Creationists are coming to town

That would be indeed surprising considering that some 20-40% (or so) of evolutionary biologists already believe that God exists.Or maybe the theory of evolution says nothing about God at all, and it's only creationists who set the theory in opposition to religious belief? It's better not to have a worldview at all, but merely to view the world, don't you think?

According to them, they believe in the God of the Bible. According to them it's your God that isn't Biblical. No, there's something ultimately more.Who's the better pool player, in your opinion? The one who takes the time to set up a trick shot so that, on one break, all the balls go into the pockets with no further interaction?Or the one who grabs the balls in his hands and drops them into the pockets manually?The God of subtle creation is significantly more impressive, mighty, and moreover, consistent with what we see today than a God who can't keep his fingers out of the pie and has to either do it all at once or constantly mess about with it. You diminish your God by presuming a lack of subtlety. That would be difficult to support given that primary research into evolution never mentions or involves God. Scientific theories do not, as a rule, make statements about God.Evolutionary theory is a reaction to evidence, not to the Bible. Here's a pretty useful presupposition - "events in the natural world should be explained by natural phenomena rather than immediate recourse to a supernatural entity that no one has ever observed."It's a pretty useful presupposition. As a result of employing it we enjoy longer, easier lives, greater technology, less disease, greater access to information and knowledge, less crime, helpful medicines, and plentiful food.Note that there was a time when the opposite presupposition held sway. We call that time period "The Dark Ages." Why do you suppose that is? The same thing it takes to substantiate your existence.Now, to believe in the God you're taking about, I might require a little more. If it's your God that exists, and he's everything you claim he is, he's got some explaining to do.

Actually I work all night. I'll be hitting the sack sometime after I get home at about 7:30 am. Why not? That's what I believed when I was a Christian. In addition to the scientific evidence, what convinced me of evolution was the Bible - it describes a God of subtlety, a God who works through natural mechanisms, not in spite of them. Intelligent people know that making mistakes is part of the design process, and I assume God is smart enough to take the good with the bad in terms of his designs. No. The God you worship creates the pool table with the balls already in the pockets. He never even plays the game, and how impressive is that? Not really. He creates a universe that inevitably, gives rise to wheat, grindstones, egg-laying chickens, fire for the ovens, and bakers to put it all together. To me that's much more impressive feat for an omnipotent entity than snapping cosmic fingers for a hot slice of apple pie. And I don't believe that such a desire is Biblical. You're supposed to take God on faith. Evidence of God wouldn't allow that. What free will would we have to come to God if the evidence was so overwhelming that only crazy people could doubt it? And you'll certainly never be his friend with that threat of violence always between you. Maybe it's just me but I would assume God has other plans for us besides crushing tackles?If God exists then I don't believe that mandating faith is his game, and everything I observe in the world seems to attest to that. You, on the other hand, put a 2000-year-old book written by who-knows-who above the evidence God has left for you in his living work - the universe. Me, assuming God exists I'm not about to put a book of uncertain authorship and origin over the testimony of his work itself. The problem is that no theory about God can be falsifiable, and without falsifiability, it's not science.For instance, I believe that God has three beards. How could you possibly prove me wrong? Statements about God can't ever be scientific because they can't ever be tested - there's no way you could tell the difference between the statement being true or false. So what does God tell you about the relationship between light and time? What does God tell you about the nature of matter at the atomic level? What does God tell you about gravity?The Bible isn't a science textbook. If you want to know about the physical world you have to start by looking at the physical world. When biologists - believing or not - look at the natural world they see ample evidence that natural causes suffice to explain the diversity of species on Earth. Their faith in God isn't changed as a result so I don't see why yours has to be - they are, after all, smarter than both of us. Since there's no way that creationism can be falsified, it can't ever be science. If there's no way to know that it's wrong, there's no way to ever know if it's right. How many beards does he have, then? Did a human build your car, or a robot? Unless you have direct knowledge about the creator of your car, you'll never know. You can't infer the qualities, or even existence, of a designer simply because you have something that looks designed. That certainly wasn't I implied, and you'd have reason to be resentful - Christians, like anybody else, have contributed much to the field of science. But they do so by assuming that natural events have natural causes, because anything else leads to unfalsifiable theories.Would we have electricity and electronics if we adopted your "science"? "What causes lightning?" "God, so we'll never be able to do the same thing." Thanks to the assumption that natural events have natural causes, we harness lightning and send it across the world to talk to each other.But if you assume that God is behind everything you don't yet understand, you never have any reason to try to understand it. This is just the "True Scotsman" fallacy. Since your argument is that Christians are automatically better than everybody else, any time that they're not you claim it's because they aren't "real" Christians. It's circular reasoning of the most pernicious sort. The Bible isn't the word of God. Oh, I know you believe it is, but that's a position you take on faith. Me, I don't believe it. You can put "By God" on any book you like and claim it to be the words of God. As it turns out, the Bible is no better at describing the world than any other collection of a culture's myths. Sure. You would, of course, have to prove that you had done that. Offering the Bible as proof is a fallacious appeal to anonymous authority. Do you? You don't seem to sure. A minute ago you told me that the proof of God's existence was, by design, like a linebacker tackling you to the ground. Now you apparently believe God is a little more subtle.Which is it?

