Donate SIGN UP

Evolution or Creation???

Avatar Image
happyred | 10:49 Sat 24th Mar 2007 | Religion & Spirituality
99 Answers
that is the question......!
Gravatar

Answers

61 to 80 of 99rss feed

First Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next Last

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by happyred. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
Waldo & JTP - Sceptics have claimed the Bible is in error saying the rabbit chews the cud (Lev 11:6), but the original Hebrew literally reads, "raises up what has been swallowed." The rabbit does eat what has been swallowed, so the sceptics are wrong.
Hares and rabbits? After their "kind?" I think you're splitting hairs - no pun intended.
Really, Theland? The only place where that argument exists is specifically within apologist texts' attempt to redifine the Hebrew to get over this specific problem. The Hewbrew phrase 'alah gerah' notably contains connotations of "raising" (as you might expect if cud were meant literally as cud, not as 'roots around on the floor and eats poop').

Moreover, just to further render the issue a non-starter hares don't even chew their droppings, they swallow them whole: http://www.aquavet.i12.com/Rabbit.htm

This is a biological text, thus not concerned with whether or the Bible may or may or not be talking cack (or cud). Even more importantly, this whole issue of 'caecotrophy' (swallowing cack) is acknowleged to be extremely rare and when it has been observed (incidentally, can you find some sources that indicate early-awareness of this condition - it seems to me that it was undocumented until comparatively recently, but I'm willing to be corrected) takes place during the hours of darkness, when it would be highly unsual for it to be observed and thus commonly understood behaviour of the hares. It would be orders of magnitude worse than classifying human beings as homosexual on the basis of the 10% that are.

Once again, defence of the inerrancy of the Bible relies on specious reasoning based on the opinion of vested-interests. The point remains, God presumably knows whether the hare chews the cud, since he created 'em. Whilst it would be entirely forgivable for mere men to have made understandable errors in biology given their lack of sophistication, it is entirely unforgivable for a supposedly-omnipotent and omniscient God to make basic errors.

And the bat/ bird connundrum? What of that?
The bat / bird conundrum - as far as I know the text uses the word "fowl" as a collective for flying animals as well as flightless birds, so bats fall into that category.
Question Author
Interesting comments still....
No, Theland, it really doesn't. This is just desparate and is totally beneath you.

I challenge you to find a single reputable dictionary that would allow include bats in the definition of either birds or fowl (which in any case is a more restrictive classification that birds and absolutely *cannot* encompass bats).

Why can't you accept that this is an understandable error caused by a human being ignorant about biology?
Waldo - I would have to check on the original Hebrew text before commenting further. It could be an error in translation. I'm sure even the Hebrews knew the difference between bats and birds.
happyred - look what you started! If I see you in the pub, I am not buying you a pint! So there!
Question Author
Ha Ha!! I've started a proper all out war haven't i?! You are all really intelligent people though! I've learnt quite a lot from your messages!
Whether we evolved or were created or both, None of us really know. Even the most learned people amongst us can only really surmise.
Sorry I said really twice in that last post(Oh poop,said it again)
You are a noisy lot!
Question Author
Aren't they just! I know nobody really knows how it all got started, and we each have our own ideas.
Nobody has said where we come from.
Hello Kroozer - that's probably because nobody knows where we came from. Fun trying to decide though.
I did not say we evolved from apes, it was stated by others in previous comments. You would have had to be following all comments to know what I was refering to. Just what did man evolve from ? If you can tell me that, then that particular species should not exist anymore.
Puddintane

What did man evolve from?

Humans Evolved from Archaic Homo sapiens from a branch approx. 130000 years ago which led to Homo sapiens sapiens (Us) and H. neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man). Archaics date back to about 900000 years to around the mid point of H. erectus (Ergasts) which date from 1.8 million to 250000 years ago. Ergasts had a brain size 60 % of modern humans. At 2mya H habilis were the earliest Homos (careful mani) and had a brain size of 750cc which is slightly more than half our own. Moving back further we have ape-men; the robusts and graciles. The graciles are thought to be in our direct line thus: A.africanus (Mrs Ples) about 2.5 mya with a brain size just above that of apes. It was about this time that other graciles started making tools; And A. afarensis (Lucy) 3-4mya with an ape like brain but adaptations for bipedalism. This merges us with the apes of which the chimpanzee is our closet living relative based on molecular(DNA) evidence.

Obviously this is much simplified but you get the idea.

Dawkins
Dawkins
I appreciate all your info. I understand that you think you can explain our presents here on Earth. That you can sleep better because the data sounds reasonable to you.
To say the info from a million years ago is totaly clear and understandable is rather odd. To say man is superior by chance with no close seconds is odd. The perfect harmony of nature is by chance is odd. Saying astronomy with it's perfect blend of harmony is all by chance is odd. Saying all life is harmonious by chance is odd. We humans cannot agree on much of anything, cannot stop fighting, killing, lying, lusting, being greedy, the love of superficial things, hating, jealousy, spitfulness, vengeful, yearning power, deceiving, etc. etc. etc. To want to follow in these footsteps seems odd. Yet creation is in perfect harmony. Seems logical to me to follow in that direction. I am not preaching, only speaking from the heart. Man will never have the right answers. Our paths are only a vicious circle to nowhere. I only feel deep sorrow for those that put all their trust in man.
The answer of course has to be creation!

How do you think babies are born? They are created!
How were you put on this planet? You were created!
It is an iterative process, its just the start point that needs clarifying! If 'time' was removed from the equation we may even find you are the father of some distant relative who passed away thousands of years ago.
"Evolution or Creation???" is a question in need of a subject; evolution or creation of what?

Evolution and creation (unlike �God� and �faith�) are both valid definable terms which must be used in accordance with the particular exclusive type of process they each refer to.

Neither evolution nor creation result from a chance assembly of matter into a unique arrangement but both rely on the step-by-step progression of specific causal mechanisms that obey natural laws to enable a unique rearrangement of matter to take place and in the case of creation an essential understanding of those mechanisms and natural laws which can only be gained from experience.

Failure to recognize and understand the process by which the world we live in came to exist in its present form or the process that brought about the existence of an intelligent life form on its surface does nothing to answer the question, �how?�

The refusal to acknowledge the prerequisite evolution of an intelligent life form with the ability to engage in a productive creative enterprise however modest in scope shows either a profound ignorance of or a blatant disregard for the rational process that makes the very act of formulating a question for which a meaningful answer can be given possible.

cont . . .
Babies are not created, they are conceived through a natural process whereas intelligence develops into understanding not through a natural process but through an active and willful process of reason applied to an acquired and evolving field of knowledge of the natural laws of reality accompanied by an unwavering regard for and obedience to the rules of logic.

If your answer to how the world achieved its current state of being is that it was created the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that your explanation is a creation of a disinterested imagination unrestrained by available knowledge and unguided by a process of reasoned evaluation. Such a imagination will reveal its lack of harmony with reality when it is has discovered too late that productive creation requires the development of and a respect for the rational mind.

The laws that govern ethics and moral behavior are not directly attributable to whether life was created in or evolved to its present form. However determining what those laws should be requires an prerequisite understanding of the nature of reality and how we are required to live in order to survive and flourish within its domain lest we fall from the graces of the evolutionary process. The continued existence of all life on Earth is proving to be at the mercy of what we ultimately learn about the self-generating and self-sustaining process of life.

61 to 80 of 99rss feed

First Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next Last

Do you know the answer?

Evolution or Creation???

Answer Question >>