Evolution or creation?
 

Just a little poll, to find out what the members of this board think. Me, I'm a theistic evolutionist.

Athiestic Evolutionist.


If god exists, he owes me a bigger wang.

Atheistic Evolutionist.

I don't believe in Evolution in that we're from primates, but I do believe in evolution to a degree. I subscribe more to the 'always existed, always will' theory, but I don't think it's always existed, there must have been a start point and if not, then there must be something more to the universe, whether another universe or God.

Anybody who disbelieves evolutionary theory is a complete and utter, utter fool.

I voted for atheistic evolution.

Evolution. Afterall, who says God didn't create that?

Can someone explain what some of the more obscure options mean to me please? I'm too tired to Wpedia

Complete rundown:
Atheistic evolution: Evolution alone created all life. Think Richard Dawkins.
Theistic evolution: God/other deity used evolution to create all life. Think Pope John Paul II.
Intelligent design:God directly interfered in most of the universe's history and evolution. Think Discovery Institute
Old Earth Creationism: The Earth and all life was created by God/other deity, but is billions of years old. Think the more moderate Baptists.
Young Earth Creationism: The Earth and all life was created by God/other deity within less than billions of years (typically 10000 years). Think Kent Hovind.
The universe/life has always existed: Self explanatory. Think most Pacific religions.

Qouted for truth.

Damn right!

Athiestic Evolutionist

Personally, I'm not saying God doesn't exist or anyhing, but since He/She/It/Thing is GOD ITSELF, then they can do anything. That means they know everything, and so know the whole future of the world. Therefore, why bother with humans in the first place? They'd know what'd happen.
And why would they bother with all the other planets and everything? If it's anything to do with making 'perfect' conditions for life, just change the laws of physics at will.
And maybe, the whole Creation story, why'd it take 7 days? And why would GOD, THE GOD need to rest? It's friggin' God, for pete's sake. Plus Adam and Eve is a load of toss.

So, unless you're a complete moron, you can see where I'm going.

Yes I do see where you are going. I have often asked myself those questions. Why did he create us if he knows where everything is going to end up? But then I answer my question with, "Who knows? But if he didn't make us (or more bluntly if we never existed ourselves,) than we wouldn't have any Oddworld games, or any video games period." and then I go and revive my appreciation for video games by going and playing them. In a non-sexual manner.


I voted for theistic evoulution by the way.

I se where you're going, but you have to realise the bible was written a while ago. 7 days made sense to them, but it was probaly millions of years, hence, evolution.
Oh, by the way, theistic evolutionist.

I think he just likes to play The Sims... you know, on a larger scale.

But you're trying to think about god as a human, with human-logic. It just doesn't work.

As for resting; it doesn't mean rest in the "Gee, I'm pooped! I'm going to flop down in front of the telly" way. It means rest in terms of "I was working and now I'm not". And as for seven days: god loves his numerical symbology.

As for the actual topic of the thread: I'm not answering because my opinion changes too regularly for me to pin it down here.

If this turns into another evolution versus creation debate instead of poll, I'm gonna be pissed. Those on DeviantART already steal my life away.

It says six days. The seventh was a lie-in.

Besides, in the original Hebrew I don't believe it specifies days. I think Nate can clear this up, but I think the word used means a period of time, not simply "days". A lot of subtleties are lost with all the pre-english translations, which is why I think that believing anything written in the English version is a very dumb thing to do. Not a bash at Christianity, just a general lack of common sense amongst monolinguals.

(Not so) intelligent design: Adam came first, Eve was made from his rib. Scientific factual theory would suggest they share the same DNA so any offspring they create are all inbred retards. Result = Ameri... Uh... Chris... No... Yea wait how do you explain that in a logical way? How did we ever get past the first 2 or 3 retarded inbreds?

Just keep in mind that Earth isn't really considered any paradise. Earth is the grey zone in fact. Limbo. The seven days weren't our kind of days. It's seven god days. And it's only seven days because seven is the perfect number.

The Bible makes much more sense if you between the lines about things. Tower of Babel = perfect metaphor for the values of teamwork. It's the fundementalists that have things wrong. Not Christians in general.

No, it literally says days. Plenty of people have interpreted this as being a symbolic day (or era) but that doesn't have much logic behind it.

How completely non racist towards Americans. Bravo, sir.

Too bad Americans aren't a race.

Alright then, anti nationalist.

Either way, your post was like being shocked at the sun for being hot or concrete for being hard or Peter for being... well let's just not go there.

What if I assumed that all Australians were inbred retards? All Pakistanis? All Nicaraguans? Wouldn't that be bigoted and wrong?

As the man's already said: No.

I didn't say he was right. Just that anyone who's been on OWF for more than a week should already know Havoc's opinion on the matter, as he does make it undeniably clear.:p

Somewhere between atheist and theist evolution. Evolution has happened and will happen; you can't get around that. On one hand, I'm all for atheism. But my reasoning is more akin to the fact I don't believe there's an active god that involves themself in regular affairs. Which just as easily fills the quota for deism. But for the sake of classification, I'll stick with atheistic evolution. Not to say I don't believe in some sort of psuedo-spiritual, complex underlying force that directs day to day actions.

You need to go out and buy some humor pills. Everyone here knows I like to make American jokes. :fuzconf:

I'm american and I think it's pretty funny. :)

I guess I'm kind of atheist and God doesn't really seem real to me, but the universe is very incomprehensible and science can't exactly explain how life/the universe began. I mostly believe in evolution, but still it would be nice to go to a better place when you die than just rot in the ground.

