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Do you believe we are Gods created children? or do you think we evolved?
I wonder how people 5,000 years ago knew about evolution, and correctly recorded it in the bible, hard to say really but somehow they got it right
Genesis 1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water.
God “Let there be light.”
The atmosphere cleared from atmospheric debris; permitted the light from the sun to reach the surface of the earth. Giving both day and night to the surface of the earth from the earth’s rotation.
And there was light! God saw that the light was good, so God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day.
God “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate water from water.”
Water and other liquids separated from the gasses as the surface of the earth cooled and took shape and the atmosphere warmed, this changing of states of mater formed our atmosphere into one more supportive of life.
So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. It was so. God called the expanse “sky.” There was evening, and there was morning, a second day.
God “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear.”
Lakes formed, feeding streams and rivers, creating inland seas and the seven great seas, the oceans. As the water shed from the land to find it’s own level, land was exposed and dried out, shaping the surface of the earth into bodies of water and land formations. The earth’s surface is formed on 27 Precambrian Shields that continuously shift and change or reshape the surface of the earth.
It was so. God called the dry ground “land” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” God saw that it was good.
God “Let the land produce vegetation: plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.”
Underwater volcanic vents along with electro-chemical combinations from materials pushed around by waves continuously mixed to form the basis of life in close proximity to the shores and in the shallows. Microscopic life forms developed and began to grow, absorbing nutrients from the surface near the shorelines. As these organisms developed they rooted into the ground to better absorb nutrients along with water to replicate cells. These organisms became plants, eventually producing both seeds and fruit to nourish the seeds in order to spread, replicate and thrive.
It was so. The land produced vegetation – plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. God saw that it was good. There was evening, and there was morning, a third day.
God “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs to indicate seasons and days and years, and let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.”
As the plants in the water and along the shoreline developed and evolved they started changing the atmosphere, taking in oxygen and producing carbon dioxide and leaving biological waste. As they spread and evolved the plant roots started to bind the soil in place and the winds spread less and less dust into the atmosphere. As the air cleared, the moon, planets, stars and galaxies became visible in the night sky.
It was so. God made two great lights – the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night. He made the stars also. God placed the lights in the expanse of the sky to shine on the earth, to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. There was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.
God “Let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”
As the plant life changed the chemistry of the soil, water and the atmosphere, they also provided food for other life forms to consume. Fish, insects, reptiles, and birds of all kinds started to evolve based on the changing environment, creating a food chain, and continuing to evolve.
God created the great sea creatures and every living and moving things with which the water swarmed, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. God saw that it was good. God blessed them,
God “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.”
There was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.
God “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: cattle, creeping things, and wild animals, each according to its kind.”
As the ecology of water based life progressed and filled the waters, some of the creatures near the shore became amphibious, living both in the water and on the land. Some held to the shorelines but others spread inland, insects and lower life forms first to escape predators, then the predators to find the insects and lower life forms for food. As the plants continued to evolve and spread they gave shelter from natures furies, the sun and wind and rain, and all manner of animals evolved based on the bounty and needs of the environment. A land based food chain and ecology developed to support land based life, including apes and early man.
It was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the cattle according to their kinds, and all the creatures that creep along the ground according to their kinds. God saw that it was good.
God “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”
God gave the species of man a sentient, a thinking being. One with the ability to create new ideas and understand what he was taught. One who could learn more than he needed to know to survive, one who could be the caretaker of the earth. God called the man human to mark the sentient as different from the beasts in the field as he was sentient (in the image of god).
God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. God blessed them,
God “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground. I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.”
