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Author Topic:   What is more faith than religion?
Monsieur_Lynx
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 30 (109947)
05-23-2004 1:00 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Brad McFall
05-02-2002 11:19 AM


I'm noticing that though this forum appears to be a fair way to discuss evolution and creation, there is this tendancy to label creationists as "fundamentalists" or "ignorant". People have even taken to ad hominem attacks, where a view that suggests a common designer to all life is ridiculed, rather than analyzed.
Okay, I'll attempt to show some reasoning behind this ID view. I've studied evolution for a while, and got fed up with the "evidence" for it. Why is it considered faith-based?
1)So, I'm sure many of you have heard of the observed instances of evolution. Bacteria evolve over time--they develop immunity (so if someone wants to make a dumb argument that asexual populations remain constant, they never change, they're wrong!). That is, bacteria produce other kinds of bacteria. No one really disputes this--however, if this is used as an argument that *all* life is descended from a single cell, well, then there's a problem.
Or for example, speciation. We've observed the formation of new species. For example, I believe a population of plants was produced that couldn't mate with the original population, and hence must be called a new species. Okay, so this is wonderful for a creationist view--now, rather than saying that God created every conceivable species of beetle out there, you could simply say that once a couple of beetles were created, over time they evolved, they produced different kinds of beetles, even new species of them.
Yet again, it's the same difficulty, showing that plants produce plants, or that beetles come from other kinds of beetles is hardly evidence that trees, rabbits, iguanas, humans, and fungi all evolved from a single cell. I believe this later statement is something that has to be taken on faith.
2)Transitional forms--so, for a creationist, assumptions such as the first single-celled creatures somehow evolved into 2 sexes, or somehow evolved into multicellular creatures, assumptions such as these don't need to be made. Rather, they would probably take either the Hindu/Muslim/Judeo-Christian account of creation, and say well, once we have 2 of every basic kind(ok, for bacteria & protists, 1 of every kind would suffice), then we simply let each population be fruitful and multiply. Gaps such as how egg-laying reptiles produced mammals that give birth to live young, well they don't need to be explained at all. We don't need to assume that transitional forms between mammals and reptiles existed. Nor do we need to assume that all mammals share a common ancestor (if they did, would the common ancestor lay eggs or produce live young, or maybe some weird cross between the 2?)
3)So faith is required on both sides of the debate. Whereas a creationist would see similarities of DNA and similarities of fossils and look for a common designer behind it [what evidence is there for this?], an evolutionist would see the same similarities and **believe** that they had all descended from a common ancestor [what evidence is there for this]
4)Unfortunately the origin of life is something that we cannot directly observe, so yes it is a matter of faith. If the objection is raised, we can see the results of evolution. Well, we can take those results (homologous structures, fossils, microevolution) and use it to support the creationist view as well.
I realize I haven't been entirely fair to the evolutionary standpoint. Yes, it's quite easy to poo-poo evolution--"haha, they say iguanas, trees, humans, just about any damned creature they can think of came from a single cell. They can't explain how males and females or even multicellular organisms evolved from a single cell, but they INSIST it happened!! Let's go find those missing links!"
But hopefully both sides are more mature than that, and can actually analyze it [more importantly analyze what's meant by "evolution"]. The purpose should be to come up with a rational account of how life got here, and hopefully there will be more of that on this forum.
Cheers,
Monsieur Lynx

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Brad McFall, posted 05-02-2002 11:19 AM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by AdminNosy, posted 05-23-2004 1:17 AM Monsieur_Lynx has not replied
 Message 20 by crashfrog, posted 05-23-2004 5:44 AM Monsieur_Lynx has not replied
 Message 25 by Brad McFall, posted 05-25-2004 5:52 PM Monsieur_Lynx has not replied

  
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