Hands up who believes in creationism/doesn't believe in evolution?

[MrsWobbleTheWaitress]

I know a lot of Christians who believe in evolution, so I kind of had this rather naive idea that people who didn't believe in it were very few and far between. But I just discovered someone I've known a long time, and respect a great deal, doesn't believe in evolution.

So who else doesn't? How common is it?

I think the book 'Greatest show on Earth' by Richard Dawkins dispells the 'evolution myths' nicely. It's a facinating read for anyone.

here on amazon

Although the Guardian doesn't give it a brilliant review.

I love Dicky Dawkins.

Crashmere - they should be banned from teaching creationism as fact. They might be good Mathemeticians, Drama or Home Ec. teachers.

AMumInScotland - quite right. So long as teachers views don't impinge on the classroom it shouldn't matter.

What should be banned is creationism being taught in schools, as one hears of in some of the academies.

AMumInScot....your biology was a creationist who didn't believe it....?

Would you be happy if your children were taught by someone who believed in fairies? Admittedly, it wouldn't affect their fundamental ability to teach, but you would question their judgement.

Creationism is a bit more serious than fairies. It's the denial of a proven scientific theory based on religious faith. It goes completely against the ethos of learning & teaching.

If creationists believe that life was created by a creator, then I always wonder who created that creator and why, and then who created that creator and why etc??????

Why does the buck stop with a god, surely something must have the created the god and so on?

Mumtal - you have neatly summarised the big problem with religion. Am sure there's a believer out there who will repudiate your sensible question.

I wouldn't worry me if a teacher believed in fairies, unless they started to tell my child that fairies exist and that people who say they don't are wrong.

I never did find out exactly what Mr Barge believed in, though he later left the school to become a fulltime minister at some sort of Vineyard church, so I'm guessing it would have been a fairly down-the-line 6 day creation.

I respected his views and his integrity in handling it, which I found to be a useful lesson in how we can all respect different beliefs, even if we don't share them. But that was at O-Grade level - so age 14ish - I would have much more of a problem with teachers of 5yo telling them about God, fairies, or anything else, as they are more inclined to think everything the teacher says must be true at that age, rather than "interesting but bizarre" which is typical of a teenager encountering something they haven't met before.

You don't have to be a creationist to have to struggle with "Who created God?", just a believer in any religion!

For me, it just comes down to "unknowable" in the same way as "What was there before the Big Bang?" is unknowable.

The Cosmological argument (wikied) for Mumtal etc

SiriusStar - "Part of what led my dh to believe in God was what he saw as he studied his subject."

That was pretty much my journey too. I am not a reigious person in the sense that I am a believer in a Christian God or go to church and pray but am a believer in a 'God figure' as a philosophical explanation of where I fit in the world. The more I peered down a microscope or looked at DNA sequences the more obvious it became to me that a higher power than ever I could understand had created something that was not pure chance. There was a deliberate hand of an 'intelligent designer' at work creating something so complex yet so beautifully simple.

I know that sometimes evangelical Christians talk about 'God revealing himself'. Well in a way my revelation moment was in laboratory. The more I came to know, the less I felt I knew or would ever know.

It is where science and philosophy meet that I find interesting now.

Another beliver here who sees no conflict between God and science.

If I believe in a God with the ability to create the universe, then surely I believe that God is capable of making lifeforms that can evolve and alter.

Btw, in the Qur'an, it clearly states "I created that which you do not know", hence we have no problems with dinosaurs.

Just one more bit on eyes - the thing that I wish people would include in this sort of discussion is how "unintelligent" some features of bodies are, eyes included. Yes, they are often cited as being pinnacles of design, which as per what kif says are thought of as being useless until fully developed (though as A muminScotland and Catisssleepy say, in fact this is not so). BUT what often gets left out of this debate is the fact that eyes show some fascinating legacies of their evolution, in the form of stuff that is less well designed than you might think! In the human eye, light must travel through some layers before it gets to the light-sensitive bits:

in vertebrates "light sensing cells sit at the back side of the retina, so that light has to pass through layers of neurons and capillaries before it reaches the rods and cones. By contrast, the cephalopod retina is in a more logical arrangement with the photoreceptors located at the front side of the retina, with processing neurons and capillaries behind them. Because of this, cephalopods do not have a blind spot." (from Wikipedia)

As you can see from the quote, cephalopod (octopus, squid, and cuttlefish) eyes work differently and do not have this extra layer that light has to pass through. If there is a designer god, then a) why would the eyes of different animals be designed quite so differently, and b) why would vertebrate eyes be designed arguably worse than octopus eyes?

