Sword legion : To argue the "Does god tell lies" point, might I point out that in Genesis, it clearly states that he made TWO light sources for us: The sun and, wait for it, the Moon. Clearly, the moon does not produce its own light as said in Genesis, but rather reflects light. Thus, not really a light source.

Also, I'd just like to point out how impossible it really is to make a boat large enough to support a space for EVERY one animal pair. The only possible way that could be possible were if he stored the animals in Pokeballs. Plus, there's also the fact he wouldn't be able to gather every animal within the limited time due to land and sea restrictions. Not only that, but there's also the part where Vegitation plays a role. Had the world really been flooded, then all plant life would die, thus having no food supply for the non-meat eating animals.

As for how other areas have the same/similar stories... What happens when somebody makes a joke, the "ICUP" one for example here, and they like it a LOT? They spread the story. However, for something like Noah's Ark, the story would have been passed down and told so many times, that it would become distorted and nearly far from what happened. An example of this would be like those Telephone games you play in school. For those who don't know what that is, you basically pass a sentance along throughout a big group of people, and you try to keep the sentence the same the whole time. 8/10 times, it'll be distorted, probably like this may have become. It's possible there could have been a great flood, but not one that could fill the entire Earth, but rather, a small area.

As for the rest of the Creationism vs Evolution thing, rcarter pretty much summed it up as best as he could already. The only real source of information that supports creationism is the Bible, while there are many, many more in comparison that support Evolution.

Also, for the argument that it's "only a theory", while it has also already been discussed, that doesn't truly 'disprove' evolution. It's only a theory because there's the chance it can be improved upon, which can not allow it to become a Scientific law. I'm sure that in a long time from now, it may very well become a Scientific law, if not for the sole fact that we may be able to have enough recorded data by then to show the reality of it.

If this post doesn't make too much sense in some parts due to grammar/spelling/wording errors, I apologize. I've barely slept in the past few days, and I'm exhausted, Nya~. :V

Sword legion : Again, you bring up quotes from the Bible and say that is your proof. A book (no matter the holy message it has) is not in itself proof. You cannot prove that God exists. You cannot prove that the Bible is truly the word of God. You cannot prove that all the details in the Bible are fact. Simply asking "Would God lie" is not proof. Proof requires tangible evidence, not words from a book. What you are describing is FAITH. If is proof for you because you have FAITH. Again, something you believe in even without a way to prove it. There is nothing wrong with that. I cannot prove that Jesus was our savior, but I believe in it. Even without any way to prove it, I believe in it. But I am not going to tell everyone else that their beliefs or faith in something is wrong because I can't disprove theirs anymore than I can prove my beliefs. 

As for your question about trees. Of course the oldest living trees are not going to be billions of years old. Even trees have a life span. No living thing will live forever. Besides. Natural forest fires are an essential way to keep the soil fertile. If trees didn't burn down when they get to dry, there would be no nutrition in the soil. Trees burn, trees die, nutrients of dying trees return to the soil for new plant life to rise. Also, you fail to remember (or possibly even know) that the oldest known living trees are in the only known area that has trees uncut by humans (at least they haven't been cut in the last 4,000 years). Because of that, it is a protected area. But before 4,000 years ago, that area was just as susceptible to natural process such as forest fire or natural aging. Again, not even trees can live forever. Their telomeres are doomed to the same degrading process that animals are (which is the reason why animals age). It just takes a lot longer due to the significant less energy requirements they need to survive.

Next, the whole Nessie thing. I am actually pretty surprised that you would even use the Loch Ness monster as evidence that large dinosaurs still exist today. The only thing anyone has ever been able to get is a distorted blurry photograph, which we know photographs can be faked by children nowadays. Even years ago, it wasn't hard to do for someone who knew what they were doing. But I digress. If there are so many legitimate sightings, why hasn't anyone actually captured one? We have the technology to locate specific shark species/dolphins/whales/etc. Yet that technology can't find a Plesiosaurus? Really? This is not remotely proof. Until someone actually catches one for other people to see it (other than the JUST the people who claim to have spotted it), there is absolutely no validation to this argument. 

