Creationism vs. Evolutionism

[Sheynat]

If God is proven, then why are most scientists atheists? Your points prove nothing, Volux, when they are even coherent. In regards to your first point, don't EVER cite the Bible to prove anything. According to the Bible, there is a mountain in Israel from which one can see Ireland. There is the Cain paradox, in which Adam and Eve are the only humans, they have Cain and Abel, Cain wastes Abel and goes to Nod and gets married to somebody who doesn't exist. There's the fact that Noah's Ark is built to a very specific set of specifications. There are eight million species. A vessel of the size specified in the Bible cannot possibly contain 16 million individuals. The Bible is so full of contradictions and obvious bull that pointing to it is actually damaging to one's argument. The argument that the Bible is the history of Israel is nonsense. Bits and pieces are corroborated, certainly. Again, other bits and pieces are not, and some are flat-out impossible. Second, Jesus is not proven; not proven at all. It may be that his existence is suggested, but Roman and Jewish records don't prove that Jesus existed, much less that he was the Son of God. Furthermore, any man alive today who says he is the Son of God is viewed as a liar or insane. I see nothing that makes Jesus different; except anecdotes which I have no reason to believe. Your fourth point is incoherent. You'll have to clarify. Your fifth point is also nonsense, although I comprehend. These miracles prove nothing. They are not scientifically explainable, I confess, but that's just the point. They can't be linked to God, either. They just happen. I refuse to credit them to God until they are proven to be God's doing, as many things that people insisted were God's doing turned out to be explainable by the most banal explanations. The proof is not stacked up high, Volux. The proof doesn't exist.

[New Allectomeister]

BealtleManium said:

cause evolution is much more closer to scientific law than creationism is or ever will be

Definitely NOT TRUE! I've studied this subject since I was like seven years old. I chose number one, because that is the ONLY way that it could have happened, no other way is possible. The Big Bang could have happened with a higher force, but it would NEVER have made life. Therefore, that is definitely not how we "evolved." Also, evolution is mathematically and scientifically impossible, for the VERY simple reason (yes, I said REASON!) that it is absolutely impossible to create a new species from another species. The giraffes that CTE was talking about didn't change to "meta-giraffes," but remained giraffes. Darwin's pigeons were still pigeons. And the squinty-eyed guy at the north pole was still a person. There is no way at all to create a new species from a different species. Also, mutations couldn't do it either. Any mutation that took place would hurt the species, not help it. If evolution happened a little at a time, then any animals that developed from, oh, fish for instance wouldn't be around anymore because they would be blind.

Crackenback hit it on the head.

Well, I would and could say more, but I have to go now. This is a great discussion!!

[Keamian Territories]

NA you could have done a lot of thing scince you where 7 instead of studing what you have no idea about. Let me begain it's good thing I took my trusty bible with me. Owe wait it's always on my bedside table.

2. In the begaining god created heaven and the earth. the earth was without form a void...

3. And god said let there there be light and there was light.

What, what How can there be light without the sun?

5 And god called the light day and the darkness night and the evening and the morning where the first day.

Okay day is when the sun shines on the earth and night is hen the part of earth that you are on is facing away from the sun. Yet there is no sun.

11. And god said now let the earth bring forth grasses abd herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yeild fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth and it was so.

Now you need the sun for photosenthsis. That so that the grass can get it's sun light and grow. No sun, no light, no grass.

14. God said let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.

Okay another thing you need the sun for.

16. And god made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to upon the earth an it was so

Now the sun comes. Well it's about time.




Did you know that the bible we see today was edited by the romans. So they added a lot and subtracted a lot of the orginal writtings? You also know that Mormans are also prohibited because of a line in the bible?