It was so. God saw all that he had made – and it was very good! There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 1 is the creation and development of the earth as we know it. The “as we know it” part of the statement seems to have been lost somewhere in the translation and records of the earliest human civilizations. This chapter of Genesis could have easily been interpreted as God teaching man how the earth was formed. On the first day of learning God taught the human about the evolution of the universe and gravity and how the environmental covering of the earth had changed to allow sunlight to pervade the atmosphere and about the earth’s rotation. On the second day god taught the human how liquids and gasses relate and how the atmosphere developed with changing states of matter. On the third day god taught the human about the primary development of plant life in the developing ecology. On the fourth day god taught the human how the developing ecology cleaned the atmosphere so the moon, planets and stars were visible at night and how they relate to the earth. On the fifth day god taught the human how biological and chemical interaction in the developing eco-structure led to the development and evolution of water based life forms and birds. On the sixth day god taught the human that the water based eco-structure spread to the land to further produce a land based eco-structure and land based life including plants and animals. Then god told the human why he was made sentient, to be the caretaker of the earth. But the human being primitive in relation to god, understood that god had done these things in the six days of the human instead of God teaching the human in six days of time on earth. One way or the other, the order of events in Genesis 1 follows the natural development of the earth and of life on it as we would expect using modern scientific research and theory, the only abnormality being the sentient human. Thousands of years before modern science developed, the first humans knew how it happened and recorded it as the word of god in Genesis 1.
but then again, I haven't seen Charlton Heston raise his staff on TV in so long that I actually have to rely on what the Bible actually says, of course the fact that I'm Wiccan by religon doesn't help add credibility from the Catholic viewpoint by nobody's perfect
The greatest truths are born in the house of doubt. Those who claim to know science shouldn’t claim to know everything. Any material or chemical combination of materials can be broken down to its lowest level components, atoms. The inclusive term for all atoms of any type, both discovered and undiscovered is mater. Mater and energy are interactive, all energy acts on mater and all mater is acted on by energy. One problem with this discussion is that so many forces are involved that the complexity overwhelms the simplicity. Another problem is that what we known about the universe pales by comparison to what we don’t know. A generalized question about celestial evolution is simple enough but the answer is based on an “if”. If all mater started at its lowest level, an atom with one neutron and one proton in a center nucleus and one electron orbiting the nucleus, and the universe started out as only that material, in a vast cloud, natural forces would cause the formation of the universe as we know it. The atoms would attract to each other based on their own gravity. That level of gravity is very small but it is there. The atoms would also repel each other because of inherent electrical characteristics of the atomic structure but as the fields of two atoms in close proximity begin working together, their combined gravity is greater than the gravity of free atoms in the surrounding area. Any two atoms in close proximity would tend to more readily attract other atoms in the surrounding area, building a gravity center that would eventually collect a denser cloud of atoms in a more confined area. As the gravitational forces combine, the cloud builds a sphere of influence based on the collective gravity of all the atoms included. As a result the original cloud of mater would tend to collect in groups scattered throughout the universe. Each group would act in similar respect individually and compact together towards a denser center. Over time the building gravity center would draw the atoms closer and closer together until there wasn’t enough space left for the atoms in the center to avoid each other in free space. As the cloud continues to compact with combined gravitational forces, less and less free space is left for the atoms to act individually. Eventually some of the atoms would start to combine by sharing electron orbits around two nucleases. The process was named covalent bonding and is the basis of electrical theory. Some of the material having that bond would create ionized particles which it turn would become more attracted to other atoms and the density of the cloud would further increase as would the gravity center. As the gravity center increases, those atoms closest to the center of the cloud would be compressed even closer together, causing the process of fusion. The electrons in the orbiting around two nucleases would start to act as if they orbiting around a single nucleus and eventually have only a single orbit. The nucleases although ascetically remaining separate begin working together as well and a new material is formed with two protons and two neutrons in the nucleus and two orbital electrons. This process is called fusion and is a natural event of the gravity center. As the process continues, other materials develop and the gravitational center continues to grow. The process of atomic fusion reacts with thermal energy, heat. All energy is based on repetition or frequency; heat however is an energy we generally view as a constant. The frequency is so high that one repetition is not distinguishable from another based on our ability to measure it. Heat however is not the only emitted energy; light is emitted as another output as are x-rays and various types of radiation. Eventually the gas cloud would compress enough to constantly produce