Summations Only

Because that's simply a violation of Occam's Razor."Possible" != "supported by evidence." You'd still need to support the assertion of your trickster deity with evidence of its existence, else you're just violating parsimony again.

I have to side with ICANT on this - by the definition you guys are using, all creations from God are manifestations of God. Since that's basically everything other than God Himself, the definition is rather meaningless. If all of God's creations are manifestations of God, then fish and insects, even the Earth and air are manifestations of God as much as Satan is. Even if you only include "supernatural" entities, human beings would qualify, as we supposedly have supernatural "souls."I do agree that Christianity's monotheism is a bit overstated, though.Satan can be said to be a God simply because of the power he's supposed to have. YHWH's power is supposed to be greater, but that doesn't mean anything - the Greek god Zeus was "King of the Gods," but Apollo and Poseidon and all the rest were still considered gods as well.In the same way, Satan is shown to be an entity of supernatural power who is worshiped by some human beings - I'd say that qualifies for most definitions of "god" that don't specifically define that only one "god" can exist (obviously, such definitions like "God is the entity of greatest possible potential" and other such nonsense only work in a monotheistic world and as such aren't meaningful definitions).In fact, you could also say that many Christian sects (Catholicism, for one) who pray to the saints have a multitude of deities, since they pray to and worship multiple supernatural entities who act as intermediaries to the higher-ranking deity.This is unsurprising for many reasons. In the OT, various references are made to the gods of other peoples. YHWH specifically tells the Jews not to worship them, but not that they don;'t exist. This was later rationalized as Christianity re-interpreted gods like Baal as "demons" instead of deities.Later, as Christianity spread, it attracted converts from many polytheistic cultures who merged their own beliefs with their new religion. Voodoo is an example of a semi-Christian polytheistic religion formed by merging Christianity with polytheistic faiths. Santeria is another.Even the basic Trinity doctrine of many (most?) Christian denominations could be interpreted as polytheistic - the Father, Son and Holy Ghost being three Gods that make one God. Christians tend not to see it that way, but the "three in one" doctrine is very difficult to pin down and define in the first place, considering that simultaneously existing as three entities and one entity is a direct contradiction. I believe Christians tend to refer to such contradictory and seemingly senseless beliefs as "mysteries."

Correction: it's a debate between Evolution and Creation. Evolution is a scientific theory. Creationism is a religious viewpoint and is not derived from teh scientific method. There is no "Theory of Creation," for example. Incorrect. Evolution is a scientific theory, meaning it is an explanatory model describing the observed variety of life observed on Earth, based on a wide variety of evidence.Creationism is a religious viewpoint taken from a literal interpretation of the Bible, is not based on the observed evidence, and has nothing to do with scientists. Incorrect. The Theory of Evolution is regarded by scientists as a whole as an accurate model describing how and why new species appear on Earth. Creationism is a religious belief held by literalist Christians. Judging by your first few posts, you have quite a few misconceptions about what evolution actually is. If correcting your misconceptions comes across as "lecturing," well, your "feelings" are irrelevant to the argument. Correct only inasmuch as science as a whole is a branch of philosophy. But you seem to be using the word "philosophy" to mean "preconceived worldview." Whicle this is accurate for Creationism, it is not accurate for the Theory of Evolution.The Theory of Evolution has literally more supporting evidence than does the Theory of Gravity. The Theory of Evolution is an explanatory model describing how new species and features arise from pre-existing species through random mutation and genetic drift guided by natural selection (this being a simplified description). The theory was first published in Darwin's famous book, as a result of his direct observation of birds over several years. He directly observed the sort of evolution you would call "micro" evolution, where features change over a given population but a new species does not result. He extrapolated that, given a physical separation fo the population, these small changes would occur independantly within the two new populations until the two groups could no longer be called the same species.In the many years since Darwin first published, we've done an awful lot of research into evolution, and we've uncovered a lot more evidence than a few birds. In fact, we've directly observed, both in the laboratory and in teh wild, new species forming from existing species. That would be what you've referred to as "macro" evolution.Clearly, the Theory of Evolution is more than a simple "worldview" or "phlosophy." It's an explanation for the directly observed phenomenon of new species arising from pre-existing species.Scientists don't just pull conclusions and theories from their imaginations, you know. "True science" is that which follows the scientific method. Science does not ever claim to have a literal "proof" - that is the realm of pure mathematics. Being "proven" is not a requirement to be considered science. All that is necessary is to follow the scientific method: make observations, establish a hypothesis to explain those observations, test your hypothesis, and modify, discard, or keep your hypothesis according to the results. Rinse and repeat. The scientific method results in theories that represent and explain the evidence currently known as accurately as possible, but are always subject to being changed or discarded pending new evidence. The Theory of Evolution is an example of such a theory - it explains the evidence currently available concerning the diversity of life on Earth to a tested high degree of accuracy.Creationism does not follow the scientific method. It is derived from the literal reading of a sacred text written before the scientific method was even conceived. There is no evidence supporting Creationism. There is no testable hypothesis. There is no ability to modify, discard, or keep a hypothesis based on observed evidence. There is only dogmatic adherence to words written on a page with absolutely nothing to back them up.Further, you seem to have confused the Theory of Evolution with abiogenesis. This is a false correlation - the two are compeltely independant. The evidence supporting evolution remains the same whether life first appeared on Earth from abiogenesis, or from aliens, or from a deity (just not in the way described literally in Genesis). The Theory of Evolution makes absolutely no claim whatsoever as to the origin of life - it only concerns the origin of species once life already exists. Abiogenesis is a completely independant and unrelated line of research. We've done so, and found Creationism to be lacking. As is "macro" evolution. In fact, there is no real distinction between the two amongst scientists - it's a line drawn by Creationists as they move the goalposts. But the fact is that we have directly observed the rise of new species from existing ones, as well as being able to directly observe fossil and genetic evidence that supports the model that new species do not form spontaneously in a poof of divine magic, but rather form from pre-existing species over many generations as populations disperse into new environments or meet new selective pressures.I think you're a bit behind the times, Kelly. I'd suggest that you not get your information from Creationist websites, but instead read scientific papers from actual biologists who study and work with evolution on a daily basis. The modern Theory of Evolution is the coernerstone that underlies nearly all of biology.

