Ok, I must have been living under a rock

[Endrik]

And what about evolution? I don't know if I can get onboard with that whole thing either. I mean, if man evolved from apes, why are there still apes?!?

I can explain it very easily, but it would be a VERY long posts and also it would contain tons of molecular-biology terms.

I'll give you a little example instead.
First of all new type of species always comes from the other type of species. (Evolution)

Now we have this certain type of wood, let's say Oak for an example, in "continental" Estonia. Somehow some of those oak chestnuts "traveled" to the islands from the main land. Now in Saarema (an Estonian island) those chestnuts started to sprout. But as always there is some mutatation wich is caused by a certain environment. Mutation is happening with every organism, some mutatations are big, some are small but they are all making difference in the organism/molecul structure.
Because of those mutations the lineaments are different when the oak is "gorwn up" compared to the main land's oaks.
Some of those changes are better, some are not.
The main land oaks still remains because the main land and the island oaks are isolated form each other so they don't affect each other at all.

Sometimes when the mutatation is too big, then the organism looks totally different than the rest of its companions. If the changes are good then some the old lineaments "die" and a new species is born. Sometimes the changes aren't good, the organism looks totally different, it's like a new species but the changes were bad and so the organism dies.

Now some apes mutaded, the changes were good and the people were born. The changes always have its good and bad sides. Humans have bigger and more functional brains, and the hands/fingers are better for crafting very advanced things. But humans aren't physically so good anymore. So there's almost every time a compromise.

[Endrik]

Devil's advocate here - how do you know it wasn't all created to just look like it's older than 6000yrs? I'm waiting for them to find a fossilised dinosaur wearing a Rolex planted as a joke. See Hitch Hiker's Guide or Terry Pratchett's "Strata" (I think).

we have evidence that the earth is very old.

go to the nearest water, you'll see some fish there, mammals came from the fish and it didn't happend within a couple of thousand years. It's impossible

[Guitarnut]

An omnipotent being could make it that way. Because you've rationalised the "evidence" using a scientific theory, it doesn't make it any more valid than my "evidence" that it was all created that way.

[jjw]

Devil's advocate here-the earth could be an intergalactic zoo and all creatures where placed here.Science is still a religion,and can be just as blinkered

[Guitarnut]

Kerching - on the money.

[Endrik]

An omnipotent being could make it that way. Because you've rationalised the "evidence" using a scientific theory, it doesn't make it any more valid than my "evidence" that it was all created that way.

I was the best in molecular-biology and physics in the school and also I had by far the best logical thinking.

Everything I say is pure gold to me, I care only about my awsome opinion

[jjw]

glad you do as i dont

[zeegler]

[zeegler]

The debate is pointless.

An omnipotent being could make everything "appear" millions of years old. An omnipotent being could do ANYTHING. That's the catch 22, and that's the reason why the zealots will NEVER be wrong.

Give it up.

[Endrik]

I know omnipotent personally, he lives in my pants, I know all the truth. I feed him with hot chicks, he feeds me with the knowledge.

[GodOfRhythm]

I went to catholic school as well. Was never taught this kind of BS.

Emphasis in our religionclasses (only 2 hours a week) was on the fact that the bible was to be interpreted symbolically.

Not that it helped, I'm still an agnostic.

[monk]

I agree with zeegler. The whole discussion is totally useless as long as the rules are not the same for both sides. Evolution has to be "scientifically proven", but science is not allowed to judge religion....pretty unfair.

It's like playing table tennis, where the net is taken down when the other guy is supposed to serve.

[Guitarnut]

I'll point out at this point that I'm a physicist by training & a logical thinker. I slide down the fence on the science side, but hey, beliefs are there to be challenged. As an agnostic about anything, if I'm given incontrovertible evidence, I'll believe. Until then, it's nice to play on the anti science side for a change. Anyhoo - it sounds like it may have been Endrik who created everything. Or at least a bit of him did it. Thankfully, he's not omnipresent as well - there's only enough room in here for guitars, me & a PC without having what he says is in his pants in here as well.

[sonicsamurai]

the notion that the earth is 6,000 years old came from a calculation made by some monk in medievals time using events in the bible as a guide....although i don't doubt the events did happen in one form or another, although i'm not a christion and don't believe in god, it is amazing how such an old idea can still hang around...

[lerxstcat]

I am a Roman Catholic - raised in the Church, left when I was 16, came back at age 40.

There are many things in the Bible that are actual historic events, it is a history book from the Jews' perspective. Those things I accept because they are corroborated by histories of the Sumerians, Egyptians, Hittites, etc.... The stories differ according to who's writing them, but they all refer to many similar events.

That DOESN'T mean I buy the 6,000-year-old Earth story, AT ALL. 6,000 years is really about recorded history. As for man and dinosaurs, the Bible doesn't say that; it says "behemoths" and "Leviathan". Now imagine Stone Age and Bronze Age man describing Wooly mammoths, rhinocerous, elephantsand animals like that that DID coexist with man. There's evidence that wooly mammoths survived in Siberia until 3,000 years ago,

The problem is when men INTERPRET what's written to mean something else. No Bill knows the Bible well; he could probably say if it states the world is only 6,000 years old. I have never seen a chapter and verse referred to to back that up.

I think many of the metaphorical references that are in the Bible arre how God would explain things to our primitive ancestors. Kind of like how we explain things differently to a 3-year-old than a 16-year-old. Since Jesus told us to beware of wolves in sheep's clothing (which I take to mean bullshitters in the vernacular) I read these things and try to draw my own conclusions. That's why I see no conflict between evolution and creation
myth. God gave it to the 4-year-olds in language they could understand.
Adam and Eve were probably the first Cro-Magnon or modern humans. The Neanderthal were probably the people destroyed in a flood - a flood of Cro-Magnon out-competing and displacing them, not a lood that covered the planet. The Biblical flood is probably recalling the end of the last Ice Age when the Black Sea was cut off from the Mediterranean until the sea level rose enough that the Med overflowed the barrier between them, then cut a channel much like the Grand Canyon was cut when a huge glacier dam melted and failed. Icf you lived oin the shores of the Black Sea when it rose by a couple hundred feet, you'd THIBK the whole world had flooded and would write it that way.

Anyway, I don't believe you have to pick sides between faith and science - and neither did Pope John Paul II. In either case, if something doesn't seem to make sense, I think we just don't have all the data. I guess I'm having my cake and eating it too with this belief!