heat and light, what we call a star. The continuing compression and increasing density eventually overcomes the ability of the material to contain the energies involved and an explosion would separate the materials out again. From that explosion, fragment may be the original material in the form of a cloud but may also be very large in the form of celestial bodies. The individual materials would be driven away from the center of the explosion to eventually attract towards each other again. Although vastly oversimplified, these events are actual, they do happen. Our ability as humans to understand them is just beginning. People once thought the world was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. Now we know better. The earth orbits around the sun. Our sun is on the outer fringes of a galaxy and there are many galaxies. Using carbon dating we can place the earth and our solar system at about 4.5 billion years old coming from an explosion and reforming. Using radio telecopy we can evaluate with triangulation of moving star formations that a similar explosion involving multiple galaxies occurred 13.8 billion years ago but that’s as far as we’ve been able to determine yet, with the technology we have now. The fact that one explosion happened 13.8 billion years ago does not mean that a greater one didn’t happen trillions of years before that, in fact it is possible that the off cast debris from one explosion may travel so far that it falls into the gravitational area of another gravity center and become involved in a completely different group of galaxies, moving towards a completely different eventual explosion. In our solar system, gravitational forces involve the sun and the planets; in our galaxy the gravitational forces involve many solar systems, in our universe the gravitational forces involve many galaxies; but how many universes are there. The further away the object is the less we are able to discern what it is, the same would hold true even for a large group of objects. The concept of a singular big bang ignores the smaller ones that have already been clearly demonstrated, not what I consider a sound practice. Our lack of scientific understanding is clear and easily demonstrated. We as humans see the spectrum of white light whereas snakes see the infrared light spectrum. White light is in a higher frequency spectra than infrared. If you use the speed of light to determine maximum velocity, a human could travel through space faster than a snake because a snake’s speed of light would be slower. With that same reasoning extended to it’s natural end, blind people couldn’t move through space at all. Doesn’t make any sense does it. Physics is not bound to biological ability. So why is the speed of light considered any more of a barrier than the speed of sound. Wouldn’t it be easier to just say I don’t know than to hypothesize the unknown to make yourself look important? I understand enough about science and postulation to make anybody look stupid for chasing unsound theories and practices but I respect the beliefs of others and their pursuits, so I don’t. Even understanding science I believe strongly in god. Although many people believe in god, not all of them believe the same. Spirituality is not limited to the choices of others or the concepts of science. I believe everyone has the right to make his or her own choices and would encourage spiritual growth along with the continuing growth of scientific understanding. Atheism is a valid religious choice and one that many people make. It is no more right to force religious beliefs on someone than it is to condemn someone for the religious beliefs they have. I don’t expect other people to believe exactly what I believe, if the did they’d be me and I like being an independent thinker, I don’t need spiritual clones. On the other hand I don’t need condemnation from people who don’t understand why I believe what I do and being Atheist doesn’t give anyone the right to condemn those that aren’t. There’s more to life than biology. Quartz crystals exhibit many of the characteristics of life yet we don’t consider them living. We use them in electronic devices instead. Life is a combination of body and spirit, even in the practice of medicine, both are addressed. We feed our spirit with education, experience, religion, choices and morality the same way we feed our bodies with food. The body is a container for the spiritual energy and both the body and the spirit have needs to attend to. Evolution does happen, even the questions in your mind evolve from curiosity, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t put here with purpose. Maybe we should change it from the big bang to the big dent theory so we can all like Disney movies if we want to.
"Do you believe we are Gods created children? or do you think we evolved?"
I believe that in the beginning of the Universe God diversified Itself into all of the Entities that exist in God's realm. God caused the Entities to go forth with the purpose of gaining knowledge and experience and then to ultimately gravitate back into the Oneness of God -- making God whole.
It is the Entities that caused/created the universe(s) and, through evolution, guided the physical realm into becoming what it is.
God and Reincarnation
I believe that God is a Creative Entity, Energy or Force that is found in a state of awareness outside of the universe and time.
I believe that God chose to morph part of Itself into minute particles of Itself described as entities or spirits and gave them the purpose to go forth and experience, gain knowledge and eventually return into the Oneness of God.
I believe that those collective entities created the universe and, utilizing evolution as a tool, created that that is life so that they could inhabit various bodies in order to gain experience and knowledge.
Prior to incarnating into a physical body the entity chooses what it wants to accomplish and what the probable circumstances involving that body and its environment will be. When the situation is right the entity then begins to dwell within the physical body, probably around the time of its birth.
