"evolution is not inconsistent to most readings of the bible, only a fundamental reading"

Really, where does the Bible even remotely suggest mankind evolved, or is anything other than a "special" species made in god's image?

@Putin - Only if you take all of the OT as literal do you get that interpretation. If you read the OT with an understanding of its writer and audience, you see Genesis as a origin tale and other parts (such as Jonah) as morality tales. The Bible doesn't say Pi=3.14159... but it doesn't have to. That is the point - we are free to view parts as morality tale, parts as origin tale, and parts as history book. The fundamentalist view is that it is all history book, but the majority of Christians do not view it that way.

Of course, I await your assault on logic by using an OT passage and saying "see it says this" when I just said the Genesis and much of the OT is not a history book.

I agree with most of what Fag-Naur has posted in this thread.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I am going to polish off a bottle of Laphroig and bust the empty bottle over my head in order to black out this horrific realization.

I seem to remember animals being created before human beings, and that every serious scholar that isnt a fundamentalist believes that the hebrew translation of what we know as "seven days" actually translates to "seven epochs." So animals are created in an earlier epoch(after of course god said "let there be light" to create the universe) and then human beings are created after as a climax to gods creation. What exactly is inconsistent with evolution?

LOL! Maple, I'll give you a +1 for that. It was funny, even if at my expense!

so there it "remotely suggests it"

Basically religious scholars from Augustine to Maimonides believe that the text as written is a simplification of what humans at the time couldnt understand, and that the bible on the surface is a story for children or those who have little time to study or understand. In America, our history emphasizing personal understanding of scripture and our anti-intellectual bent has led the country to embrace fundamentalism increasingly over time. This is why the wingnuts have a hard time with the founders, they dont understand their understanding of religion is based in a pre second awakening context rather than their Red Scare/Womens Rights/Post Stonewall inspired fundamentalist backlash.

On a related note, the is one of my favorite T-Shirts:

http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-2103954849-image.jpg

I know this isn't all of them, but why do a number of atheist's insult the idea of creationism or ID?
If you want to be completely fair, no one can prove anything about the origin of the universe or life, it's all speculation, that's all it'll ever be. It doesnt even have to be relavent to religion, I'm a deist and the Big Bang Theory sounds a little silly compared to Creationism, but of course both being silly and when it comes down to it, irrelavant as far as any practical application today. We could all be mature and just say "we don't know" for once.

@thatonekid

I'll tell you exactly why: Because ID/C claims to be a science when it is clearly not.

1) Most ID/C arguments revolve around criticizing Evolution. Unfortunately, you can't prove your hypothesis by discrediting another one. It just doesn't work like that. If Richard Dawkins himself when on TV today and said there was a new finding which destroyed the theory of Evolution, I would still not respect ID/C because the disproof of A is not the proof of B.

2) All other "support" of ID/C is simply armchair philosophy with no ability to verify experimentally. A hypothesis must be testable; otherwise, it is not science.

I challenge you to find any argument for ID/C that doesn't fall into one of those 2 categories.

@abge - ID does not criticize evolution so much as coopt it, but sometimes using bad pseudo-science to do so. If it stuck to the simple supreme being/god guides those changes theory then it would probably be much more acceptable to at least the agnostic community.

Oh, and lumping ID with Creationism/Young Earth is as bad as lumping Agnostics and Atheism.

@Draug

Show me an ID argument that doesn't fit (1) or (2) that I outlined above and I will stop lumping it with Creationism.

One more note. Please provide a reproducible experiment in evolution or biig bang theory... I accept both as science and agree with them, but I defy you to provide an experiment that shows the universe was created by a big bang or that we can make evolution occur even on the microscale. These are not reproducible and rely strictly on evidence collected and an interpretation (albeit a very strong amount of evidence and solid interpretation) thereof.

First of all, can i just say that I'm glad this is a debate that won't affect my kids any time soon - in the UK at least, Creation(ism or otherwise) lies firmly within RE.

ID/Creationism should never be taught in science classes for one simple reason - lack of evidence. We can say "We don't know", but it is massive leap from there to any kind of creator, who, since that time has singularly failed to do anything else

@thatonekid - the reason some athiests (and theistic evolutionary biologists) get annoyed with ID is that it is based on flawed thinking, has been disbunked over and over again, lacks any evidence, and it's proponents use the 'ONLY a theory' line without understanding that a scientific Theory is not a hypothesis. After dealing with boneheaded refusal to understand on a frequent basis, you get a little tetchy.

