I am a skeptic, so I have to go with evolution since creationism really have no more proof than a holy book written millenias ago. Evolution on the other hand has a lot more observable evidence.
I hate to jump on the other side of a debate I’m currently in but expecting proof for creationism is a bit much, especially considering there is a great deal of proof on the other side of the argument, but rather evidence. Science has lots of evidence, but proofs are a little bit rarer.
(I suppose you’re talking to me and a few other people)
I don’t expect proof or evidence to come from religion, that’s why I’m calling them out on it. They keep saying that they have some kind of evidence to support their religion and I’m simply calling their posssible bluff.
The problem is, the basis of the argument against Evolution isn’t completely sound at all. If you are going to argue for Creationism, you simply have no scientific proof to back you up. There are no reputable scientists who will tell you that even an ounce of creationism is correct. You might say that “Evolution is just a theory” but so is the periodic table. You don’t doubt that mixing sodium and chlorine creates a form of salt, would you?
The theory of Evolution has been created using the same standard scientific methods of anything else. Scientists don’t “believe” in it so much as they accept it as pure and simple fact. If something came along to make them doubt the theory, they would examine it, pass it along to their peers, and come to a general consensus as to what it is that in their theory is correct, and what needs some tweaking. That is how science works. You can’t even compare it to Creationism, because Creationism is simply blind belief, however much you state it. In my view, and the general consensus of people who base arguments and their beliefs on logic and reason, faith is little more than thinly veiled ignorance, or at most, delusion.
Wait, what? You mean there’s still opponents for evolution? That’s almost ridiculous as there being supporters for FET (flat earth theory).
And a hand of applause for a nice speech waffle.
There’s also something wrong about this debate that you reminded me of is that creationists keep trying to prove us wrong while not backing up their theory at all.
Yes my mind was blown too when I saw this thread.
Absolutely, all of those sound extremely reasonable, mate.
So I’m writing an essay right now and it’s turning out to be much longer than I predicted, so I’ll show you guys when I’m done with it.
Thanks for your patience 
-Dillon
That’s a decade older than the study I cited, and the question is much more narrowly phrased. And they still find 40% of respondents (scientists) believe in what seems to be specifically the Christian, Jewish, or Islamic God.
A far, far cry from “almost every successful scientist” being explicitly atheist.
The answer is both, evolution and creation, thanks to aliens.
To me, it’s a simple answer:
Evolution: Literal mountains of evidence.
Creation: Stunning lack of evidence.
THIS IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM. Proponents of evolution spend most of their time and resources amassing evidence and convincing people that evolution is correct. If Creationists ever want to be taken seriously, they should do the same thing; instead, all they ever seem to do is try to find ways to disprove Evolution.
That said, here’s my view on the topic: Creation all the way. Here’s the catch, though: it’s my belief that all of us believe in Creation, deep down. It’s just the time scale we disagree on. Christian fundamentalists believe that the Earth and humanity were Created 6000 years ago. And as for anyone in this thread who doesn’t believe that: do any of you deny that the universe was created in the Big Bang?
That’s where I choose to believe that the hand of God was. And when you think about it, it’s hard to believe that science will ever really be able to explain what caused the big bang. I mean, just try to fathom a scientific explanation for “There was a whole lot of everything completely surrounded by infinite nothing, and then everything was condensed down into a single point, and then exploded outwards.” Nothing in conventional physics can even hope to explain that phenomenon…
That, of course, leaves me free to endorse evolution, which is a fact and not a theory. The “theory of evolution” has to do not with evolution itself, but with the mechanisms by which evolution occurs. The distinction here is like saying “the sky is blue” versus saying “why is the sky blue?” Everyone knows that the sky is, in fact, blue, and in the same sense, evolution definitely has occurred, is occurring, and will continue to occur. It’s a fact of nature.
When you hear “theory of evolution,” you’re usually hearing about the “theory of evolution by natural selection,” which attempts to explain evolution - the known fact - by proposing that only the fittest organisms survive. The other main theory concerning evolution is the “theory of evolution by sexual selection,” which proposes that the sexiest organisms mate most often, and therefore pass on more of their genes to the next generation, influencing the course of evolution. Personally, I don’t think that either of these theories will ever prevail over the other, because both of them have so much evidence backing them.
And there’s where things get sticky.
Define “created” in this context.
The Big Bang occurred, and the universe resulted.
Ah, but wasn’t that infinitesimal speck that existed just prior to the Big Bang also “the universe”?
Sorry, the “known universe” is what I meant. And yes, while it was the universe, how do you suppose that that infinitesimal speck came about? We could trace the course of history to eons and eons before the Big Bang and show exactly how it occurred and what led up to it, and still the question of how that began would remain unanswered. It’s true that there’s a very distinct possibility that everything has always been, but human experience tells us that everything must begin somewhere. And if the only predecessor to Everything was Nothing, then how did it arise?
Your logic goes as follows
We can’t explain this, so I’m going to pull the answer out of my ass.
Someday scientists may come up with a very very logical explanation for the big bang, just because they haven’t yet doesn’t mean you need to jump to a religious explanation.
DIllnx, I like you and your a good mapper, but your arguing and logic is horrible. First, you backed up creationism by saying anyone who didn’t believe in it was a rebellious teenager, then, you moved on to say you have strong evidence, but used excuses to withhold that evidence from us.
I truly sincerely want to know what your “evidence” is.
Remember what I just said at the top of my last post?
Now look at your post and tell me what you did wrong.
I do not see any evidence that there ever was “nothing”.
Cause-and-effect is reliant on time. Time requires space. There was no “space” in the singularity that many scientists believe existed prior to cosmological expansion, so, there was no “time”. This theory states that, there is no such thing as “before cosmological expansion”.
As for the cause of cosmological expansion, there are many hypotheses which, currently, we cannot test, so they remain hypotheses.
The one I’m currently rooting for is what I call the “breathing universe” hypothesis: The “Big Bang” was caused by a prior “Big Crunch”. The universe expands and then contracts and then expands again, ad infinitum.
It will probably be all wrong, but that’s the one I currently ascribe to.
As for “first cause”? What caused this “breathing universe”? That is a sticky wicket to get into because then we must ask “What caused the cause?” Humans like cause-and-effect because we’ve been born into a reality that time already exists. It’s extremely hard to wrap your brain about the concept of “there was no ‘before’”.
It’s what I currently accept and what has been shown by observation. Until I am shown otherwise, that’s what I’ll likely continue to accept.