more dimensions, some say it was always there gathering together in the nothingness like a bubble in a glass of beer until it had sufficient mass to break free. Other say it was left over from the end of the universe and as time ceased to exist it had no-where to go and so was reflected back to the beginning. Still other believe the great creator was gathering his powers for something big when he accidentally knocked over his jar of magic and a little bit got between the floorboards before he could mop it up.

One thing is sure: even if creations disprove evolution it still doesn't prove god created us and even if he did it doesn't mean he did it on purpose.

If our species is slowly eroding the information it has to define it, then the future is not bright for our descendents :-)

RE information from nothing. There is an often quoted phrase about an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters coming up with the complete works of Shakespeare. It's just random keypresses, but make enough of them and the odd word will come into existence.

Of course the analogy isn't perfect as accidentally creating one word on a typewriter doesn't make it more likely to create two together next try. New sequences of keypresses are not based on those already made, nor is there any process to weed out the less readable sequences from the more.

There are many many occasions when a mutation has been helpful. For example it is the method by which bacteria develop immunity to antibiotics. This sort of adaption is commonplace.

Granted any particular mutation is considerably more likely to be detrimental than helpful, but nature has no conscience regarding the problems of an individual life form. If there are any helpful mutations, they must tend to accumulate.

The change from a single celled organism to a human may initially appear unacceptably large, but at any moment there are a massive number of different mutations being tested against the environment. And there has been a massive number of generations since single celled organisms were the most sophisticated life form here, and when human beings arrived. That's a lot of resource on the job.

To be honest if you are ok with Natural Selection and speciation, I'm unsure what the disagreement is, save that you find it difficult to believe the transformation happened so look for some other reason we are here; while I believe it is inevitable that it did.

Indeed. I must be too simple to understand how something comes from nothing by chance.

Everyone on here should know that thinking in science has always "evolved" and been proved both correct and incorrect in the past. So I fails to understand how so many people are certain that evolution is fact and the final answer.

Credit to those who have said that it is the best in current thinking in their opinion.

I am sure of my view due to my faith and events in my life.

I hope that scientifically minded people can look objectively at their own belief and others objectively.

Forget dinosaurs, and think for a moment about rainbows.

According to Jewish mythology, God caused the first rainbow to mark the end of Noah's flood. If we are meant to accept that one or other of the two mutually-contradictory accounts of the Creation in Genesis is literally correct, then there were no such things as rainbows before the flood. So how did God prevent anything from casting a rainbow until then?

* Was sunlight monochromatic before the Flood? But then, one would expect all species' eyes to have the same peak spectral response. This is not the case. Plants require different wavelengths of light for different growth phases.

* Was there no chromatic dispersion before the Flood? But then, if God could intervene on such a precise level as to be able to change permanently the fundamental properties of matter, why would he have had to resort to such a Heath-Robinson method of dealing with an errant population rather than performing a simple selective cull of just the most unsatisfactory individuals?

Or is there some other mechanism I haven't thought of, which would explain the absence of rainbows before the Flood?

The thesis that adaptation through natural selection only decreases the amount of genetic information is based on the idea that "genetic information" is the same kind of "information" as, say, the text contained in a book. Ergo it had to come from someone who thought of it first. To use Pratchett's terminology, it ASSUMES that genetic information contains Narrativium, has a guiding story. Not so - and the lack or presence of this element seems to be the test of weather a system evolved or was designed. It has been shown again and again that chaos - noise in information terms - has a natural tendency to produce patterns (e.g. any finite number series can be found somewhere in the decimal expression of Pi). Some of these patterns happen to be self-sustaining and/or self-replicating. Simple patterns will combine to form more complex ones. Biochemists have found relatively simple self-replicating molecules that could appear spontaneously from a soup of their building blocks (not DNA or even the more simple RNA however. Even some simple microorganisms alive today don't have such "advanced technology". It is theorized that RNA was a relatively late addition to the mechanisms of life).