Not all ideas are equal, especially in fields like this

I have repeatedly in this thread. But here is another. Small dinosaurs evolved into winged dinosaurs to escape larger predators and eventually evolved to have feathers for better lift with lighter weight. This evolution was guided by a supreme being. It is just as verifyable as the idea that random chance resulted in the feathers. No part of it criticizes evolution, but instead embraces it.

Perhaps "experimentally" was a vague term. To me, fossil records is experimental evidence of evolution. Red Shift is experimental evidence of the Big Bang.

Is it experimental in the sense that we can create another universe? No. But it's experimental in the sense that I come up with a hypothesis (If the universe started at one point and expanded out, I should see it moving) verified by results (I can see the Doppler effect on stars).

@Draug - for evolution, you could look at the evolution of e coli that can metabolise acetate, which at generation 0 could not do this.

Also both Theories have made predictions which have been validated by later observation - cosmic background radiation was predicted before we had the equipment to detect it, and Tiktaalik is a brilliant example of a 'transitional' species found where it was predicted to be, having the characteristics predicted, and at the age of rocck predicted. There is also a series of fossils tracking with age across Antarctica which track the trip of proto-marsupials to australia

I'm done here. As long as preprejudiced minds cannot see that one could be rational and believe in the possibility that a higher power outside this universe could have guiided the development not only of life on earth but the entire universe over eons, they will continue to lump a fairy tale with something that attempts to embrace the facts while searching for the truth.

@Draug

I've seen that argument by you but all it does is tack on an unnecessary layer. There is *zero* evidence to support this and it doesn't solidify the theory at all. It's a completely pointless exercise. It's the same as saying that there are tiny strings connected to every part of my body and instead of my muscles moving me, we each have our own angle puppet-master. Yeah, I guess everything about kinesiology is still true, but why would you bother adding that unnecessary layer?

@Draug

I'm not saying you can't embrace science and have faith. In fact, you may remember I chewed Putin out earlier for saying that.

What I'm saying is that although ID is more reasonable than C, it still can't be considered science. How can you disagree with that?

I don't disagree with that, abgemacht, but lumping it in with a truly outrageous fairy tale does a disservice to those of us who have a brain yet still believe in some higher power, i.e. the deists.

Draug - there are plenty of rational people who belive in a higher power. Belief seems hardwired into the human psyche. But belief does not equal truth. With modern cossmology and evolutionry theory, the whole wonder of the universe seems to be explined by (fairly) simple rules and processes, which require no intervenion. Why then assume some?

The 'gaps' are in the start of the universe, and abiogenesis - we don't know the answer to either, and I suspect that we may never know for the second (simply because we only hve evidence once complex fossilisable species of plant and animals arose). Howver, give me a lab the size of a planet, and a billion years, I think I might crack it

You are confusing fact and truth. Truth is intangible and varies from person to person. Fact is concrete and undeniable. Science deals in fact. Philosophy deals in truth. and truth is something we may never find but is an endeavor worth seeking.

@Draug

I only lump it together because this is a discussion about science vs. non-science. If this were a discussion about personal philosophy, then Creationism and Pastafarianism would be lumped together and ID would be in a different category

However, I don't want to give the impression that ID even comes close to being a science, which I fear I may do if I don't lump it with creationism.

And Pete, who set the forces in motion that defined those simple rules and processes? We know the universe tends towards chaos, so how did order come from chaos? A guiding force perhaps? Science hasn't explained that paradox and nothing can, but religion as a philosophy seeks to find a path to that enlightened truth.

@abgemacht - Now you insult His Noodliness? How dare you! ;-)

And I agree that ID is a philosophic theory, not a scientific one.

@Draug - I disagree. Whatever the truth about (say) the start of the universe, it is a truth. It is also a fact. Philosophy has (IMO) nothing to say about it, in terms of truth.

Some truths are philosophical, but some are not.

Draug - stop posting while I'm typing - it makes a discussion very hard :)

What set it in motion. I don't know, but it may have been self-booting.

Order from chaos HAS been explained. I'm not a cosmologist or physicist (I was a chemist) but I've read and seen enough explanations - although I think it's a bit dumbed down, Brian Cox's series on the BBC did a decent job of explaining this apparent paradox (which doesn't actually exist). I won't try to explain it because I'd get it wrong