When the body dies the entity dwells in a state of awareness where it can see whether it met its goals and what gains and losses it may have attached to its being. It then, again, decides what future goals it wants to achieve and reincarnates when the conditions are appropriate.
Ultimately, after incarnating as many times as necessary to attain its goals, the entity gravitates back into the Oneness of God adding to the fulfillment thereof.
I choose
I chose to be born, to live or die, Even the sex, that would be I; I chose the race, from which to appear, Also my wealth, my health and my fear.
I chose my trials and stumbling blocks, And the legs I would use, in all of those walks; I chose my sadness, my joy and my love, I chose to serve and not be above.
I chose this life with all of its dues, And with each dawn, again I choose; The experiences for me that wait ahead, To be alive, or be claimed dead.
And of the future lives I've yet, It is my choice that I begat; All the things, however pleasin', That shall befall me in those seasons.
The above is my opinion which is expounded upon in my treatise A Search For Truth:
http://www.asearchfortruth.com/old
(If it's not an active link then simply copy and paste it into your browser's Address box.)
Ted
From my chosen path I stray, Yet my God any'er turns away; For I have learned -- and understand, That where God is -- is where I am!
ethmer
The question isn’t, were the stars there, it’s more, could they be seen. If I look out my window at night I can see the stars and the moon, but if I look out my wall, all I see is paint. Light propagates through the atmosphere based on an average impedance of 23 ohms, with absorption based of prismatic clarity of the medium, in a primordial atmosphere so much dust and contamination would be present that it would block the light from the sun the same way clouds do, except that it would be constant and much darker, the chances of seeing the moon or the stars was nonexistent, if the light can’t get through the atmosphere, you wouldn’t know the source of light was there, and photosynthesis would not start happening, so plants as we know them now wouldn’t be able to grow until the atmosphere cleared. My point is how did the people 5000 years ago know the correct order of events, I’m very religious, but that hasn’t stopped me from working on scientific research programs, when you only consider the science or you only consider the religion, you have so many arguments it’s mind boggling, but when both are considered as two sides of the same coin, the two sides fit together very nicely and I’m not uneducated on either, but I don’t spell very well so it helps that my computer does and I know where to find the spell checker
have a nice day
You need to be more specific in your phrasing of the question. Of course Evolution is a fact. So the question, 'How did we get here, by Evolution or by Creation would be more appropriate.'
I say Creation for many reasons, but one of them is obvious when you think of the Chances of a Protein Forming. There are millios of amino acids found in nature. At the time of the so called "Big Bang" they would have all been floating around in a big soup. Hundreds of different kinds, roughly half of them in a left-handed form and half right-handed. Would the amino acids now connect up in long chains to make proteins?
Would only the 20 kinds needed be selected by chance out of the hundreds of kinds in the soup? And from these 20 kinds, would chance select only the left-handed forms found in living organisms? And then line them up in the right order for each distinctive protein and in the exact shape required for each one?7 Only by a miracle.
The chance is the same as rolling a dice and getting 50,000 sixes in a row. And that is for only 2,000 of the 200,000 needed for a living cell. So to get them all, roll 5,000,000 more sixes in a row! And that's just for one cell! How is that millions of people are born each year and not one of them comes out as the wrong species? By intelligent design of course!
Please do not bring up intelligent design. There is nothing intelligent about it. To believe in intelligent design is to reject the proper scientific method of studying something. Science takes a hypothesis and through experimentation and observation proves or disproves it. ID takes an observable fact (that the universe is complex) and uses supposition to explain why it is complex. ID basically breaks down to this: The universe is so complex that it can't possibly have occured randomly, and must have been designed that way by a creator. The problem is that there is no way to test or prove that conclusion, and therefore is not science.
ID is pure junk science.
Evolution. Contrary to what people want to believe, evolution and creationism cannot coexist, they contradict each other. Oh, and by the way, the whole "life's too complex to be an accident" argument is ridiculous and flawed. First of all, life wasn't an "accident", evolution is a series of causes and effects, just crack open a biology book.