Next, you said that the flood created the canyons. That is a false statement. You said the teaching of the Bible is clear and absolute. The Bible said that the Great Flood lasted for 40 days before the water receded enough for the Ark to touch land again. If it took that short of an amount of time to erode rock into canyons, the bottom of the ocean would be eroding so fast that we could observe rapid changes in the formations there daily. We don't, because it takes a LONG time for water to erode rock even just the smallest noticeable amount. Next, the world was completely flooded in the the Flood, yet it only took 40 days for that water to evaporate to the point that the Ark touched land again. If water evaporated that fast when it is not raining, we would either have no Ocean or the Ocean level would be lower thousands of feet every time it wasn't raining for a few days. That does not happen. The Flood did not create the canyons. 

Next, how in the world does a flood putting human tools and remains in coal spots disprove that coal takes millions of years to form? Please, explain your logic in that statement. We don't need human artifacts and remains to determine how old coal is. That isn't even an effective method to date something. I don't know where you go that idea, but I would love to know. But regardless of where you found that claim, I mostly want to know your logic stating it disproves how long it takes for coal to form. 

Then you said the flood actually created oil and coal. First, you need a lesson on how coal forms. I can tell you right off the bat that water does not form coal. Coal is compacted organic carbon. Most commonly, from dead plant material degrades into peat. That forms into lignite, to sub-bituminous coal, to bituminous coal, then to anthracite. Those conversions happen through extremely powerful compression within sedimentary rock. Water does NOT form coal.

Next, you said that the fact that the same story exists in so many places is proof. You want to know what other stories have existed in many different places for years? Fairies. Little magical fluttering sprites. Witches who fly around at night. Stories like this are well in some way or form and even still believed by many. The fact that a story exists in different forms around different places in the world is in no way proof. Otherwise, we live in the world where fairies, vampires, sea monsters capable of pulling whole ships underwater, etc are to be taken as proven fact. After all, those stories do exist almost everywhere. 

As for the mountains. Yes, mountains do slowly degrade due to processes such as water erosion. But you forget one thing. The same plate tectonic activity that forms mountains is still happening. Tectonic activity actually happens faster than water erosion. Hence why having a home near any fault line would be a bad idea. Your house would fall apart due to the plate movements before water erosion. That is why the mountains are so tall. Tectonic activity happens significantly faster than the erosion process. Once again, you are bringing up concepts of which you clearly don't have a true understanding. That isn't your fault. You haven't had the years to actually read the published research to understand them. Most of your points seem to be Internet based, as I see these arguments online all the time. But if you want to claim to disprove something, you do need to the years of research and field work to get a true understanding of what these concepts are are bringing up are actually saying. Not just your interpretation from reading brief arguments on the Internet. Now, I know you said to another that you are tired of being told you don't understand the science concepts you bring up. The main difference between him and I is that I am not saying your belief is wrong and I am right. The creation of Earth is not something any of us can truly claim to know about. But again, you have Faith, and I respect that wholeheartedly. I'm not trying to disprove you (because that is impossible), but I am trying to set the record strait on your knowledge gaps on this topic.

Sword legion : I keep saying you don't understand evolution because you really don't. The moment I start saying the Biblical creation story is about a pile of dirt turning into a god who then scrapes the lint out of his toes to create the universe, you can feel free to call me on it. I speak with authority on the things I understand, not the things I have no concept of. That is the difference between us. I certainly know about the canopy, but probably not the canopy you are thinking of, which is why I haven't brought up anything with religious conotations until now.

I hope that when you get to high school, you'll take a course in biology and learn the basics of evolution. You'll then be in a position to at least ask some questions, which I, and probably several other people here, would be happy to answer. Questions with the intent of learning are always good.

Oh, and yes, I am aware that the Lego example has an "intelligent" force behind it. I chose it because it's nice and simple and doesn't require an understanding of topics like natural selection and genetics which would require more explaining should you not know them. But as the matter of an intelligent being guiding evolution is irrelevent to evolutionary theory itself, I didn't mind.

