Has anyone in this forum changed evo/creo sides?

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It seemed as though you all almost blindly accepted that more people shift from the Creationist Model to the Evolutionist Model.

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Well, it is true that there are plenty of folk who have switched from accepting evolution to believing in creationism. But that is usually the result of a conversion to a literalist sect, and the change in beliefs as to origins just changes because the person now accepts the literal reading of her scriptures.I have not yet spoken with anyone who decided that the theory of evolution is false based solely on the scientific evidence. I suspect there must be some, but my assumption is that the numbers are fairly small.

Look guys, very eloquant, well written ways of saying blah blah blah. Again, aside from personal experience, you have any evidence to back you up? This seems to be the very kind of thing you accuse Creationists of. (Makes claims without evidence).Joe[This message has been edited by Navy10E, 03-12-2004]

As I said, almost every account I ever heard of someone changing their beliefs to creationism was an account of a general religious conversion, and science didn't seem to have to do with it.I have made requests on several message boards for someone to relate whether they became creationists based on an examination of the scientific evidence. So far, no one has ever responded.

Your testimonial means as much as the guy who says "God told me he made everything, He touched my mind". Till you can prove what you are saying, don't worry about convincing me on this point.
I really don't care about your interpretation of a few randomly collected pieces of informations.[This message has been edited by Navy10E, 03-12-2004]

Sorry, Navy, but I think there is some misunderstanding. You seem to think that I am trying to convince you of something. Let's try this again.Your question was: My answer is: I don't know. I only have some anecdotal evidence (my own, mainly) to give some idea of what the answer is. It has been my experience that although I, personally, know of many people (including myself) who changed from being a creationist to accepting the theory of evolution due to the scientific evidence, I do not know of anyone who came to believe in creationism due to the scientific evidence. All the people that I have ever heard of who came to believe in creationism did so as a result of a religious conversion.Note that in my paragraph I have been very careful to say that this is simply my own experience. I know of no scientific studies on this. If you don't find this convincing, well, I don't see why you think that I want to convince you of anything.But maybe it's still not very clear what I am trying to say. If you still think that I am trying to convince of something, tell me what you think that I am trying to say. Maybe I can then clarify things.And, to the general audience, I still invite anyone who has changed her mind and accepted Biblical creationism after an examination of the scientific evidence to share her story with us.

Well I consider myself as a creationist and the number of people who switch sides are usually very small. Why am I a creationist? This is more spiritual than science. Since god is present in my life through prayer and scripture it is hard for me to accept a theory which tries to disprove what i experience everyday (this is at least the objective of many evolutionists to prove that there is no god). But still I do not force my views on anybody. Theistic evolution? Not an option for me since i believe that god would of have let us now that he used millions of years to create the universe.{Note from Adminnemooseus - I can see that part of the above has the heavy possibility of shooting this topic off-topic. Members may wish to discuss the last 2 sentences etc, but please do it on-topic elsewhere. Thank you.}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 03-13-2004]

As always, great moose, we will take heed of your warning and I promise to do my best to stay on topic.
Jazz raised a good point when he said;"[I] believe that god would of have let us now that he used millions of years to create the universe."Now this makes sense to me. Why would God need to lie to us. I mean, taking a couple million years can't be much harder to comprehend the speaking it into being. Couple that with this thought: If part of the Bible is false, then the whole thing is nothing but an elaborate poetry/philosophy/history book. That is why I believe that this debate is so importent. If I'm wrong, then my faith is founded on worthless crap. If I'm right...you all are in serious spritual trouble. I will also admit, I'm one of those people who likes to sharpen his wits by fighting with sharper wits. The Evolutionists here are (mostly) very intelligent people. I'm kinda average...but I don't mind, because I have faith that the truth I believe will win at the end of the day. Ok, I think my openheartedness has come to an end for now, good day.Joe[This message has been edited by Navy10E, 03-13-2004]

Well the simple answer is that by taking this line you are arguing that science has shown your religion to be false.But I think the problem is in your theology.Considering the following facts.1) According to Christian doctrine the unoverse is the direct creation of God
2) The empirical evidence shows us a universe billions of years old. And that evidence is observations of the universe itself.So if the universe is much younger then God HAS deceived many, many people.In contrast according to normal Christian doctrine the Bible is not directly createdby God and telling us the age of the universe was not the purpose God had in mind for the Bible.So it seems to me that a universe only a few thousands of years old is worse for Christianity since it proposes that God created a great deal of deceptive evidence - whereas if the literal reading of the Bible is wrong on this issue the worst that can be said is that God did not intervene to prevent an error in the Bible.

