God created humans in their present form.

<p>"Many people think that God 'guided' the evolutionary process."</p>

<p>I'm one of them</p>

<p>
[quote]
jack: u r very correct. That is the meaning I meant when I said so. "best possible explanation" yet is NOT "THE Explanation".........that's all I'm saying...it's not established in lay men's term as a fact then...but, although the majority of scientific community would view it in a different perspective definitely!

[/quote]

I still don't think you really get it.</p>

<p>The problem is scientific illiteracy; there's too much of it. Too many people who know nothing about science or biology making up their minds about something they don't understand.</p>

<p>I hope everyone who's arguing against evolution here has taken a basic introductory biology class. That means you, austin.</p>

<p>As for Innovative, I'm going to guess you are still in high school and haven't yet been exposed to any of this stuff. You might want to investigate a little more.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Anyways....I'm a muslim, and here is a site that can start you off with what Muslims say about Evolution

[/quote]

Careful there. You listed sites that talk about what some Muslims believe about evolution. The two sites actually came to different conclusions (first said it's false, second said science supports the quran). My mom doesn't believe in evolution. I do. Either way, there's no "one" view everyone from a certain religion has concerning controversial topics. I would hate to be lumped into generalizations like "all muslims believe this and all muslims believe that" (regarding controversial/ambiguous issues) because as a whole, muslims are some of the most uneducated people in the world.
And anybody who knows anything about evolutionary biology will know it is true.</p>

<p>
[quote]
It is called "THEORY" of Evolution. I just wanted to make that sure.

[/quote]

[quote]
this is called THEORY of EVOLUTION, not FACTUALITY

[/quote]
what's the difference? lol. there is none. why don't you go wikipedia "scientific theory." there's no DOUBt in any reputable scientist's mind that the theory of evolution is also synonymous with the fact of evolution.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Ok, thats fine. But who created the gases? its not like stuff is just there.

[/quote]
stuff can spontaneously "form" or spontaneously disappear--electron/positron annihilation (forgot what the opposite was called)</p>

<p>no offense, but notice how the stuff creationists are saying are kinda ridiculously funny.</p>

<p>for example:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Evolution makes no sense. Are there still some monkeys out there that will turn into human beings? How do we know?
So what are we gunna evolve into next? Snakes? Or Birds?
I guess a scientist will determine it all for us..

[/quote]
</p>

<p>yeah im not even going to try to explain this. if you've taken, i dunno, a freshman biology class in HS you'll probably be laughing like crazy</p>

<p>
[quote]
</p>

<p>By definition, faith is the opposite of rationality. Religion argues that there is an absolute truth - God, which is why many non-religious people consider them to be "stubborn or close-minded".

[/quote]
</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>How is faith or those that believe in God the opposite of rational? Rationality is entirely relative. For someone that believes in creation, accepting that apes can turn into humans may be the ultimate lack of judgment. Being religious is merely a choice that one makes to believe in something unconditionally. It's like loving a baseball team regardless of whether that team is the champion or the last place team in the division. </p>

<p>The lack of proof that you refer to is inherent in the idea of any God. If one knew where God came from, how the earth came to be, who created God, and every other question that humans ponder concerning existence, then we ourselves would be God; there would be no point in a higher being. Faith is not irrational at all; if anything its taking a stand against the powers of human "logic" that sometimes go too far.</p>

<p>My fault, I did not mean to say all muslims this or that.....But I wanted to make two different points with each of those sites. With the first I wanted to state that I do not believe in Evolution in the way it is made out to be although there definitely might be some truths to certain part of the theory. and by the second link I mean to say that I am not blindly following religion, and that fact that Islam supports many scientific theories, shows that I'm not going one for all...I have no idea what i just wrote but i hope that made sense....</p>

<p>
[quote]
Wow! Did you really need to say that. I find that quite offensive, seeing that many religious people are quite educated.