[Used To Exist]

BealtleManium said:

well actually that is survival of the fittest, look at the Anole, it is all over the place right? however, the weird thing is that though a Jamaican Anole looks very similar to a hispanoliam Anole, they are very geneticaly different. Infact the Jamaican is more related to another species of Anole that live on Jamaica but looks entirely different.... this is called convergent evolution

Evolution and survival of the fittest are closely linked...... in fact, survival of the fittest is step three in the theory of evolution. Read my entire post for a full explination. But the basic idea is that the strongest trait survives over a long period so that eventually the entire species has that trait, instead of just a tiny percentage.

That is evolution.

[Used To Exist]

New said:

Also, evolution is mathematically and scientifically impossible, for the VERY simple reason (yes, I said REASON!) that it is absolutely impossible to create a new species from another species. The giraffes that CTE was talking about didn't change to "meta-giraffes," but remained giraffes. Darwin's pigeons were still pigeons. And the squinty-eyed guy at the north pole was still a person. There is no way at all to create a new species from a different species. Also, mutations couldn't do it either. Any mutation that took place would hurt the species, not help it. If evolution happened a little at a time, then any animals that developed from, oh, fish for instance wouldn't be around anymore because they would be blind.

That is correct, the giraffes remained giraffes. But imagine what I described happening a million times to different features of the giraffe..... do you really think it would look like what we know of us a giraffe? No, it would look very strange, very odd and very different. Perhaps one of these things that changed was size of "reproductive organs." They would not be able to mate with giraffes, thereby making them a different specie.


An interesting case of evolution has appeared recently. It appears that rattlesnakes are losing their rattle. It used to be that the rattle warded off predators, but now it just alerts humans of their presence. Humans are able to kill off all these rattlesnakes because they can hear them.

Now, not all rattlesnakes have noisy rattles, because they are surviving they are having the most offspring. Give it 80-90 years and there will be no more noisy rattlesnakes in California....

[Sheynat]

New Allectomeister: On the one hand, I have mathematicians and physicists and basically every kind of scientist telling me anything EXCEPT evolution is impossible. On the other hand, I have you telling me that it is mathematically and scientifically impossible. Again; you claim mathematics and science corroborate the theory that evolution is impossible, while experts in those topics who have devoted lifetimes to their topic of choice almost to a man are staunch evolutionists. That suggests there might be a flaw in your thinking. What I imagine is that you turned to math and science to prove something you had already decided, and twisted your results until they supported your hypothesis. If this is the case, well, FYI, if your results and your hypothesis disagree, your hypothesis is wrong. Discard it. Now, I don't claim to know I'm right and that's what you did. But I do believe very strongly that evolution is the correct theory, and the only reason the scientific community has not claimed final victory and declared the debate closed is fear of having their funding pulled. Now, this debate seems to be getting a bit rude and personal, and I don't claim to be innocent of that. If anybody would favor it, I can ask to have this locked.

[RichfieldMN]

The main reason I don't believe in the Bible is that it wa written by man, often a long time after the events, the events don't even tally in many places. It was also edited in the Roman era by a group of clerics who chose what texts they wanted to include and discarded others as not compatible with their wants or desires.

The Bible is a myth, most probably based on folk stories of the era. Yesterday they unearthed evidence that the eldest child of Ramses, was not killed by "God" but by the hand of man, ie he was murdered by his father or his family or someone else, this dissproves a major thing in the Bible which can have major consequences.

I do believe in God, but I do not believe in the Bible.

[Keamian Territories]

RichfieldMN said:

I do believe in God, but I do not believe in the Bible.

Same here

[Volux]

The Bible is there as a metaphor for the events that have and will take place, they do not have to be exactly the way that people see them.

Jesus is proven by other evidence and not just the Bible.

Noahs Ark: How do you know that there were 16 million species at the time, do you have evidence? Were you there, what else is there to prove that there were 16 million species?

Man of the theories that science bases our world on are also without proof, the mystery of God is one that is solved but that some people choose not to accept it and that they want to go with things that are supposedly logical.

God does exist or why would millions believe in him, even if it is not that they can be saved by him, but that they just know that there is a God.