This is what we are all going to look like after we die. Hardly "rotting in the ground".
http://beyondtherim.meisheid.com/wp-...powerofGod.jpg

You can't call someone a fool just for having a different opinion to you. Also did you actually read my post in full? I said I don't beliveve that we came from primates (as much as I can put up a very strong evidence-supported case for it, I can put up an equally strong evidence supported case against it). However i said I DO believe in Evolution. I believe in it, but not in that 'All humans are from apes'. Apart from the man-ape theory, I believe in evolution nearly 100%. As for whether I'm a theist or atheist, I don't know anymore. I used to be atheist, but recently I've had what you could call religious thoughts. I believe the universe is too large and strange to know whether God does or doesn't exist. Also, since death can be linked to dreams/sleeping (unconscious mind) heaven could in fact be a state of mind, or indeed lack thereof. All I can say is, we'll all know when we die, or not, if that is the case.
Therefore, why bother with humans in the first place? They'd know what'd happen.
Maybe God/Flying Spaghetti Monster/whatever was drunk when he made the universe?
Joking aside, a serious answer to such a question would be: Perhaps he wanted to see just how life would turn out, and besides, what do you do if there isn't any other life. I imagine even God would get bored if he didn't create the universe. But then we're getting into the realms of religious/scientific debates and that's not what this topic is intended to be, or so it seems.

Munch's Master, sorry to burst your bubble, but two things. One, humans didn't evolve "from" primates. They are primates and apes, much like crocodiles are reptiles. Secondly, humans didn't evolve from other modern primates and apes, anymore than I evolved from my brother. Both species evolved from a common ancestor.

Theory again. But you partly stated my point- mankind is NOT from chimpanzees as biology teachers so wrongly try to claim. i never once in my post said I thought we came from apes, in fact I claimed the EXACT opposite. Humans are not actually primates, we are homo sapiens, they are I believe homo erectus? Different subclass of the same gene. We may well be from a common ancestor, but we haven't come from monkeys. and I know you already said that, but my whole point is we aren't apes or from apes. We are from a distant ancestor which split into 2 different species. We are related to apes but we are not apes, nor were we once apes. People say our closest relative is the chipanzee but in fact they are wrong- our closest relative is incredibly, the pig. Chimps are 99.something% similar to us, but pigs are 99.something+anothersomething% similar to us. Phsyical similarities are not everything. There's nervous similarities, reproductive similarities, organ process-similarities, and various other similarities between us and pigs (Pig-related insults notwithstanding). And yes there are mental similarities but the human brain is still considerably different to an ape brain. I'd compare our minds closer to dolphins.
Although much of what I said (apart from the statistics) is of course theory or intelligent suggestion, as is your point of view. I say that so you don't call me a hypocrite for branding a large chunk of your argument as theory when of course, an equally large chunk of mine is theory. However I find it odd we have different ponits of view on this when in fact our point of view is essentially the same- neither of us think humans are descended from apes. You think we are apes and think we share an ancient ancestor with apes, I just think the latter point. You say toe-may-toe, I say tuh-mah-toe.

Apes refers to all members of the superfamily Hominoidea, which humans belong to. Much as mammals refers to all members of the class Mammalia. There are large amounts of fossil evidence to corraborate a close link between modern humans, their ancestors, and their brothers likes chimps and orangutans.
For example:
This
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ith_legend.png
vs this
http://www.skullsunlimited.com/graph..._pig_skull.jpg
Also, bonobos are the closest living relatives of humans, not pigs. Even higher DNA similarities than chimps.

I'm not sure where you got those facts, but pigs definitely do not have similar DNA to us than chimpanzees. Pigs are of the order Artiodactyla, even toed ungulates, great apes are all primates. Yes, we use pigs in medicine alot, because they have similar cellular proteins and organs of the same size. Chimps are a lot harder to come by, and their closeness to Homo sapiens sapiens makes puts them under protection. It also being revealled that dolphins may not be as intelligent as we once thought, though they are closer to pigs than primates, being ungulates themselves.

I have yet to meet a biology teacher who has said anything to the effect that we are descended from Pan troglodytes. We are not descended from any modern ape species, but we, like them, are apes.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Unranked taxon: Synapsida
Unranked taxon: Mammaliaformes
Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Eutheria
Unranked taxon: Euarchontoglires
Superorder: Euarchonta
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorrhini
Infraorder: Simiiformes
Parvorder: Catarrhini
Superfamily: Hominoidea
Family: Hominidae
Subfamily: Homininae
Tribe: Homini
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens
Subspecies: H. s. sapiens

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Hominidae.PNG

Pigs have very similar biological characteristics to humans, which makes them useful as a source for various hormones (for instance insulin, before industrial production was invented) and tissue (heart valves being the most common). Chimps would work well for these also but are slightly harder to come by.

In any case, as others have stated, chimpanzees have much higher genetic similarity to humans than pigs.

Well I'd heard we have higher similarity to pigs, my source must be wrong then. But my biology teacher has stated we are descended from modern apes, so there you go. I was just basing my arugment off facts and info I had. Obviously you have more accurate info. I still say we arent' apes though. There's a difference between being in the same genetic family and being the same genetic family, isn't there? Again, the facts I've found my be incorrect.

Speak for yourself.