Chiroptera,I think the main details of this point have been made on the thread, "The Best Scientific Method" over at "Is it Science." But,
I was a scientist that believed that evolution was true. I was taught, however, a definition of science that appears to differ from many here, it that it allowed for the testing of supernatural hypotheses, and had a rather looser criteria for "evidence." Anyway, it was looking at the evidence mainly from prayer experiments that I came to believe that the earth and biological diversity were willfully created.Now, your point my be that evolution is mainly common descent, against which there there appears to be no good evidence. Then I agree. I'm 62, and when I was taught evolution, the main point was natural versus artificial selection, biological engineering versus random mutation. That's what I was converted away from by evidence from prayer studies.So, whether I am your first evidential convert from evolution, or not depends on how we define the terms, and the scientific method.Stephen

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Why would God need to lie to us.

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Exactly, Navy! To repeat PualK's point, God did tell us that the universe is millions of years old. Astronomy, Geology, Physics, and Biology are all fill with pretty definite evidence that the universe is about 13 billion years old, the earth is four and a half billion years old, life has been around for about three and a half billion years, and so forth. To ignore the physical evidence, that God presumably created, in favor of a human-written book seems a bit odd to me.

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I have faith that the truth I believe will win at the end of the day.

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I, too, believe that eventually the truth will out. Pretty depressing, otherwise.

Crash, Did your use of the word, "prove" here reflect anything subjective?Anyway, there's a biblical story asserting that God invented all the languages, so that words from any language, properly used, are "God's" words, and therefore have the potential to punch holes between the "spiritual" (dark energy/dark matter) world, and the electromagnetic one.But, we can strong inference test these two hypotheses, unless you are convinced that the matter is "proved" already. Find a dozen children that you know, divide into two groups at random, at random pick one of the groups, and call them "kids" in conversations about them when they are not present. Call the other "children" in
similar conversations. Before you begin, decide on some measurable behaviors that are trivial, disrespectful, frivolous, and some that are honoring, sober, serious about growing up to be responsible. Carry on your "name-calling" for a month or so, and then begin to record the frequencies of the various behaviors when you see the children. Or, ask others how they see the children. Wouldn't hurt to collect such data before and after the experiment.This would be one way to get evidence that when conscious minds speak words, as God was supposed to do at one point in His management of creation, electromagnetic things change.Stephen

Quoting my comment by edit of message 36:

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{Note from Adminnemooseus - I can see that part of the above has the heavy possibility of shooting this topic off-topic. Members may wish to discuss the last 2 sentences etc, but please do it on-topic elsewhere. Thank you.}

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This topic is really not the place to debate why individuals choose what they choose. It is the place to document a listing of those who have made a transition from one viewpoint to another.Adminnemooseus[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 03-13-2004]

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Here is why I havn't been "converted".When God created Adam, Adam could speak. Did God then create him as a speaking infant? Probably not. Due to the discussions held, and the immediate need for a woman (boy, some things never change), I would deduce his apparent age to be that of a young man, even if he was truely less then a day old. Adam and then Eve were able to to eat off of trees less then a week old. Where am I going with this? Apparent age...someone will have to start a thread on it...to discuss it in full, but God created things with apparent age, even if the real age were less. So much of the "evidence" that "proves" evolution/big bang/Godless universe...could quite easily be explained by that.
In fact, I'm going to start a thread on this, so I don't muddle this thread up anymore.

Navy,And your empirical evidence for your assertions is what, exactly?Mark

Navy,And your empirical evidence for your assertions is what, exactly?BTW I've posted a new thread regarding Greenland ice cores.Mark