[/quote]
sorry Sheed, i had apoligized for this sometime before. lol =)</p>

<p>"that's cuz the 55% of the ppl that believe in creationism are all uneducated. VERY uneducated. and very gullible."
I would not consider myself uneducated, maybe thats just me.....
Also,
"This lack of proof is not proof that God exists, it is simply that - a lack of proof, which may or may not be explained in the future."
read C.S. Lewis' book called "Mere Christianity" It doesn't necessarily prove christianity, but it does point out some interesting, and realisitic, evidence that there is indeed a God.
For instance, a universal code of morals. If you look at animals, they live simply to exist, an evolutionary elitist might dub this "survival of the fittest" as someone on the forum quoted. But humans are not that way. In NO society in the history of mankind has cheating, lying, raping, murdering, etc. been acceptable. Some took it more lightly than others, but everyone, disregarding those who are mentally unstable, knows what is right and what is wrong.
So if there is a universal "right", and a universal "wrong", who bequethed these morals into our, dare i say, spiritual entities? Well, some, like me, would say that this is undeniably the work of a God. But what do i know, i must be "uneducated" and "very gullible" since I believe God created me. Why is it hard to believe that a God created you?</p>

<p>yeah i'm sorry about that comment like i said twice.</p>

<p>
[quote]

Clearly, there WAS something absolutely beyond our comprehension that created the universe. But to count that as evidence for the Abrahamic god that wrote the ten commandments and created humans is faulty logic at best and ridiculous pseudophilosophical posturing at worst.

[/quote]
haha lol well put

[quote]
Some took it more lightly than others, but everyone, disregarding those who are mentally unstable, knows what is right and what is wrong.

[/quote]
because of what society taught them. in the 1800's in the South, slavery was considered "right" and helping a runaway slave was considered the ultimate sin. Read Huck Finn, it embodied what many southerners thought at the time--their conscience told them they were doomed to hell for committing the sin of helping a black man escape from slavery. obviously today nobody would think that. this is the conscience that you're talking about, and it's obvious that this conscience isn't always right, but is what society imprinted in our minds. why would a deity make someone feel guilty about something like that? It's called peer pressure. </p>

<p>you can argue, how can a society, then have such morals? well, based on natural selection i would say that it is advantageous to be living in a society rather than on your own. And for the sake of the society, if everyone was cooperative and did not lie/cheat/steal, then the society would stay alive. And if the society stays alive, the individuals in the society would have a greater chance of staying alive. Therefore it is important for the society to teach the values that it believes would help it stay alive. The society is like a population, and we're all organisms in such a population. There are altruistic animals out there, too, that just instinctively do the "right" thing to help the other members of the society. I.e. naked mole rates (lol campbell biology....)</p>

<p>
[quote]
Why is it hard to believe that a God created you?

[/quote]
It's hard to believe, at least for me, that a God created me, because there's absolutely no evidence for it and the whole religion thing just seems to be stuff that boosts the human race's ego. If I was born in a religious family, I'm sure that I would be saying the same things as you. So isn't it weird that we all, forr the most part, believe in what we were exposed to as we grew up? If we just told everyone in the world to invent a random story-- that we all sprung from aliens from Mars, wouldn't the next generation of people all be passionately devoted to nonexistant aliens?</p>

<p>BTW, back to my flat-earth argument. So galileo told the church that the earth was round because he found some interesting arguments against the flat-earth hypothesis. Because his argument did not absolutely prove to the church that the earth was round, it was deemed false and he was arrested. This is basicaly the same thing. We don't have enough evidence to absoultely prove evolution because we don't have the cameras to go back to the pass and see living things evolve, but evolution is just as true as galileo's evidence back in whatever year. And later we had cameras in space to take pics of the earth showing that it's round, and hopefully nobody still believes in the flat-earth theory. In a few years we mite have technology to absolutely prove 100% evolution's existence. and then the religious nuts would have to find some other issue to argue about.</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>So true</p>

<p>And Narcissa. Apology accepted ;)</p>

<p>ya narcissa i didnt see ur apology. sry</p>

<p>
[quote]
Clearly, there WAS something absolutely beyond our comprehension that created the universe. But to count that as evidence for the Abrahamic god that wrote the ten commandments and created humans is faulty logic at best and ridiculous pseudophilosophical posturing at worst.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If you do not understand God or know who/what type of being he/she/it is, then wouldn't something beyond a human's level of comprehension be the most appropriate sort of evidence to legitimize existence?</p>

<p>"Clearly, there WAS something absolutely beyond our comprehension that created the universe. But to count that as evidence for the Abrahamic god that wrote the ten commandments and created humans is faulty logic at best and ridiculous pseudophilosophical posturing at worst. "</p>

<p>Clearly. Obviously you need to educate yourself a little on the matter. Pseudophilosphical? Postmodernism might be considered pseudophilosophical, seeing as it is quite possibly an over investigative look at our changing culture, but Christianity is "clearly" not. To say that it is not a sound philosophy, whether or not you believe in it, or faulty logic, is quite ignorant. Just because i am not hindu does not mean i don't respect their belief and realise that to them, they are searching to find what is truly "sacred". In that sense we are all the same.</p>

