Thread: Suing God

Billy Connely did a movie about this in Australia. Pretty funny as well.

Creationism is part of religious studies, evolution part of science. These conflicting ideologies may be explored in Philosophy.
Let pstudents make their own minds up about it.

At least that's how I learned about it in school.
I don't understand what the big deal here is supposed to be.

Typical of most religious zealots when science contradicts fundamental ideologies certain factions get rather vociferous, and occassionaly, violent over it; refuse to allow it to be taught. The Inquisition comes to mind.

On the other hand, a lot of "theory" is taught as fact in lower grades, assuming youngsters are unable to deal with an "I dunno" response. Kids want answers, Giving them incomplete information at this stage in their lives where the first plausable thing heard can form a foundation of a lifetime of ignorance even bigotryis IMO wrong.

Creationsim vs evolutionism is NOT a philosophical question. At this level it is a question of "how we got here." This is a question of fact, which is true? Which "theory" is, in actual fact, the truth of how humans came to be.

Let pstudents make their own minds up about it.

At least that's how I learned about it in school.

Then, it would appear, you were taught to accept one theory as scientific fact and the other as "philisophical mumbo jumbo." While creationsim has no sientific evidence (or does it? was my education lacking in that area?), evolutionism appears to have a great deal of evidence to back it up.

For my money; I would bet on the evolution theory. But it is, in fact still a theory. One I think will be impossible to prove conclusively. This, then, could be cause for us to discuss this question as a philosophical one, kinda like the Chicken & the Egg thing. Questions that have no conclusive answers usually end up in that arena.

At an age when children are capable of examining evidence and exploring mysteries the evidence should be presented. That is late in the education process though, isn't it? Teaching our children to think, to analyze and for opinions, to find facts and make conclusions from these facts should be the goal of our schools. Not that God made a woman out of a rib or we were once apes. Nether of these explanations are actual, proven fact.

"Faith" has no business in school or science.

I was taught the theory of evolution as a "theory", with research backup which makes it plausible.
Creationism is a matter of belief, backed up by the revelations of the bible.

The philosophical component here is that the one is based on the notion of a verifyable truth, with the tools of scientific investigation; the other asserts that the truth is revealed by a higher being which we cannot fully comprehend.

That was at the age of 16, I think. Yeah, it's probably too difficult for elementary education, and apparently it's impossible for a lot of people to grasp the differences at all.

Well, keep in mind that a lot of science is based on faith that something is true even though there's no way to directly prove it being true.

Faith in God? Any different than faith in finding other planets with life on them?

I suppose science is going to need to develop more answers as to how we randomly appeared on a cold rock in the middle of space before people are going to stop needing beliefs in supernatural beings. How does a planet go from a molten blob to a planet full of life? Science? Or creation?

Nice post FF, I'm not sure I understood it but still nice Are you saying that you think creationism should be taught as a theory alongside evolution ? If so which creationisum ? the christian/jewish/islamic one, hindu, budhist ect.

For something to be a theory it usually has to have some basis for that theory, some research ect these are pretty much lacking in creationisum it being an act of faith. Should history be taught as none of it is fact, mearly theory's based on the avalible evidence.

Is there any basis for creationism other than the unexplainable nature of it all? How did the very first spot of life become? If evolution is the one true way what was the first seed? Chicken/egg.
The questions are complex and difficult. The truthful answer is; we do not know. from that point forward there is evidence to support some forms of evolution, there is much made of the so-called "missing link."
Teaching creationism or evolutionism in elementary levels is a mistake. Teaching either on as fact is a mistake. Teaching the scientific questions and theories shold be addressed at the high school level. some basic "we do not know the answers but there are theories" and basic definitions of those theories might be taught.
Thing is, there really ain't a whole lotta fact in the creationism theory.
And yes, history should be taught in a "as written by" vein. This is the thing missing from much of our schooling, the fact that very little that we accpet as absolute truth is, in fact, a known quantity.
I think young people growing up need to know that history is an opinion formed by existing evidence. Chemistry, Mathematics, some physics, the properties of materials are usually measured and proven facts. Even here ther is room for theorizing. The fact is, there are fewer "known facts" in this world than most folks believe.

Are we talking Christian creationism here, or creationism per se?

I think it's possible to discuss evolutionary creationism without it being Biblical creationism. Obviously the world is older than several thousand years, thus, the overall story of the Bible has to be questionable at best.

Evolution as a way that new plants/animals come about is OK. But how did it all start? Evolution can't answer that, can it? Can non-living compounds evolve into living compounds?

Madame Blavatsky had an interesting angle on the topic of creationism.

But I believe creationism is not being taught to any depth in the US bible belt, they just want to replace evil evolution with the Evangelical truth.

Originally Posted by surasak

Can non-living compounds evolve into living compounds?

Primeval soup + a bolt of lightning?

In the early 1950s at the University of Chicago Stanley Miller demonstrated the primeval soup model for the origin of life on Earth. He passed a spark of electricity through a glass chamber filled with water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen (meant to simulate conditions on the young earth). A week later, paper chromatography showed several amino acids and other organic molecules had formed. The model for the origin of life said these molecules were formed in the atmosphere, rained into the ocean, then combined to make proteins, nucleic acids and the other molecules of life.

Primeval soup - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

^
Interesting.
Lightning features prominently in several religions in connection with creation, and Blavatsky asserts it being the key event in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Coincidence?
Is science proving religion to be right?

Originally Posted by RDN

Originally Posted by surasak

Can non-living compounds evolve into living compounds?

Primeval soup + a bolt of lightning?

In the early 1950s at the University of Chicago Stanley Miller demonstrated the primeval soup model for the origin of life on Earth. He passed a spark of electricity through a glass chamber filled with water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen (meant to simulate conditions on the young earth). A week later, paper chromatography showed several amino acids and other organic molecules had formed. The model for the origin of life said these molecules were formed in the atmosphere, rained into the ocean, then combined to make proteins, nucleic acids and the other molecules of life.

Primeval soup - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's not evolution, that's revolution.

Originally Posted by surasak

Can non-living compounds evolve into living compounds?

Sure, why not? Given enough time, I think it is possible (probable). Kind of like, given enough time, seemingly useless grass cuttings and dead leaves turn into nurturing dirt that helps sprout life again.

When I'm in the UK at an old pub and I see the low entry ways are, it reminds me of after only a few hundred years how much taller the average person has gotten. When you take that back 1,000 years or 10,000 years or 100,000 years, how can you not say that we might have come from apes?

k, maybe God created all of this evolution stuff. And maybe it's wisest to teach it that way and let the kids figure it out for themselves, as mentioned above. Spark the interest in them and let them decide. This evolutionist is comfortable with that idea, I even think it's a great idea.

Well, let's assume we evolved from some other species. Ok, where did the atoms come from to make up the molecules which make up the species?

Of, if you really want to fry your noodle, where did the lightening come from? Who cooked the soup?

Originally Posted by William

Are we talking Christian creationism here, or creationism per se?

What's it matter? Chime in with your opinion everybody's got one! Think the Op was concerning the fundamental christians back in the good ol' USA fighting the evolutionary dogma. The back-and-forth political seesaw. As you can see, the discussion has kinda grown.

I, for one, would like to hear what you mean by "creationism per se"