Secondly, I find it ironic that people can believe two of every animal could fit on a boat and then propagate enough to refill an entire population, could also say that evolution "makes no sense." People like that have no business arguing that something is illogical.
creationisthekey, until we know how abiogenesis actually happened, computing the odds of it is not going to be very useful. You're numbers are the result of an obvious strawman designed to make the numbers outrageous.
But suppose you're right. Suppose the odds of chemical abiogenesis really are as you stated. You've nevertheless agreed that a natural explanation exists, even though you cook the books to try to make it seem implausible. As long as there's a natural explanation, supernatural explanations are totally unjustifiable, regardless of the 'odds'.
eleni - I thought of that too, but the aliens would also have to be a product of Universe a planet, and would have to have evolved. There's also the panspermia hypothesis. but there's more evidence of terrestrial orgins, and a very slow process of evolution. A good question would be, would we expierament with life like that? If we went to Europa and discovered conditions good for life, but there was none, would we? And why etc. It's possible but in our case somehow I find it unlikely.
Au contraire, a fair number of Christians here are saying 'both', and I'm happy to join them. Evolution is amazing and absolutely fascinating. It neither proves or disproves the existence of a creator God, so many Christians are able to study the discoveries of science and find in them the extremely patient and very slow-moving work of God.
As a believer, I find it incredible that anyone can believe otherwise. It makes no logical sense to me, whatsoever, any thought other than that of an all wise super intelligent power, that thought of every tiny detail. Nothing left out. Everything works. Everything fits.
This did not happen by chance. Just not possible
I think the Genesis account of creation and the story of Noah's ark are both very far fetched and it's impossible, in my opinion, that either one of them could be true.
More evidence for evolution and natural selection keeps turning up every year, so for me, that is the most logical explanation for the origin of life.
hey guys, I agree with flossheal.
"Evolution is amazing and absolutely fascinating. It neither proves or disproves the existence of a creator God, so many Christians are able to study the discoveries of science and find in them the extremely patient and very slow-moving work of God."
couldn't have said it better.
I know that evolution explains how we have become modern man. However, as a thought, exercise, is it possible that some alien could have started the process? Not some "perfect God" perhaps but a creator nonetheless. I'll keep my opinion out of it and see where this leads (if anywhere).
Btw: nice answer, Flossheal.
"How is that millions of people are born each year and not one of them comes out as the wrong species? By intelligent design of course!"
Anyone who understood DNA wouldn't have made such a moronic comment.
The creator of DNA is evolution. No intelligence is required to encode DNA.
Deff evolution, but then there's the people who ask "who/what created The Big Bang?" True but then who/what created what we know as "God"? The figure of god could not have simply been there for no reason, if there is a God, it is either a myth or a form of energy yet to be discovered.
Lostdnachain,
The Bible doesn't have evolution right. An example: The earth couldn't have been formed before the "Lights" that were supposedly created on the fourth day. The Stars in the universe and the Sun were created by evolution before the earth came into being.
There's tons of credible evidence for evolution, so it really requires quite a bit of cognitive dissonance (or ignornace) to deny it.
That said, even if evolutionary theory is someday overturned, that would not imply that we were created by a loving god.
Evolution.
The only reason there are christians here saying both, is because they KNOW it sounds silly to say creationism. They don't want to look stupid, but they don't want to look unfaithful to their religion. So they say both.
xox Sika
I am christon, but don't believe in adam and eve. I think A&E was a story to explain it to the people of that age (try telling them the theroy of evolution!). I believe that god trigered the big bang, and influenced the world to support life.
I believe in evolution, there is scientific evidince behind it. Why would anyone believe in creation when the evidince of that ever happening is completly non existant?
I believe a little of both. I believe God made everything and then because it is what it is, things started to evolve. According to HIS plan.
evolution. want to know why there is no way to prove that god didnt exist?. ..because theres no proof that he did. end of story
no doubt about that, house can not any greater than the house, god is the greatest
God is a figment of the mind. It's certain & fact we evolved.
I believe that we were created!!!
That's me. Hypocritical. Thanks.
I know that GOD made humans.:)
I too agree with flossheal!
The Bible account for sure.
evolution
Both...
yes