Traduweise : According to his profile, he is 17 years old. If that age is true, then he is almost finished with high school and has taken a Biology course. Please don't just assume he is some little kid without checking. But regardless, a high school Biology course is not going to help his understanding of Evolution much at all. i should know that. I have taught a Biology course in high school. They only barely scratch the surface of the concept of Evolution in high school. All you get in high school is a general explanation as to what hominid traveled where and formed into what. Heck, I didn't even believe in Evolution after my first few college Biology courses. It wasn't until after I had to study genetics for a solid year and a half that I started to understand how these concepts work. Until you spend years studying this, the concepts are nothing but abstract and merely plausible. It just takes more than studying Evolution in a biology course. You have to have a working understanding of areas of various fields other than Evolution Theory. Those fields are then applied to Evolutionary Theory to make any sense of it. 

on the note of canyons, as well as erosion from the constant flow there is also glacial erosion. I saw a massive one up north. I didnt even know there were such large ones in scotland. And it was formed by a great flood of sorts, but not biblical.
There isnt enough water flow there to have created such a massive chasm. During the iceage the water repeatedly froze and thawed, froze and thawed. If you look at a window, eventualy a small chip becomes a massive crack. Thats because water, or indeed liquid, expands when it freezes, so it pushes away the obstacles around it.
rcarter2 :
I resent that, the lochness monster is too real. Hes a great guy. He does moan about all these foreigeners taking his fish, and how humans should go back where they came from, but all in all he's pretty kewl.

rcarter2 : We must have gone to different high schools then. Evolution, while not taught in great depth, was covered thoroughly enough that anyone not completely shut off to the idea could understand and appreciate it. One does not need to understand genetics, ecological theory, et cetera to understand evolution.

It's also why I have no interest in typing out long detailed posts to rebut every little thing Sword Legion says. If he genuinely cared about understanding these things, he would have learned them by now. He is so sure that his own ideas are right, he won't accept an alternative view no matter how well it is put.

Traduweise : Oh, I know you don't need to have a working understanding of genetics to understand the detailed concepts of it. But you do need to have a working understanding to truly understand how and why it happens. Evolution, after all, is all completely based on genetic process. the fossil records are only a small part of the evidence. Genetic process is what is applied to the fossil. Not the other way around. I'm very well may have a pretty good understanding of the concept. But you would be pretty shocked to see how a few years of genetics study will explain the why and how. Without that understanding, the most you can understand is the 'what'.

rcarter2 : Not really. Genetics will tell you the how, but the why of evolution is more ecological. Genetics and ecology certainly overlap, but in a theoretic sense, genetics gives you information on identifying relatedness and allows the construction of hierarchies. Ecology focuses more on the natural selection and lets you look at the why, which turn explains why organisms evolve the way they do. In the field, genetics and ecology are often used in unison,  but they both explain evolution in specific ways.

Traduweise : Couldn't be more wrong about genetics.Yes, heredity is a part of it, but 'relatedness', but not even remotely the main thing. It mostly focuses on what genes go through and the cause/harms/unlikely benefits of genetic mutation and variation. Those are key aspects that are used to explain the fossil. Not the other way around. Evolution is ecological, but it is the changes on the genetic level that is the key to showing how the responses to the ecological changes are even possible in the first place.

rcarter2 : It's all about the scale. What a gene goes through is the how; the gene itself is the mechanism that promotes evolutionary change. You even said it yourself: the changes on the genetic level show how the responses on the ecological level are possible.

A good example one of my old professors gave us was over the Kermode or spirit bear. Theories on why this bear is white were typically that it was a relic of the last ice age, or that it was an offshoot from the polar bear lineage. However, genetic testing done revealed that the Kermode is a subset of a black bear lineage, not related to the polar bears. The white fur is one of many polymorphisms of the black bear, as its colour varies geographically. As for the glacial relic theory, it was never much good because it didn't explain why the Kermode bear persisted, and was especially numerous on two small islands off the northwest coast.

