randman

I specifically stated evolution "as practiced around here for the most part," or the equivalent, and i case you haven't noticed, scan the board here. This is predominantly an atheist site with strong presumptions about excluding any ideas of the spiritual realm. There are a few theistic evolutionists, but scan the board and see for yourself.

Blinn

No shit, Sherlock. And I again ask, what evidence is there, even supporting the existence of an Abrahamic God?

foursquareman

Thankyou SanDiego. Great explanation! So we can now ignore where the matter came from when thinking about evolution. Only that it was there at the beginning of the process.

Regarding 'kinds' do creationist argue that there were only certain kinds which then evolved from there? I always held to the idea that all things were created mostly as is. Does this create problems when referring to the ark?

Understood about evolution not being random. I think I understood this, but yes many YEC don't.

Thankyou ashibaka. great post

The Other Michael

Hi Foursquareman,

Here's something that just occurred to me that might be worth thinking about:

How many Christians are YECs?

How many Christians accept the theory of evolution?

How many adherents of non-Christian religions are YECs?

How many adherents of non-Christian religions accept the theory of evolution?

I think what I'm trying to get at is that evolutionary theory crosses religious boundaries; there are religious believers and non-believers that accept its validity.

As I understand it, and I've not done any reading on the subject so this is just my impression from popular literature and what I've seen here and there, YEC is strictly a Christian phenomenon, and at that only of a very small set of Christians.

Does this raise any questions in your mind that YEC might possibly be driven by the religious beliefs of a small group of people, rather than being a theory that has grown out of a study of the evidence?

I'm not trying to make an argument from popularity here, just to point out what seems to me to be a problem, namely that the scientific method seems to be driven by facts, not dogma, and that doesn't seem to be true of YEC.

cheers,
Michael

Blinn

Oops, excuse me Randman. I just read the preceding posts, and I guess your response wasn't directed at me, however, my post is still relevant.

foursquareman

Maybe someone can post some facts on these statistics. What religions don't clash with the evolution?

Just in response, the bible supports itself as a factual book. Sorry to bring it up, but 2 Peter 1, talks about scripture not just being a book of cleverly invented stories. So it would seem evolution, if correct, would disprove the inerrancy of the bible.

Again sorry to bring it up. Anyone have access to the statistics?

SanDiegoAtheist

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Exactly. Evolution stands and falls on its own merits. It doesn't matter how life began, simply that ONCE it began, evolutionary processes explain what happens after.

Precisely the case. To be able to get all the animals on the ark, it would have been impossible for ALL species currently extant to have been on board the ark. Simply not enough room by quite a huge amount. I think Creationists estimate about 16000 or so 'kinds', which, post-flood, differentiated into the many millions of species we have today. Even at THAT amount of 'kinds' though, Creationists have a very difficult time explaining away the many OTHER problems which come with the ark (for example, feeding, disposing of wastes, food storage over a year (no refrigeration, remember?) and so on).

Most don't. The "Tornado in a junkyard creating a 747" is exactly the type of argument which demands that one believe evolution to be a completely random process, and this particular argument is very commonly heard from creationists.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

randman

"To be able to get all the animals on the ark, it would have been impossible for ALL species currently extant to have been on board the ark"

That's just not true, but this was dealt with elsewhere.

Orestes

I would be most interested to know how Noah got the animals only found in places like Australia, N. America, and S. America onto the Ark. And, after retrieving them from their respective continents, how did he get them back, since they would'nt have been able to get back on their own.

randman

The Bible states that God causes it to happen. This is where careful analysis is necessary to find when from the creationist perspective, "God did it" is appropiate and when it is not. Obviously, God is intervening here in a personal way, and therefore you can't rule out, if you are considering the story on its face value, that He also used His power to keep the animals alive and happy and peaceful, and the story implies as much.
God Himself, or perhaps via an angel, closes the door to the Ark.