Has anyone changed their minds?, about creationism and evolution

I was wondering if anyone on here has been convinced that creationism (and perhaps religion) is not correct and that evolution is? Or vice versa? If so what arguments changed your mind?

i am convinced that one should always keep an open mind. i try to retain modesty, because chances are i may be wrong.

the question i often ask is, not whether its a creationist or evolutionist universe (or both or neither), but how do i know what i know. have i accepted someone else's view and opinion, or have i reached an internal resolution through logic and thought. i personally strive for logic and thought. either way (creation or evolution) this is way of thinking is designed to produce rational answers.

the problem is there are convincing arguments for both creationism and evolution, equally there are flaws in each of these as well.

if i knew the answer to creationism or evolution i would only ask more questions

And the flaw in evolution is?

Not to mention, what is the convincing argument for creationism.

There are no rational arguments for creationism, but that doesn't concern christians; as things don't have to be rational.(God don't have to be rational etc.) However, a rational mindset would quickly lead you to dismiss creationism as the utter nonsense that it is. (As well as christianity)

I don't think you'll ever be able to convince christians (that believe in the bible), of evolution. However, I do have a hope to win some soles to the dark side by presenting as many logic breaks in their thought as possible, and I ask every other rational minded individual to do the same.

I think that if you were to watch a lecture by Kent Hovind or another similar person, and if you knew nothing about evolution or carbon dating, you might be convinced, even if you are a logical person. This is because he and others like him use a 'straw man' argument.

He presents a false idea of what evolution says and sets out to disprove the false version. So it appears to those who haven't studied it that he has disproved evolution. If you're still on the fence, do a search on google video for: blind watchmaker. The three results are first the documentary by Richard Dawkins on evolution. The second is a great interview with an athiest philosopher. The third is a bit of Kent Hovind's misinformation. Watch that if you want a good laugh.

Hovind also makes statements that are obviously false to those who understand the concepts; I can't imagine that he actually has the level of ignorance he displays.

the flaw in evolution i made reference to is the inability to expalin the origin of the universe whereas creationism offers such an explanation.

Very intelligent question asked.

For me personally, no, it has not changed my mind.

All the arguments have only shown me that I do not know enough about creation. There are some very smart people here who have learned MUCH about how things work. They have traveled such a long way. Great respect from me to them. My life does not permit such study.

I would say that it would be very unlikely that a sincere believer in God will turn to disbelief based on science alone. A calamity in their life would be more likely to create such a turn in faith.

Think about it. If you really believe in God, a being who is all knowing (except for his avoidance of pre-destination) and he tells you that this is how it is… and you can see the science is supporting much of what is said – A few favorites of mine include the statement that all the parts of humans are down in writing at the embryonic stage and the statement that God IS stretching out the heavens, not Has stretched out the heavens – then why would you doubt?

I respect scientists and their beliefs and what they are doing. I respect them far greater, when they can understand a believer’s faith rather than calling a believer stupid.

Though I believe in creation, I have looked at evolution much and have stated before that it could be very plausible. Much of it follows logic and with a number of instances of Good luck along the way, hay, you have life.

kjw Posted: Yesterday at 7:59 PM posted

"the flaw in evolution i made reference to is the inability to expalin the origin of the universe whereas creationism offers such an explanation."

It is exceedingly tiresome to see people claim that a flaw in evolution arises from something that is in no way a part of evolution.

Evolution is not a full-fledged theory of everything that ever happened. It deals only with what happened after the universe came into existence and evolved far enough that life began here on earth.

Evolution makes no claims about the origin of universe or how life arose. The first item is a part of cosmology; look there if you want to know what current thinking is on the topic.

The second item is a rmeinder that avolution does not involve everything that ever happened.

I had a fairly fundamentalist Christian upbringing. Raised on stories about Noah's Flood and Adam and Eve I never doubted the biblical creation myth until I began to research the origin of the scriptures themselves. A claim I'll bet most people in predominantly Christian countries have heard is that the Bible is superior to all other "holy" books in that it was written by 40 men over a period of 1,400 years and is harmonious and without contradiction ("proof" of its divine inspiration). Needless to say, there are many critics who take issue with the latter part of that claim...
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/don...sistencies.html
http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/
This coupled with the fact that their are many intriguing parallels in pagan Near Eastern myths (which arguably are the original sources for the Hebrew stories) has led me to the conclusion that the Bible is best viewed as a literary work (indeed, parts of it are quite pretty), but there is certainly no evidence of a supernatural hand in its evolution and redaction.
I didn't make a clean break from faith in creationism until recently, although I was always troubled by the problems inherent in a literal interpretation of the Noachian Deluge story and the notion that humans have only been in existence for 6,000 - 10,000 years.
Strangely, I didn't question the existence of angels or demons until somewhat recently. Conservative Christians believe that astrologers, spirit mediums, magicians, etc., receive their "powers" from the Devil (in church they don't teach you critical thinking skills). This was perhaps the last remnant of irrational belief for me to abandon, and I am somewhat embarrassed that it took so long. Reading Carl Sagan's A Demon-Haunted World and James Randi's exposes about "supernatural" frauds and charlatans cured me of that silliness, and since then I have become an avid Richard Dawkins fan.