Testing done on the bear revealed that its white fur was an advantage, but only when fishing for salmon during the day. The Kermode comprises no more than about 1% of the black bear population on the mainland (which is about what you would expect to see from a polymorphism that is neither helpful nor harmful) where salmon specialisation is less useful due to the dominance of the grizzly bear. However, on smaller islands where there are no grizzlies, the Kermode's white fur is less alarming to the salmon, allowing it feed more efficiently during autumn days. The genetics showed where the Kermode bear fits into the bear family, but not how or where exactly it arose. Field tests gave us a solid, testable theory on why the Kermode bear persists the way it does.

Traduweise : Which is why I was saying having a stronger understanding of genetics is very important. I see little point in trying to argue the whats if you don't understand the essential how.

rcarter2 : To argue about evolution certainly requires more thorough knowledge, but to understand the basics does not. Heck, I learned the basics of evolution before I got to elementary school, and I had no concept of genetics.

alsonic : Just trying to clarify because your post confused me. Are you saying how many hairs on your head is important to God?

rcarter2 : Yea, pretty much.

alsonic : In that case, your post contradicts itself. You said if it isn't important to God, it isn't in the Bible. So if the amount of hairs on your head are important, then it should be in the Bible. I might not be a religious scholar, but I can say the amount of hairs on your head is not in the Bible. So by your own logic of your first sentence in the quote, the amount of hairs on your head is not important. Because things that are important to God are in the Bible.

Such a simple question, so complex the answer. Here goes...it was Plato who described the story of Err, who had been dead for 12 days, only to come back and proclaim of life after death. Since no one could replicate his experience, or be there with him as witness, faith was required to accept what he said. This is called revelation. Others, who didn't accept his account, still on the basis of faith as they couldn't be there to witness it, denied it (atheism) and thus two camps were established. Generally, at this time, it was accepted that a Creator existed. Aristotle then appeared, writing that the God was an "absent landlord", that yes, while there was a Creator who had set things in motion, he no longer was involved, and left his creation to its own. Later, Democritus established the Atomistic School of Philosophy in Greece, teaching that man was a sum of all things, and no Creator existed. This view pops its head up throughout history at various points, culminating in the Humanist movement we see today. In the 16th century, Rene Descartes promoted the idea that God is within each person, contrary to the popular and traditional view that there existed a Creator, whose perception was outside the human senses. God was reachable, and indeed within us. Two hundred years later, Charles Darwin was selected to promote the old idea of Evolution, further diminishing the power of a Creator. If man was just another animal...
Thomas Huxley (Freemason) proclaimed that life was produced from non living matter. This has never been repeated in the history of mankind. One cannot get living organic material from non organic material. He claimed that at some random point in the Earths ancient past, DNA appeared at a specific location in time and space, and that RNA (which is a necessity for DNA to properly function) also appeared exactly at this time and space, to join with the DNA. The odds of this can be googled using "Richard Pembrose odds of evolution" Not one example has been reproduced of creating life from non life. This is forgotten in the discussions of fossil records etc. Ernst Heackel was such a fan of Darwin, that he invented a species of previously unknown bacteria that he THOUGHT should be at the base of evolution. Heackel was the first to conjure up the tree image of evolution. 
If one has and spends the time reading the correct books, the outcome is clear. Evolution exists only in the minds of some men. No concrete proof has ever been put forward for it, yet it is taught as fact in school. Evolution exists, but only is a localised sense, in that animals and plants will change some of there characteristics to suit their environment, to better enable their chances of survival. It should be called the Theory of Adaptation. The Earth should be littered with thousands of fossils of animals in the transition stage, yet not ONE has ever been found.
Anything that has had so much money spent on its promotion without reasonable proof, and a fever that is in itself akin to a religion, should tell the sentient individual that something is amiss.

Local Mods :

Please close this thread, i have replaced it with a different thread with different rules.
Thanks.

Closed per the request of the author.