It's possible because the timescale required for new species to arise is not set in stone. It takes a number of generations for a given populationm to change, but not all living things have long generations compared to the human lifetime.The term "species" is typically defined as a cohesive group or organisms that are unable to productively interbreed with other groups. In other words, dogs of various varieties are the same species because they can interbreed; dogs and house cats are different species because they cannot interbreed. Horses and donkeys can interbreed, but their offspring is not viable (mules cannot reproduce), and so are closely related but different species.We have directly observed populations of several organisms evolve independently (what you would call "micro" evolution) to the point where each population can no longer interbreed with its parent group. This means that a new species has formed - the parent and daughter species will continue to evolve independantly and will accumulate more and more differences as time goes on.See this Wiki article for more information of observed instances of "speciation," where we have directly observed new species forming from pre-existing species.We have no observed a dog giving birth to a fish, or any sort of "metamorphosis," but that's rather irrelevant considering that the Theory of Evolution makes no such claims. This is absolutely and completely false.The fossil record represents a series of snapshots of life at different given epochs, and has given us multiple instances of what Creationists term "transitional fossils." Technically, all species are transitional because they exist between their ancestor species and any future species that will eventually branch off, but the ones that make everyone excited are examples like Archeopteryx, where a single organism demonstrates distinctly dinosaurian characteristics as well as distinctly birdlike characteristics. There are many, many others - organisms that demonstrate the transition between invertebrates and vertebrates, transitions from aquatic forms of life to amphibians to land-dwellers and then in the case of whales back to aquatic species, etc.The so-called "missing links" are a method of continually shifting the goalposts. We do not expect to find every generation of every species that has ever existed, and this is what would be required to eliminate all "missing links." When we have examples 2, 4, 5, 6, and 10, Creationists demand 8. When we find 8, 9 becomes the new "missing link." When we find 3, they demand 3.5.The fact is, we have an extremely detailed representation from the fossil record of new species that arise from older, pre-existing species.Oddly enough, it seems that no individual feature is completely unique, but is rather a slightly modified version of a pre-existing feature found on a pre-existing species. This supports evolution as a gradual process over many generations, as opposed to instantaneous Creation where species simply pop into existence.Further, the fossil record is not even the main basis for the Theory of Evolution - it's just one rather strong example. Genetics as we currently understand it did not exist in Darwin's time, and yet when we look at evolution with the addition of the new evidence provided by genetics, it all fits perfectly. And there's a great deal more than genetics, as well. Both genetics and simple direct observation of existing species show vestigial features: those features which have a function in other species but have lost or changed their function in another. The human appendix is a vestigial version of the secum of the alimentary canal - it was used by our evolutionary ancestors who were herbivores to better digest plant matter. It now serves no greater purpose in human beings than to present a lethal risk of infection.Vestigial features do not fit with Creationism, where each species is designed from the ground up and poofed into existence by a deity. They do, however, fit perfectly with the model presented by the Theory of Evolution, where features are carried on to descendants in slightly modified forms.The amount of evidence in support of the Theory of Evolution is mountainous. The amount of evidence in support of Creationism consists of an old set of texts written by stone-age nomads and the continued willful ignorance and misconception of religious zealots who take their ancient text over direct, observable evidence.