Both or neither.

I certainly am not saying that. I am saying that the question of whether or not He did is not a scientific question. It's a hell of a good question, but not a scientific question.Of course, if He did create everything in six days a few thousanbd years ago, then almost all of His creation is devoted to lying to us, and I don't find that to be acceptable theology. So I'm also saying that Genesis is not a literal account of actual events.

NO! Again. 1 reason I want my belief in schools is because I believe it to be truth. But I also would WANT other religous /not normally school taught beliefs in schools. I find your comment calling me evil very offensive, especially since is Creation was being taught in schools, and evolution wasn't, YOU would be pushing for YOUR belief to be in schools too! IS THAT EVIL? How am I being "intolerant"? I keep on saying I don't care if your belief or any other belief is in schoools. That is not intolerance, that is my trying to get alternate views into schools. I hate how Creationism is called 'not science', and evolution is. Both are based on some form of faith, whether it is the assumtion that the Bible IS true, or whether the assumptions must be made on the tests in laboratories. Both have things that we are not entirely sure of, or don't have proof of, so both require faith. So calling Creationism 'Faith-based', and evolution 'science-based', is not entirely fair or even accurate.
You must be careful which cherries you pick, many of them are bad.
As for me, I look at both-sides, and so far, there seems to be just enough evidence to keep the heated debate running in circles. So, by saying, that "when all of the creationists...", you actually are putting all of them in the same catorgory and making unfair prejudice against them all. Remember, not all Creationists believe the same, let alone think,act, or go "cherry-picking data" together.
How can you believe that Genesis has so many truths, since it is such an old, out-dated book? Anyway, if it had "many truths", and God, speaking through the Bible has NEVER been proven wrong, then why wouldn't you believe the entire thing? This is another thing that astounds me. Why can't people believe the ENTIRE BIBLE? It has predicted many things, told scientific FACTS (round earth, cleaning to prevent sickness, ect), ect. No other 'religous book' does these things and is right about everything else. If there is a place I have failed to see in the Bible that is 100% without-a-doubt, dead-on wrong, tell me.

Let me rephrase since you are apparently Webster himself. Possibility. Is that a more appropriate word?

It is evil (a word that sound strong but looking at history might not be) because it undermines an important part of western free societies. It undermines a freedom which protects you (as a minority). Your religion is free from state interference, either by infringement or by pushing it.We are not talking about beliefs. The explanations which are supported in schools must be, by law in most free states, not based on a particular religious view.The consensus view of various branches of science are held by belivers and non-believers alike. These views do not require any particular religious view. This has been legally examined over and over and determined to be the case under a number of legal systems. It is religious faith that we are concerned about. Please describe (in another thread, some already exist) how basing ones understanding of what a most reasonable explanation for something is on lab tests is "faith". Faith, as has been noted a number of times doesn't require evidence. Lab tests are evidence that is required just when something is NOT based on faith.As for Biblical inerrancy there are threads discussing that too. It seems to require extrordinary twists to keep it that way.I don't think you have said what you believe Genesis does say. Some have an interpretation that seems to be fine and not proven wrong. Those who interpret it as saying that the earth was formed in 6 days only 6,000 years ago are interpreting it to be wrong.If you are one of the latter then there are threads where you may put forward your views. You will have them listened to. They will not be taken "on faith" but based on the evidence and logic you supply.

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Common sense isn't

TruthDetector So by that logic may we come to your church and teach evolution?

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'Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.'
(Daniel Patrick Moynihan)

Speaking of cherry-picking ...The Bible has many true things in it, and many false things. It is not inerrant.God wrote the rocks, Man wrote the Bible.

Sorry, there isn't anywhere near enough evidence to keep the heated debate running in circles. The evidence-based questions were settled over a hundred years ago. There is enough religiously and politically motivated activism to keep the heated debate running in circles, but the so-called "evidence" proffered is just incredulity and religious extremism.