The crapness of the 'design' of the female human pelvis versus the human baby head is so bad that the writer of Genesis even had to make a special explanation for it.

kif, there are lots of benefits from an eye even if that eye doesn't work anywhere near as well as ours. Any significant benefit afforded by even basic light detection abilities will give that organism an evolutionary advantage over others that it is competing with. Wikipedia's got a good overview here. Interestingly, the differing stages of eye evolution can be seen in different molluscs today, from basic light-sensitive patches to the complex and efficient ones posessed by the octopus.

As for the second law of thermodynamics, you're thinking too short-term. Over the life of the universe then, yes, entropy will overtake us all. But that doesn't mean there can't be (relative to the universe's age) temporary arrangements of complex molecules in the meantime. Particularly where energy is being pumped into the system as that from our sun.

ABetaDad - do you not believe that complexity can emerge from simple rule systems? Especially given a few billion year.

For me, one of the big sticking points to the "I believe in science and god" is that there is a mutual exclusivity between the two. Science is fundamentally about asking "Why...?" (or "How...?"), coming up with ideas for the answer, and then testing those ideas to see if they fit the observed facts. Crucially, the ideas must be falsifiable - there must be a means of saying "We think it works like this, but if we do some tests and observe x, y or z then it proves the theory wrong and we'll have to go back to the drawing board."

Therefore, if the answer to the "Why...?" is "God did it", what's the falsifiable test? What can you look for with a thought of "If we observe x, then that proves God doesn't exist." Without such a test there is a deep and fundamental disconnect between science and religion.

Philosophically you may be right Snorbs, but to otherwise-rational christians its quite easy in practice to exempt faith from the rigours of the scientific method.

I hate Intelligent Design. I utterly despise it.

The reason for my loathing is that it is creationism by another name, by the back door, sneaking up behind you...

I do not "believe" in evolution, I have picked the evidence out from under my fingernails so I feel perfectly justified in ridiculing those who even give ID the time of day.

ID is a childish delusion. This is particularly true of those with an education in related subjects (biology/geology etc). I'm sure it's very comforting believing that there is some kind of intelligence behind the raw engine of evolution, but it does not make it true.

I take the creation story literally. I believe God created absolutely everything in the order of the bible.

BUT

The bible does not give a timeframe. It's "day" may have been four million years, for all we know.... so day came first, then night, the animals (incluing dinosaurs etc) were around before people... but it probably took 60 trillion years or however old the science people say...

so is that a combination? I dunno... but I do believe God created everything - I categorically do not believe it "just happened" or that people came from fish.

Nope, it's a religiously driven delusion. You're entitled to have it, but it's a delusion none the less.

Wow! I've learnt loads! And I really love a proper, intelligent debate like this.

Rubberduck - what I was commenting on was your desire to ridicule people who believe different things to you, for whatever reason. I don't see a place in any discussion for ridicule.

Oh, and wrt religion. If God exists, then, IMO, he's a twat and there's no way I'd want to worship him. Why would I worship someone who allows such horrific suffering in the world? I used to be a Christian but not now, not since I saw my baby cousin die from leukamia.

I still feel a need for some sort of spiritual side to my life, and therefore am feeling that Buddhist principles/shared consciousness ideas make far more sense to me, and make me feel very much at peace.

And now this very long, informative and interesting discussion will disappear into the ether because I went and put it in _Chat!

Might ask for it to be moved...

amber, I do hope that wasn't directed at me. Bloody rude comment if it was.

Lewisfan, the bible most definitely does give a timeframe. It says it took God six days.

Fair enough if you don't want to believe that, but it seems a bit bizarre to say on the one hand that you think Genesis is literally true but then to claim "Well, ok, it says 'day', but it doesn't mean 'day'".

Lewisfan

My post was neither directed at any individual person nor was it rude.

If I professed a genuine belief that say... Gordon Brown was actually a lizard in disguise, I would be quite rightly labelled as delusional.

I see no reason to respect the religious explanations for the world around us any more than the scientific ones. I have hard evidence for the scientific explanation however. For the religious explanation we have two thousand year old fairy stories.

When the religious can come with anything more detailed than "Just Because!" which is essentially what religious faith is, then I'll treat it as something more than an anarachism (sp?).