As illustration I offer this true story (http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/adrianth/TEC99/paper.html the full read is fascinating to an engineer, maybe less so to a layperson): Researchers wanted to study the possibility of evolving - as opposed to designing - functional electronic circuits. They used an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array - dynamically reconfigurable chip), the configuration of the chip was described by a binary "genome", and this genome used in a Genetic Algorithm (In the first generation the chip was programmed with RANDOM genomes (noise). They then proceeded to test this population and award "fitness" scores (the functionality they were aiming for was a frequency discriminator - a circuit that would output 1 for a 10KHz input and 0 for 1KHz. The fitness scores were determined by a function of the outputs that would max out if this was achieved). In each generation the individuals with the highest fitness were used to create the next generation by combining their genomes (crossover) and mutating randomly. This cycle was repeated several thousand times). There was no individual in the initial population that demonstrated any ability whatsoever to perform the task. The population had formed a genetically converged `species' before fitness began to increase. Eventually they obtained a circuit that functioned. They then analyzed the circuit. They found that it contained many elements that did not contribute to its desired functionality, but that the number of elements _needed_ for it to work was much smaller than that of any previously designed frequency discriminator. They also found it very hard to understand HOW the circuit worked, despite its apparent simplicity. It didn't make sense, from an engineering perspective. It had no Narrativium.

Firstly, thanks for coming on here and giving reasoned answers to people's questions. A lot of false assumptions abound when people's beliefs calsh so it's good to get more detail and accuracy - even if I disagree with you, it's amicable and intelligent, rather than an 'us and them' mentality.

I should mention I'd probably be classed as secular humanist, so I'm as unlikely to convert to any faith as you are to renounce yours! :)

But if it's not too much trouble, could you answer a few questions for me? Where relevant, I'll state my position too, but I'm not preaching it to you, don't worry.

●What do you make of the choice of gospels for the bible? Long after the events recounted of the life of Jesus, the growing catholic church decided to use a set number of gospels, excising more than half of the total ones, and gettign rid of the more contraadictory ones (there are still contradictions in thge remining texts). Does choice of what made it into the bible by humans with no divine insight not dilute the accuracy of everything in the bible, requiring religious scholars to weigh each statement?

● Regards state and church, I believe everyone has the right to believe what they want, but that government has the duty to look after it's citizens physical wellbeing. The integration of religious beliefs into a state denies the freedoms of it's citizens. What is the Creationist view on seperation or integration of church and state?

●Regards genetic change, you believe it diminishes (the genome) over time. What do you make of the ability of retroviruses (AIDS is the extreme example) to alter and bed down in the genetic code of the infected? It's been recently discovered that modern humans now have almost 24% of their genetic code that is made up of dead retroviruses that have left their own code imprinted on ours. Aside from the obvious risk that receptors could in theory reactivate one (albeit unlikely), this strongly implies a very long history of viral alteration more in keeping with millions of years, rather than recent history. There doesn't seem to be an easy answer to this with the biblical history model - what do you think?

● We both accept genetic change is possible. You make the point that some drift could happen quickly, but ultimately the origin of the gentic structure is unknown (sorry if I'm unclear). I guess I mean that we don't really know how at some point it goes from proteins and sugars to self replicating genes (I may get told off by more educated readers here). But this is the crux of it, the origin of life. Assuming God kicked it all of, why bother with things like light in motion in space already from faked supernovas, etc? We see pulses that date back further than the biblical model allows - so either God had the universe ready, then dropped human life in much later, or he faked it all, which seems needless. I guess this is nitpicking level now, but hey. Also, the failure of science to prove an answer now doesn't mean it's not possible - wasn't that long ago gravity wasn't known about... :)

thanks for your time.

All the best

Mike

have you ever noticed how the people that believe in creationism look really unevolved? "I believe god created me in one day!" Yeah? Looks like he rushed it!!!

Science and creationism don't match. Simple and easy reckoning means that if the universe was no more than 40,000 years old, then the most distant stars wouldn't be seen yet, let alone anything half the distance of the known visible stars and galaxies in the Universe.

ok, at 40,000 light years its a loooong way, and a lot of stars and galaxies exist within this boundary, but beyond that we wouldn't see anything, let alone galaxies such as Andromeda which is 2 million light years away, and that's one of the closer ones that I know of.

Creationism needs a kick up the pants because it doesn't make sense.

whoa, Danny, took the whole bait!! :D tell me, what do you think of the small ants under your feet???

