Noah his one wife and three sons and their wives.

No matter how people answer this, it will break down into yet another online religious debate...
So no philosophies will be altered; and many a nasty word will be exchanged

well... who we are is something we can constantly define/refine...
Where did we come from - well that pretty much does boil down to a pure creation/evolution "debate" which, experience has shown me, goes nowhere. Unfortunately.

we call ourselves humans, we are all descended from simpler forms of life. evolution is a simple fact. we are currently evolving as well. i'm not going to make this religious that's for the superstitious to do. honestly, if you don't except some adaptation of the theory of evolution you are an idiot. the bible annoys me with its simplistic ignorance, it's an outdated, overexaggerated book, hardly worth reading, it's a snore fest in my opinion might have been amusing for more primitive peoples but it's boring to me, and it obviously belongs in the fiction section with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, unless you believe those to be true as well.

God is Dead.

...and we're off.

this will be fun, unfortunately i can only instigate, can't stick around to watch this unfold.

In the world before Monkey Primal chaos reigned,
Heaven sought order, but the Phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown.
The four worlds formed again and yet again,
As endless aeons wheeled and passed.
Time and the pure essences of Heaven,
The moistures of the Earth,
And the powers of the Sun and the Moon
All worked upon a certain rock - old as Creation,
And it became magically fertile.
That first egg was named Thought,
Tathagata Buddha, the Father Buddha, Said
'With our thoughts we make the world'
Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch,
from it then came a Stone Monkey.
The nature of Monkey was irrepressable!

Monkeeeeeeee!!!

the problem is that those who believe evolution (which includes most religious people, probably) believe one kind of evidence (physical) and those who believe biblical creationism believe that another kind of evidence (stuff written in the bible) trumps all other evidence (including physical evidence). I really don't see a way for either group to get through to the other... they might as well be in different worlds.

Perhaps an interesting exercise would be to see to how much detail we can answer the question in a way that everyone agrees.

For instance: We all came from a woman.

nice idea abgemacht... though I'm not sure where to take it from there... without simply doing the obvious: we all came from a woman, who came from a woman, etc. OK - here's a slight addition: we all grew from a single cell

What about an encompassing concept - in the beginning God created quantum physics and set everything in motion - and our evolution was and is a part of this process.
Then from time to time God sent Messengers to the people so they could be guided forward with new knowledge and understanding.

I'm SpeakerToAliens. I come from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.

I suggest reading this thread ... "Interesting discussion starter" that TheDeacon started and then going on to read the Asimov short story which is online and is indeed short.

I'm in agreement with Asimov.

@ottovanbis "...we are currently evolving as well"
I think we have stopped evolving for the most part, physically at least. Some people choose not to have children and whatever shared traits they have, if any, will eventually be bred out but in our society even severely disabled people are capable of survivng and having children so what now provides the impetus for natural selection?

i meant in terms of physical traits. you are correct. as a species we are getting taller by the way.

We're also evolving in the sense that more and more children are being born who have parents of different "races" - white, black, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Native American, etc. Hopefully this will see an end to the evils and idiocies of racism...

I'm not up on current biology but I think that the reason we are taller is environmental, mostly due to better diet.

One word, Xenu.

"I'm not up on current biology but I think that the reason we are taller is environmental, mostly due to better diet."

That is called 'evolution'.

@Ursa:
You sure it wasn't a software update to the Intelligently Designed something or other? I just hope it didn't introduce any buffer overrun errors.

@Ursa "This is called 'evolution'."

Not exactly, in order for the increase in height to be an evolved trait it would have to become independent of diet. Height is largely determined by genes, however the height increases that SunZi has described are purely dietary. There hasn't been any significant changes in the Human Genome in a long time, increases in height mostly comes from higher levels of protein and a more overall balanced diet.

Also some Biologists would say that Humanity has reached a point where sexual selection has replaced natural selection, and that future generations will be impacted more by human sexual preferences than by survival traits (often the two can be the same but not always).

@YadHoGrojaUL - I do not share your optimism for a racism free world. This is a state of civility that humanity can never reach.

http://fukung.net/v/13317/5e8174a849a6fcee3ac65d7f47e6ee69.jpg

Hight increases are due increase in protein and total cal intake.Take Japan as an example, and compare hight of the average person in the 1940's compared to the current gen. You will see about 4"-6" increase in hight. this not from the Nucs used on Japan, but a change in diet.

Sexual selection has always been a part of are evolution. So men are the way we are because generations of woman picked the type of men they wanted. So gals blame your great great great grandmothers for the way men are.

We came from dust and to dust we shall return.

some of us are going in the freezer, not returning to dust for the moment.

But yeah, we are the get of monkeys, also the children of star dust.

It is nice to study both our closest ape relatives and the adetails of the physics of star creation, there are lots of unanswered questions.

we are still mutating, we have altered our natural enviroment and thus changed how selection occurs ('natural selection' being replaced by some level of eugenics or controlled breeding programme is still a type of evolution)

Interesting thread so far:

And the tally sheet reads:

Loaded language designed to categorize religion, religious people, and religious texts in a bad light. 14

Dismissal of religious viewpoint (in a thread where none were posited) 2 (1 with pictures)

Incorrect citations of scripture (from someone who later dismisses religious arguments that haven’t been made). 1

Simplistic cartoon that makes a gross assumption about religious argument types (that weren’t made) 1

Realistic (if pessimistic) view of where the thread seems to be going based largely upon the contempt shown by some toward a religious viewpoint early on & the apparent past experiences. 4

Interesting if abortive attempts to change the subject (or at least keep it civil) 2


Correction of the Scripture citation 1

Obligatory anti-religion Nietzche quote 1

Reasonable evolution remark by someone thought to be Christian 1

Unreasonable evolution remarks by someone thought to be Christian 0

Assertion of Scripture that doesn’t actually refute evolution 1

Refutation of the Scripture using evolution anyway 1



And the fabled war between religion and science……seems to actually be a fable.


Once again credit dexter morgan with keeping a cool head and not immediately assuming that Christians reject science.

I'm sure soon enough the young earth creationists will take the bait....

some actually believe the fable on both sides.