Alternative Creations

Funny you should say this, I was just thinking about this while I was driving.Here's the thing. Let's invent a person - Rational Bob.Rational Bob has heard nothing about Creationism or Evolution. Rational Bob has no leanings one way or another. When presented with evidence, he takes it at face value until something contradictory comes along - then he has to make a decision. Seems fair to me.Rational Bob learns Creationism, therefore he believes Creationism.Rational Bob then learns Evolution. Uh oh, now we have a conflict. Neither side has an advantage over the other.Rational Bob then learns about nuclear physics. Generally unrelated to either issue. He believes nuclear physics.But, nuclear physics includes radioactive halflife. And radioactive halflife supports an Old Earth. Now, we have a conflict with Creationism.Rational Bob moves on to geology. Geology supports an Old Earth. Uh oh.Rational Bob moves on to Botany, then to Astrophysics, then to Archaeology, then to Cartooning (just for a break), then onto Enviornmentalism, etc.Now Rational Bob has a problem. None of these fields his recently studies has anything to do with Evolution directly. They just say, as evolution does, that the world is pretty old. They all contradict Creationism.So either Rational Bob clings to Creationism and discounts everything else. Or Rational Bob goes with the data and questions creationism.The evidence geology (et al) present is not dependant on ToE, in fact, much of it predates the development of ToE.All all the info is looked at on an equal basis, one can't help but come to the conclusion that there just isn't much data backing up creationism.

Thanks for the heads up, I did not connect your screen name with your Aslan comment, sorry.

Well, I was an atheist when I was in my teens, didn't become a Christian until I was an adult...so...I was taught evolution in high school, never went to church, did not grow up with creationism...so I guess my profile doesn't fit Rational Bob.

Rational Bob is not supposed to be you. He's a completely neutral experimental entity.

Well, the fact is, if views cannot be harmonised with each other, no matter where they are from, they cannot both be right..unless you want to commit intellectual suicide.
Reality depends alot on assumptions, I think if we looked more closely at what we thought were facts in this world, I think we'd realise we make alot of assumptions, that in the end, require faith to believe them, whether we're religious or not. Our culture has sayings like 'appearances can be deceiving' for a reason.
Of course, implicit in your statement is that non religious people know objective reality, religious people don't. And you folks have no trouble imposing your view on us...bottom line is, being non-religious will not prevent you from doing what you accuse religious folks of...that's one of the reasons why I gave up being non religious, because those folks are not nearly so different from others that they'd like to think. From a Christian perspective, we are all sinners in the same boat. I see evidence of that every day.

Well,
To cut a really long story short, I would teach 'origins' in it's own class. I think it's important to learn how different people view the world. The foundtaion would be...views that people have believed about how life came to be...all the past ones, and all the current ones.

It's not that we are impossing our views of objective reality on religious people, it's that objective reality is impossing it's existance on religious people.Objective reality simply is. I disagree. I think reality is. There's no assumptions involved. We can deduce, we can infer, but what is, simply is.The question then becomes which point of view (science or religion) has more in common with reality.Is science always 100% right about reality? Nope. Is religion 100% right about reality? Nope.But, when we look at them side by side, we're not talking 50-50. If you want to discount evolution is being just science's point of view, then why not gravity? Why not electricity? Why not medicine?

That's comparitive religion, that's already a class available in just about every college and many high schools.

Which leads me straight to my point...lots of things have been discovered by science without reference to evolution...looking at the history of medicine for example, the earliest discoveries were not made by evolutionists at all, many predated Darwin's theory...most scientists before Darwin's day were creationists! The argument that no science can be done without evolution would have to assume such an ignorance of the history of science, it boggles my mind!
If only evolution were as obvious as electricity or gravity, but like I said, it all depends on one's assumptions...if I had a dollar for everytime an evolutionist said his theory was based on proof..and then a few minutes later, they're saying...well, we can't see that because blah blah (whether it's the fact that we can't see the geologic column in it's entirety somewhere on Earth, or we don't have a transitional fossil for that animal because the changes happened so rapidly i.e. over thousands instead of millions of years)...they always end up making excuses for what they can't see and they just go on and on and on...and yet they still say it's based on what they see! Baloney! It's based on lots of assumptions with quite alot of circular reasoning thrown in for good measure.
There are many areas of science where we still have ALOT to learn...a healthy skepticism is in order. Unfortunately, evolutionists so often trumpet 'proof' for their views, when in fact, they should be more humble and honest and be talking about 'possibilities'.
You said "objective reality is imposing it's existance on religious people." If only it were that simple...
Anyway, you and I need to get back on track re. the Flood story thing, just debating on how to continue with the info in a practical fashion, want to keep the post to a smaller size.

Who's making that argument?What we're saying is this: If you discount Evolution by saying that the scientific method is wrong, how can you accept anything that the scientific method has led to? I hear this from the Creationist side of the debate all the time. What assumptions are you suggesting have been made? Well, this depends largely on what your asking them to present. If you say "Geology doesn't work unless you can show me a single column from one location which contains everything" then you are asking for the ridiculous.We might respond with, "if God made man out of clay, show me the thumb prints". Again, can you tell me what assumptions you think it's based on? What circular reasoning?

quote:

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If only evolution were as obvious as electricity or gravity

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you can explain gravity? you better write up your results - the nobel prize for science is yours for the taking.You seem to waffle really good but I don't see nothing but waffle - no evidence that you actually understand the TOE at all (like many "converted" people).This message has been edited by CK, 12-Sep-2005 06:02 PM

Yeah, Gravity is a great example.Why does gravity work? I think if you go over to my thread "Crack Pot Ideas that Still Hold Water" you'll find a very solid argument which explains gravity's mechanisms completely.

I meant the existence of gravity is obvious, any ball spinning in space with objects on it would have them flying off unless there was another force holding them on to it. Did not mean I had all the scientific formulas as to how it works!
Well, what is ToE to you 'uncoverted' folks in your opinion exactly?

ToE is a description of the mechanics of life we observe today. (Namely, mutation happens, heradity happens, selection happens, etc.)It has the added benifit of explaining the data we see turned up in the fossil record.It is reinforced by the fact that what it tells us about the chronological order of fossils is reinforced by what geology tells us about the chronological order of the strata we often find the fossils in.Etc.Now, if I can ask, what is Theory of Evolution to you?

I am not discounting the scientific method, only evolution...my point was there is more to science than just evolution.
The assumption of uniformitarianism is a biggie especially when dealing with millions and billions of years...that's a heck of a lot of faith to exercise!
Another assumption is that all ancient men were 'primitive' in the past. We're still trying to figure out how or why some things they built were built in the first place!
I could go on but I don't wanna make this post too long.
Re. the geologic column, that is my point, they assume it without seeing it that way..it's NOT on what they see, it's what they ASSUME!
My point is, there is more than one interpretation to alot of evidence that is discovered, not nearly as cut and dried as you are led to believe. Not saying assumptions are always wrong, but they're not always right either...but that's rarely what evolutionists admit, unfortunately, and that's what gets people upset. It could be partly the media's fault sometimes, but not always.