So I was talking to my catholic friend over IM, she was telling me that this church teaches that all animals (including dinosaurs) were vegetarian before Adam's sin ("then T-rex turned into a meatasaurus")

The amusing part?

She started the conversation by saying "T-Rex used to eat planets" before correcting her typo to be "plants"

A universe-roaming planet-eating T-Rex? Sounds awesome! I'm converting religions already!

As the Bible is truth, can someone explain to me how my plants can't survive being submerged for a week or so, yet in Noah's time they were covered for nearly 1.5 months?

Admittedly they had the advantage of being fertilised by the rotting corpses of all the animals and people that God (in his wisdom) killed but still, no oxygen?

On top of that, wouldn't the Ark have been knee-deep in bird-shit being the only roosting place in the world?

Why is it that someone who holds a belief will state it is a fact, whilst those who are in possession of facts accept that it is a 'fact' only in the light of present knowledge?

As Bertrand Russell said: "I would never die for my beliefs; I might be wrong."

(Mostly in response to the "Hi Danny" post)

Regarding the choice of canon by the Early Church: It's no secret that there are Apocryphal books (you can even check them out in the Library, if you're so inclined) that were not included in the Bible proper by the Early Church, but their omission doesn't make the Bible any less acceptable for what it is. The issue lies in the fact that the modern day Church as a whole is falling into much the same point that the Church during the days of Jesus was in: the religion was a lot less about Faith in what the big guy upstairs was doing, and a lot more about what was on the paper and what people looking at you thought. As for your statements about the Gospels being internally contradictory-I honestly would like to see examples of these internal contradictions. There seems to be this misconception by a large body of non-believers, when in reality the truth is that the internal lack of consistency in the Bible is about as true as Darwin's conversion. If you can present some of these inconsistencies, I'd be happy to look them over and offer a response.

Regarding Church and State: First off, I hate the phrase "Separation of Church and State", because in the American Constitution, no such phrase exists. The only mandate regarding religion in the founding work of this nation, simply states that The American Government cannot mandate an official religion. (Forgive me for being ignorant about the way that other Nations handle religion and integration with the Government) That said, most mainstream Christians these days aren't upset so much by the fact that there is a growing Secular influence in the public so much as the fact that Christians on many fronts are being told that they cannot voice their views, anymore. A particular example comes to mind from my community of late: A student at a local High School was killed earlier this year in a tragic car accident, and his favorite Hymn was sung at his funeral, as well as a School Gathering in his memory. This month, students in the school choir elected that they'd like to sing the Hymn again, during their Graduation ceremony, during the period where the student would have received his diploma, had he still been alive. The school forbade the students from singing the hymn, for fear of litigation. It's situations like these that tend to lead to the opposite backlash, the "How would you feel if we took away your right to say what you want?", that tends to arise. The truth is that the vast majority of Christians don't even want Creationism taught in schools, especially not the type espoused by this theme park, but rather simply want ANY opposing viewpoint to Evolution to be in the classroom.

Regarding Viral HIstory and it's reaction on the Human Genome: If you look at the original Hebrew in the Pentateuch, you'll find that the concept of "A day" as listed in current English translations is poorly translated. In the original Hebrew, the word that is used can be translated to simply mean "a period of time". Mainstream Christianity honestly tends to find the view of a 2000 year-old universe repulsive, because it doesn't vibe with anything else we know of the world. In essence, the people you're trying to disprove honestly aren't even taken seriously by people in their own side. As for your view that having a large portion of your genetic code altered by retroviruses is an argument to an elongated view of active human genetics, the point could just as easily be argued that having such a significant portion of your genetic code in such a highly altered state shows that at some point in our genetic past, our gene pool was significantly shallowed by a significant event, and the short list of genetic candidates that reproduced were already afflicted by this retrocoding.