I'm assuming that the science curricula relating to Astronomy in a Physics course and Earth Science also would have to devote time to the religious beliefs that contradict scientific principles. Is a major curriculum revision needed to be done with other courses as well ? Your religious beliefs contradict others. How much time will be devoted to this ? What are the professional requirements for such a teacher, since those topics lie outside of his/her primary discipline ?

truthdetector:a study in hubris key word--belief. real science is based on and backed up by actual evidence that even if you don't believe in it, it is still there. assumptions in the laboratory are either supported or rejected based on exeperimental evidence, not belief. when a hypothesis is proven false, we either change the hypothesis and experiment again or we throw it out and say "well, the evidence shows that such and such does not happen." creationist claims as well as religious beliefs are still around in spite of the evidence. what we know in science is backed up by countless experiments and observations that pose actual explanations for natural phenomena. the bible explains nothing. it provides suggestions for behavior, but it is not a field guide. i don't need faith to know that i share 98.8% of my DNA with a chimpanzee. i don't need faith to know that every organism on this planet uses the same four nucleotides for DNA and the same four nucleotides for RNA. i know that whales and pythons had legs at one point in their family bush. i know that no human fossils have ever been found with dinosaur fossils. etc., etc. etc... the point is that evolution is a robust theory supported by tons of evidence from many scientific disciplines and in the 150+ years that it has been around, evolution has never been disproven. in fact, the more people try to disprove parts of the theory, the stronger the theory gets. however, archeological evidence does not support the claims found in the books of genesis or exodus or, for the most part, the entire OT. a better explanation for the stories in the OT (and the NT, for that matter)come from the mythology and the political climate of the eastern med, middle east, and christian rome as well as the misguided clergy of the middle ages. to remain true to disproven ideas requires faith. science does not.

I don't think so. Science teachers would be overwhelmed to the point of ineptitude if they had to discuss anything that was possible. Instead what they should focus on is notions that have independent evidence in reality. What evidence do you have of creation? Keep in mind, I mean evidence of an actual event itself, not some stories about an alleged event. That's why creationism needs to compose a theory that is testible and falsifiable for it to compete against real scientific theories.

May I presume that you are also uninterested in attacks on other theories and vague unsupported statements such as "flood geology is scientific"?

You certainly may so presume, and in fact I insist. Gaps in evolutionary/geological/etc knowledge are not -- repeat NOT -- evidence of creationism.

I was reminded (by something I saw at another site) that my original answer ("about 47%. So what?") was incomplete.I should have said:About 47% believe in something close to young earth creationism. More, about 49%, believe in an old Earth and evolution (with many believeing in "theistic evolution" with God guiding the proces of evolution). So what?See Substantial Numbers of Americans Continue to Doubt Evolution as Explanation for Origin of Humans (unavailable directly from Gallup witout a paid subscription; see Page Not Found ).TruthDetector, you argued that YECs are a majority. They are not; they are not even a purality.When are you going to rettract your claim that "There are already some states allowing it [teaching creationism in public schools - JRF]."?

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Are you saying that there is no way, in your mind, that God could have made everything you see today?

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No, I'm saying that the evidence indicates that if God made everything, he did so using natural means, at least as a general rule.

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Just because it doesn't meet the almighty SFS's standards for being a scientific theory doesn't make it not a possiblity.

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Why the sarcasm? There's nothing special about my standards -- creationists make no effort at all to explain a lot of scientific data. You don't have to have very high standards to conclude that a theory that doesn't exist isn't much of a theory. There is no creationist theory of genetics, for example.

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When referring to the observed data, are you also referring to radio-carbon-dating?

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Not particularly. Very little of interest to evolution can be dated with radiocarbon dating.

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Is that process, along with all/most of all of the other 'information' you speak of that has been gathered, not accurate or reliable depending of the situation?

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I don't know what you're asking here. Radiodating, of all types, has its limitations, but they're pretty well understood, and within those limitations it is quite accurate. I'm mostly talking about genetic data, however, which has little to do with radiodating.

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I would also LOVE to here one of these "ad hoc explainations" that "frequently contradict one another".

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The Flood was:
a) a wild, raging chaos that mixed and sorted large amounts of solid material and sloshed it all over the place, and
b) so gentle that separate layers of salt and fresh water were preserved throughout it.

Then give some numbers. You actually think you can calculate a probability for either idea? Show input assumptions and detailed calculations.Here is a rough start:For one there is some independent, observable evidence, p > 0 for the other none, P ~ 0.

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Common sense isn't[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 01-22-2004]