• Welcome to the Speedsolving.com, home of the web's largest puzzle community!
    You are currently viewing our forum as a guest which gives you limited access to join discussions and access our other features.

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community of 40,000+ people from around the world today!

    If you are already a member, simply login to hide this message and begin participating in the community!

Belief in evolution?

Do you believe in evolution?


  • Total voters
    102

TDM

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
Messages
7,006
Location
Oxfordshire, UK
WCA
2013MEND03
YouTube
Visit Channel
It's actually circular reasoning to date fossils by the rocks and date the rocks by the fossils.
I didn't phrase that sentence correctly: I didn't mean the religous argument was circular, I meant the argument of religion vs evolution was, because the basis for both arguments relies on something which only one side believes in. "Circular" was the wrong word! I meant that the argument really comes down to something very different from the plausibility of evolution.
 
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Messages
987
Location
Over there by the thing in the corner.
YouTube
Visit Channel
I didn't phrase that sentence correctly: I didn't mean the religous argument was circular, I meant the argument of religion vs evolution was, because the basis for both arguments relies on something which only one side believes in. "Circular" was the wrong word! I meant that the argument really comes down to something very different from the plausibility of evolution.
Ah, ok. :)
 
Joined
Oct 15, 2017
Messages
11
It is important to note: Evolution does NOT imply that living organisms weren't created by a higher power in the first place. It simply stipulates that living organisms evolved into new species of living organisms over billions of years. I personally believe that microorganism life was created by [a] God, and evolved according to His plan into us humans as well as countless other flora and fauna.

Bumping this, since nobody's responded to it yet.

I'll ping some of you who've been actively participating in the discussion:
I consider myself a pretty "strong Christian". However, I also believe that the creation story is largely allegorical especially if you analyse the style of writing.
 

xyzzy

Member
Joined
Dec 24, 2015
Messages
2,879
I meant that the argument really comes down to something very different from the plausibility of evolution.
This, pretty much. If one believes the Bible (or some other story book) to be infallible, there is no use talking sense to them.

I guess the only thing that really surprises me is that there would be so many religious people into a stereotypically-nerdy hobby—almost every other online community I've been a part of, of similar nerd levels, has been atheist-majority. (Or if there were fundamentalists among them, most of them sure didn't speak up.)
 
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Messages
987
Location
Over there by the thing in the corner.
YouTube
Visit Channel
This, pretty much. If one believes the Bible (or some other story book) to be infallible, there is no use talking sense to them.
This same argument can be said about you too, if you believe that evolution is flawless, then there is no sense in me trying to talk to you or anyone else.
But what it comes down to is: there either is a God, or there isn't a God, neither can be proven wrong, nor right, through the scientific method.
It comes down to how you interpret information, we all have a bias and we all intend to keep them.
So we can yell our opinions at each other all day, but it won't change anything, we all intend to keep believing whatever we believe, evolution or creation, that's why I said before that arguing is useless. We all feel that we are right and the other is wrong, and we feel that the other won't listen, so at the end of the day this discussion will always turn into a debate and what we say won't matter to the other side.
 
Last edited:

One Wheel

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
2,883
Location
Wisconsin
WCA
2016BAIR04
It's been mentioned here, but it doesn't help anybody to downplay or forget the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. I stake a fair part of my livelihood every year on the truth of microevolution. I'm a dairy farmer, and I spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars every year buying semen from the best bulls to breed my cows, and selling at a loss or slaughtering my poorest-performing cows in hopes of forcing my herd to "evolve" into a more efficient, better milk producing herd. If I do it right someday I'll even have cows or bulls that other people will want to pay a premium price for, to add to their herds. Microevolution has been demonstrated time and again to work, it's mechanisms have been (largely) explained, it's all but scientific fact.

Macroevolution is somewhere between microevolution and abiogenesis, both of which are basically just extrapolations of microevolution beyond the observable. If you can't observe it, it's philosophy, not science. Creationism and macroevolution are philosophical/religious positions, not scientific ones. It's arguable that science is a religion, but that's another story.

Re: the above post saying that Catholics are not Christians, I'm sorry but that's silly. I'm a Protestant, but the difference between Catholic and, say, Baptist is really not that much more than the difference between Baptist and Lutheran, or Wesleyan and Presbyterian. The "Catholic Bible" is the same as the "Protestant Bible", except that while most Protestants would see the Old Testament as of lesser authority than the New Testament, Catholics add the Apocrypha as of lower authority still.
 

Micah Walker

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Messages
56
Location
Ohio
WCA
2015WALK03
Wow!! what an interesting discussion! As interesting as this discussion is, however, I think some of the Christians in this thread are losing perspective on a few things.

First: only God can change peoples hearts. Through science, we can disprove MacroEvolution, again and again, but many atheists won't change their minds (Romans 1:20). Only God can bring people out of sin and change their hearts.

Second: Catholics and Christians are very different. Catholics believe in salvation through works + grace. Christians believe in Salvation by Grace alone through faith alone.( Ephesians 2: 4-9) That's a huge distinction!

Third: the discussion of whether or not there is a God is of little importance. Just because you're a theist doesn't mean you're going to heaven. If Jesus said,

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me..." (John 14:6)
then not all theists are going to heaven. Only those who put there faith and hope in Jesus Christ.

With that said, I love this thread and want to see it continue.
 

One Wheel

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
2,883
Location
Wisconsin
WCA
2016BAIR04
Second: Catholics and Christians are very different. Catholics believe in salvation through works + grace. Christians believe in Salvation by Grace alone through faith alone.( Ephesians 2: 4-9) That's a huge distinction!

I've had precisely this discussion with a few very knowledgeable Catholics, and gotten a very different answer than that. They will point to verses like Ephesians 2:10, James 2:18, and any number of other verses I could look up if my phone battery wasn't running out, and say of course, salvation is by grace through faith, but if we do not have works that is proof positive that we do not have faith, and works in the absence of true faith can build faith. I agree on the first point, and empirically speaking the second appears true as well.
 

Micah Walker

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Messages
56
Location
Ohio
WCA
2015WALK03
I've had precisely this discussion with a few very knowledgeable Catholics, and gotten a very different answer than that. They will point to verses like Ephesians 2:10, James 2:18, and any number of other verses I could look up if my phone battery wasn't running out, and say of course, salvation is by grace through faith, but if we do not have works that is proof positive that we do not have faith, and works in the absence of true faith can build faith. I agree on the first point, and empirically speaking the second appears true as well.
Yes, works are proof of faith (I like how you brought up James 2), but I was talking about salvation. Also, I understand that not all Catholics believe the same thing, I was just talking about Catholics in general.
 
Top