Regarding the Stars and their effect on Creationism: To repeat above: Mainstream Christians don't widely accept the concept that the universe is only a few thousand years old. The Creation account in Genesis is admittedly vague, but it should be noted that in that account, the first step of the situation was creating the Stars. What most Mainstream Christians tend to reject from Big Bang/Evolutionary theory is the concept that it all just "happened" with no precursor. If I were to take a giant clump of hydrogen, and stick it in a complete vacuum, and let it sit with no outside influence, it's most probable that nothing at all would happen. Even if something did happen, even if a spark shot up, it's highly improbable that it would never form anything more than an inert gas. I can continue this line of reasoning forever, but I think you follow where I'm going. The ultimate issue that I see with Natural Selection is that you've got a great engine, with no ignition. From what I can see, Natural Selection tends to fail at the start, largely because your basic building blocks of life are simple carbon atomic chains, which have no purpose, nothing to build *towards*, and so they cannot be selected. The primary difference between most hardcore Evolutionists, and most Mainstream Creationists is that Mainstream Creationists believe that someone built the engine, keep it well-oiled and maintained, and turned the key to get it running, whereas most Hardcore Evolutionists tend to think that because they can't see who's in the Driver's seat, the Engine simply started on it's own.

good reasoning, Eric...

The 'story of the Ark' .. While many think this refers to 'the whole planet' , some have realized it refers to 'the whole world' - and at that time this was only a very small area of the planet!!

Need I remind people that in columbus's time, many said that he would 'fall off the edge of the world' , and even the more intelligent just said he was trying to find a quicker way to the Indies by sailing west...

when he landed at what is now Cuba, he was adamant that they had found a part of the Asian mainland...

http://www.travelnotes.org/Travel/oct12.htm

Even in those times, 'the whole world' was much smaller than we know today...

I am still waiting a reply from Danny, who may be thinking about the many ants he has crushed, without even thinking about it!!

Just like the scientist who incinerates a failed bacterium experiment, that grew in the wrong way...

Who is to say those forms of life are any different from us, in the eyes of some giant, fantastically advanced scientist, whose experiment has just gone wrong??

It took emule only 2 seconds... ;)

Love,

Martin

I should probably have mentioned that I was looking at a IRL paper version of the book, not simply a digital version.

Of all the online translations available, there are quite a few variations. The best ones I found still didn't really hold up to unbiased translation of the texts.

To Danny if he's still listening, I think creationism has had its day, 2000 years of it. Now a days I puzzle not on the question of "HOW", because natural selection and evolution are the "HOW", it _CAN_ be reproduced albeit not biologically the essence of the engineering is still valid in software genetic algorithms.

The real answers are in the WHY, and as far as they WHY goes my current thoughts revolve around the complexity of the universe, by laying this off as "It is Gods will" that we exist is a nonsense, and as one commenter put it, dodging the complexity and its a weak argument.

Complexity is after all the center of this argument, with 138billion interacting neurons, where data is fed in and out of the real world, coupled with around 6 billion people on earth there is a great maddening complexity of existence, the HOW is merely a medium, the WHY is the same reason any network will self organise, and more importantly WHY the second law of thermodynamics is more than just "entropy tends to increase" (creationist, bullsh!t), or "entropy in an enclosed system tends to increase" (real science), but it is more like "entropy in an enclosed system will increase until a maximum point, whereupon the rules of the system, coupled with minor variations will allow a complex system to form" (small world theory + science).

I started off by pointing out the modern day reproductions of the bible miss out some very large parts, one of which, the book of Enoch is written to give you knowledge not take it from you, there are many other parts of the bible like this, for the record I'd also like to point out that Jesus was just a man, as written in Romans "Born the seed of David" he was the literal king of the Jews, and people wonder why they pinned him to a cross ;)

K,

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I'll try to dig up some examples of internal inconsistency for you.

No worries about not knowing other nations' viewpoints. I think it's fair to say that Europe is a lot more secular than the United States, with (mostly) respect for believers. On the one hand, more extreme elements of christian churches fret about the "march of Secularism", and on the other, extreme atheists and agnostics mock beliefs, be it depicting Mohammed or tending to judge religions by their most extremist believers. You make a good point about how they're seen by the majoity of American christians.

Ideally, I'd like to see a secular government as the norm, but one that is sensitive about beliefs, hopefully not restricting simple things like the singing of a hymn to honour the passed! I guess at the moment it's a bit of a tightrope, as there's such tension between opposing religious views (some Eastern religions not being as tolerant of other beliefs), but common sense should prevail.

It's good to see a bit of dialogue here, hopefully then all sides in a debate can realise that the opposing side isn't necessarily of the most extreme or absurd view!

all the best

Mike