I imagine it is, just like gravity, or Boyle's Law, or that George Washington was the first president of the US.In other words it's "enforced" in schools because it's true (in that it's an accurate description of the history of life on earth) and schools are there to teach things that are true. Evolution is both theory and fact. That evolution happened is a fact. The model we use to describe it is the theory. Just like gravity is both fact and theory - that gravity exists is fact. The math (the model) we use to make calculations about it is a theory. No, it's because there's no such things as gods, but that's neither here nor there. We're talking about evolution, not religion. Fine. So look at the world and see his plan - evolution through natural selection and random mutation. What's so hard about that? You keep saying that you won't let your desires about God dictate terms to him, but you won't put that into action. Why is that? As a matter of faith, or as evidence? If you take the authorship of the Bible on faith then we have nothing to talk about. If you take it from evidence then there's a number of people here who beg to differ. (I'm not qualified to debate the authroship of the bible, and after all, to me it doesn't matter - it can't be the word of God because there's no such thing as God.) Not a fact. Not only are a number of the bible authors unknown, but the stories of their martyrdom are merely legend. Anyway, what would it matter? Every religion has martyrs. Why should I accept your martyrs as any more evidence for your beliefs than you accept other martyrs for other faiths'? So, you don't so much worship God as you worship the Bible. Isn't there a commandment against that? Idols, etc? To the contrary. There are a number of potential falsifications of evolutionary theory. For instance, if organisms did not inherit DNA from their parents, evolution would not be true. If cladograms inferred from genetic similarity had absolutely no correlation with fossil record stratiography, evolution would not be true. If natural selection never altered allele frequencies, evolution would not be true.There's a number of conditions in which evolution would not be true. It's just that none of those conditions is true, so while evolution is falsifiable, it hasn't been falsified yet. Origins is not evolution. Don't change the subject, please. Show me some who have testable theories of creation. Show me some who have published peer-reviewed research involving models of creation.There may be brilliant people involved in creation. Honestly the skill involved in many creationist deceptions demonstrates that. But the minute they leave the realms of falsifiable models, they've ceased to be scientists. I've given you several falsifications of evolution. I imagine that if you thought hard enough you could come up with more, yourself. No, it is the point. When people see God, they don't tend to see the same thing - or else they could agree on how many beards he has, for instance.Whatever they're seeing, it's not God, because if it was, their accounts would be more similar.If they can't answer basic questions about God, then how can they claim to have seen him? That's still true for the theistic evolutionist. No. But sociologically it's representative of what happens to science when you start thinking that the solution to every unsolved problem is God. Why solve any problem if the answer can always be God? Claims of the Bible cannot be used to substantiate claims of the Bible. That's fallacious circular reasoning. After all I can write a hundred books that claim to be written by God or the Holy Spirit or Santa Claus, and support them the same way you support the Bible.If you want to substantiate the Bible, you can't use the Bible to do it. Is that the sort of reasoning you think is going to get you far in the sciences?