I'm happy for you, I really am.

However, there is one last "myth" I want to dispel:
The Bible is in no way a pretty literary work:
It does not have a continuous story, or a "red thread". Its language is extremely boring(imho). Also, it contains tons of contradictions (like you mentioned). It does not contain any cliffhangers. It does not contain any good poetry.(In English anyway) Seen as a whole it does absolutely not contain good rules for you to live by. (Love is not the main theme; self-denial is.)

And if you still don't agree;(or anyone else of you) find a bible and open it at some random page; read from the upper left corner. See if what you're reading makes sense. (Or is in any way beautiful) Ahh....just bad luck......try it again. Is any of what you're reading beautiful, or does it make sense? Didn't think so.

And heres a couple of my personal "favorites";

GE 15:9, EX 20:24, 29:10-42, LE 1:1-7:38, NU 28:1-29:40, God details sacrificial offerings.
JE 7:21-22 God says he did no such thing.

GE 17:1, 35:11, 1CH 29:11-12, LK 1:37 God is omnipotent. Nothing is impossible with (or for) God.
JG 1:19 Although God was with Judah, together they could not defeat the plainsmen because the latter had iron chariots.

EZ 26:15-21 God says that Tyre will be destroyed and will never be found again.
(Nebudchanezzar failed to capture or destroy Tyre. It is still inhabited.)

1 Peter 2:13-15
1 Corinthians 6:9

Written by an almighty god? I don't think so.

This post has been edited by Proveit on Nov 18 2006, 12:13 PM

DiscipulusIgnorantus, I'm very gratified to hear that you escaped the grip of circular reasoning that is religion. It gives me hope that maybe I can help people understand. Until now I was wondering if the hold of religious faith could be broken. Now that you don't believe such things, what do you say to your family and friends who still believe? Do you try to show them what you've seen? What do you think is the morally acceptable thing to do in this situation?

As CactusCritter pointed out, this is a classic straw man argument. Creationists claim that evolution is a theory of the universe but it's really just about how species differentiate. It doesn't even describe the original formation of life let alone the universe. Those are being dealt with by other scientists. The big bang is fairly well established, you can see it by the doppler shift of the light coming from stars. It's red shifted meaning they are moving away from us. Extrapolate backwards through time and about 13.7 billion years ago, everything was at an infinitesimal point.

Also if the universe is only a few thousand years old, how are we seeing the andromeda galaxy which is millions of light years away. It would take millions of years for light to get here from there, in the young earth idea, there isn't time and we wouldn't see it, but it's there.

I urge you kjw, to look further into this since it seems you've been the victim of misinformation. Take a look at the documentary 'Blind Watchmaker' on google video. It's about 20 years old and explains evolution very well.

Perhaps I do it too much service to complement it thusly. In fact, I'm quite in agreement with you about the boring bits (which is most of it - "so-and-so begat so-and-so," long lists of prohibitions, etc.). And I'm not about to defend the bible either, it's just that I don't particularly have an axe to grind when it comes to the scriptures themselves (it's just the intolerant zealots who use them as a pretext to advance their bigoted agenda that I take issue with). That being said (and please don't take this as a challenge - I'm just clarifying my statement), certain Psalms and parts of the Gospels do seem kind of pretty to me. The 23rd Psalm, for example, is rather pleasant to my ears, especially the King James version. The subject, of course, is rather silly, being some poor soul's ode to his imaginary friend, but that - to me, at least - makes it all the more poignant. And I kind of like certain bits of the Sermon on the Mount, too. I've long harbored some rather anti-capitalist sentiments, and so Matthew 6:26-29 was always one of my favorites (Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.) Obviously I realize that no invisible Sky-God is going to miraculously provide food and clothing for me; it's just that I like to remind myself that it's good to be satisfied with what I've got (I've read Epictectus, too). Anyway I hope I haven't offended by complementing those bits of the bible. I am definitely opposed to the lofty treatment the book as a whole receives from the blind, unquestioning faithful. Faerie tales are usually harmless, but when people start to mandate faith in the faerie tale and oppress those who refuse to believe they they can be very dangerous indeed...