<p>Yea I don't see Islam, Judaism, or Christianity as Pseudophilosphical. They definitely have a base that is pretty well supported behind each of them...</p>

<p>In response to Goldshadow: I can very well say that you are either in Undergrad or a Grad, going to a very intellectual institution and majoring in biology/physics/chemistry. I also believe you definitely took at least one philosophy class, as a freshman or sophomore to try it out. If you have not done so, then, I guess you wouldn't get anything I'm going to talk in this post. </p>

<p>you are stubborn (which is not wrong or anything) and 100% confident in your
belief. That IS the situation with human being in general! They STRONGLY STRONGLY believe in what they think is right. </p>

<p>Now, let's say you are a theology major....doing may be your PhD in theology or something.......you will be arguing on the other side VERY VERY strongly.</p>

<p>You believe science is the truth (at least what is implied by your post). BUT, how do you NOT know that Theology/Philosophy is NOT the truth? It will be vice versa for some one who completely believes in philosophy. Now, there can definitely be people who believes in a blend...although an exact 50% blend is very rare, and very unlikely to help you decide to say one side is the truth. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I still don't think you really get it.

[/quote]

Actually, I did get it....if you are telling whether I'm getting it from a scientific perspective....yes. THEN, I'm interpreting it from a non-scientific way which is what we use in our day to day life...among the majority of population. How can you say your science is the truth? See, if I go further, it'd simply turn into whether you believe in existence of God or not...or may be a philosophical thread..blah. </p>

<p>
[quote]
The problem is scientific illiteracy; there's too much of it. Too many people who know nothing about science or biology making up their minds about something they don't understand.

[/quote]

VERY TRUE! Majority of people depend on their culture/religion to decide on their morality of justification. Even people who do believe in science....which definitely is a huge population....they too depend on their culture a lot of times. And then, the huge population who believes in science, does NOT have enough "scientific knowledge" to interpret the difference between what scientists mean by theory. And then, again, as I said, even a fact could be questioned by individuals depending on what they base their morality upon. environment shapes character, right? </p>

<p>It is very hard to be neutral. you either take one side or the other. Because you belong to one of the sides, you can't say the other side is wrong/flawed, because you have NOT been exposed to the other side or simply, don't think it from the other side perspective. I tried my level best to make my statements from a very neutral perspective. I definitely did not come here and started talking with wrath about how evolution is or is not true and stuffs. I guess you probably don't know what side I'm in (I won't say it anytime explicitly). </p>

<p>
[quote]
As for Innovative, I'm going to guess you are still in high school and haven't yet been exposed to any of this stuff. You might want to investigate a little more.

[/quote]

You are wrong in your guessing. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I would hate to be lumped into generalizations like "all muslims believe this and all muslims believe that" (regarding controversial/ambiguous issues) because as a whole, muslims are some of the most uneducated people in the world.

[/quote]

woah! that's what you think. to sheed and goldshadow: it does NOT matter what MUSLIMS believe in! What matters more is what ISLAM (the religion) says about it! The fact that everyone looks at muslims to judge the religion of Islam is the very reason why "hatred" towards Islam (haha..isn't it funny!) prevails.</p>

<p>My view on religion is that God was created by humans to control them. Think about one of the first religious civilizations we know of- the Egyptians. If you didn't do what the God-King said, you would suffer eternally after death; you'd behave for that consequence, wouldn't you?</p>

<p>I definitely see where you are coming from Innovative.</p>

<p>
[quote]
My view on religion is that God was created by humans to control them.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So you believe in "The big Bang"?</p>

<p>And how do you suppose this big bang happened?</p>

<p>the big bang is a valid scientific theory</p>

<p>"because as a whole, muslims are some of the most uneducated people in the world. "
Um...maybe ur among the most uneducated people in the world, because that statement is just false and frankly insulting (even though im not muslim)
I don't even have ne muslim friends and that insults me. Wow. Muslims, specifically in the persian empire, were some of the most advanced civilized people of the day. They invented math theoroms that we still use today and opened up the study of astronomy. YOU sir, need to educate yourself. That was a racist/predjudice comment and you should apologise.</p>

<p>^haha i agree tho i've made my share of dumb comments :)

[quote]
Muslims, specifically in the persian empire, were some of the most advanced civilized people of the day. They invented math theoroms that we still use today and opened up the study of astronomy.

[/quote]
true</p>