Ach... I was dreading this question...
The truth is I've kept kept my atheistic views from my family. Maybe Richard would be ashamed of me, but I just can't see the point of disturbing my elderly parents with such a revelation. It's far too late for them to change their minds, and I wonder if it would really be a kindness to rob them of their cherished notion of Heaven even if I could. I have in a round-about sort of way talked with my mother about critical thinking and rational skepticism, and as long as I don't try applying it to Christianity she tends to be agreeable. My father, however, is a lost cause. I mentioned one time to him the famous story about Darwin's prediction that there had to exist a moth with a 11-inch long proboscis to feed from the 11-inch nectar producing tube of a Madagascar orchid, which was proved true fifty years later, but this only served to irritate him. "I do believe that man was a tool of the Devil," he said. So I stick to other subjects when I talk with them or with my brothers (they haven't outgrown their childhood beliefs, and probably never will). As for my friends - I was always sort of aloof from everyone else when I was growing up. I especially avoided other children from church who seemed to be particularly religious (there always seemed to be something wrong with them, to me). My best friend, however, shared my open-minded view of other philosophies, and actually faded away from the church scene long before I did, although he was younger. I have to say I was rather lucky in one respect - that is, that due to an awkward shyness and most probably my strange airs I didn't end up marrying in my ignorant youth and pass the virus of faith on to any subsequent offspring.
Since I moved away from my family I've had the opportunity to travel and meet all sorts of people of different religions in different countries, and rather than trying to impose some kind of hand-me-down world-view on them, I'm content to listen to their opinions and either engage them in friendly debate or just accept that they are not open to new ideas.

DiscipulusIgnoratus;
Please read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. You wont regret it!
Of course, you need to be critical to it to, (Like everything else in this world) but I think it might give you some new perspectives.

And I wont dispute what you say about some passages in the bible being pretty in your ears. Beauty after all being is a personal thing.
What I do think we agree on is that most of the bible is far from anything that characterizes a good literary work.

[QUOTE]inquisitor Posted on Nov 18 2006, 10:15 PM
I urge you kjw, to look further into this since it seems you've been the victim of misinformation.
[/QUOTE]

i urge you inquisitor to take a step back and read my posts. where have i said that creationism is correct ?. where have i said evolution is the answer to everything.

i have not. i have said that i like to keep an open mind to all possibilities, because no one has the complete picture. and if history is anything to go by, any one that claims they have the answer, chances are they haven't looked far enough.

oh and if you think that people should not lump evolution and creationism together then you should not ask the question in the first place

[/QUOTE]quisitor Posted: Nov 17 2006, 05:00 AM Report this post · Quote
I was wondering if anyone on here has been convinced that creationism (and perhaps religion) is not correct and that evolution is?
[QUOTE]

are you hired by physorgForum to generate discussion ? if so you're not being paid enough cos you got me goin

ps bless you

To DiscipulusIgnorantus,
I certainly understand your desire to not upset your family, but I feel there are significant problems caused by excessive tolerance of toxic ideas. The idea that we are not allowed to criticise a person's religious beliefs is not consistent with our attitude to other beliefs. If someone denied the holocaust, it would be challenged. You wouldn't just accept that person's belief. The kind of justifications people use for a religious belief like "believing this makes me happier" would in this example seem nonsensical.

It's got so bad that the president of the US actually said something like "our rights are derived from god". What happened to separation of church and state? I don't know about you but I find this deeply scary. There's an interesting lecture by Sam Harris about this on google video where he explains better and goes into more detail. Search for the name and watch the first result.


To kjw,

You say that the fact that evolution doesn't explain the origin of the universe is a flaw in the theory. Implying that it should explain the origin of the universe. That's where you said evolution should be an answer to everything.

I didn't say you said it was correct, you said

This is the misinformation I was talking about. The arguments for creationism are not nearly as convincing as the arguments for evolution and there are far more flaws in creationism. The lack of a few intermediate fossils is not as big a hole as the fact that creationism directly contradicts evidence, like the andromeda galaxy and light speed, and things like genetics and geology and probably a lot more I'm not mentioning.

This section of the forum is called "Creation/Evolution". I'm not sure what you mean by lumping together, but the two ideas are in direct conflict and are a subject of widespread discussion. Evolution says we evolved from other species over millions of years, creationism says our ancestry only goes back to adam and eve. These are clearly in contradiction. If the idea of adam and eve is wrong, then the whole idea of original sin is based on nothing. Thats why religious organisations are trying to terrorise science classes with nonsense.

No, actually I wanted to see if there was some evidence that people's minds can be changed and that it is possible to overcome religious indoctrination.

This post has been edited by inquisitor on Nov 19 2006, 09:36 PM