[RichfieldMN]

The Bible is a collection of folk tales -

Noah's Ark - evidence shows this folk tale was passed down via various culutres including Native American tradition -

Fact - Native American tradition of the Great Flood was based on a real fact - the floodgates opening of Lake Agasiz in MN - so other cultures could have used a similar experience and this was why this folk tale was included in the Bible.

Adam and Eve / Creation of Earth

Fact - many cultures have similar stories about the creation of earth similar to Adam and Eve - another popular folk tale

The Bible (Old Testament) is full of similar folk tales.

New Testament - is based on certain historical events plus many folk tales or events that were enhanced by the people who witnessed the events. It has been embelished.

The choice of books in the New Testament were chosen by a select group of Clerics in Roman Times and excluded any book they said doubted the word, all the books were written by different people after the event, and often contain contradictions.

[Used To Exist]

Volux said:

The Bible is there as a metaphor for the events that have and will take place, they do not have to be exactly the way that people see them.

That is 100% correct.

When it says god created the world in 7 days, don't take that literaly, take that to mean 7 billion years (or whatever). When it says god created men and animals, take that to mean god created single celled organism which overtime evolved into what we now know as animals.

To believe that everything the bible says is literaly correct is strange...... but to believe in the bible as a series of metaphores, that makes sense, and is perfectly sane.

[Sheynat]

The number of species has remained fairly steady since the last great die-off. I can almost guarantee that there were still eight million species. Not the same eight million, but eight million. The story of Noah's Ark was written by a man who knew only of a few hundred species, and he wrote of an Ark capable of containing only a few hundred species. Second, billions of people believing in God doesn't necessarily mean anything. Billions of people also DON'T believe in God. In fact, half the word doesn't believe in God as you or I do. There's about a billion Hindus, a billion atheists, hundreds of millions of Buddhists, and the difference is made up by folk religions. If billions believing one way is incontrovertible evidence, well, there's equal numbers either way. And hell, at one point, the entire world "knew" that the world was flat, and that the sun orbited the earth. They knew it so well that they killed and ruined people who disagreed. I'm no atheist, but I disagree with the assertion that there is so much as a shred of proof. And I agree with the idea that the Bible is a metaphor; taken in any other context it's complete nonsense.

[Used To Exist]

Its true, Islam, Judaism and Christianity (ugh, my spelling is off today) make up about only 50-60% of the world. Buhdism and Hinduism make up a huge percentage of the world as well. In fact Buhdism is the world's 3rd largest religion after Christianity and Islam.

[Tierra de Madre]

OK guys, first of all, I believe there are some major contradictions here in the evolution topic.

We did not evolve from apes or monkeys or chimps. Neither did we evolve from netheanderthals. We evolved from a common ancestor, which is a very different thing. Our path split from apes very recently, hence why we are so similar, but they are not our ancestors. Netheanderthals were also not an ancestor of ours. They were around at the same time roughly as cro magnums, hence they couldn't have been our ancestors. However, neither did they interbreed, or at least it's believed they didn't. We evolved from A. Afrikanus (sp?), the first species to walk upright, as did Netheanderthals, but we didn't evolve from them. They branched off later on.

Evolution doesn't happen because an animal "changes" to suit its envirnonment. As CTE said, the animal already has mutations in its genetic material that make it fitter for its environment, therefore it survives to pass on its particular characteristics, while others don't.

It is not impossible to create a new species from another. However it takes millions of years. Take, for example, the finches on the Galapogus (sp?) islands. (A well known example). They were originally a single species. As they spread across the islands, different characteristics were more favourable, so while on one island thin billed birds might have the advantage, surviving to breed, on another the birds with strong, short bills might have better access to resources. As time went on, these birds became so different genetically that they could no longer interbreed. Which means they were now seperate species.

[BealtleManium]

Ameisen said:

Afrikanus

Homo Erectus was the first, it means man who walks upright, before him Homo Habilis (man with ablility), and before that Astralopithecis (i forget)

[Tierra de Madre]

Yeah... that's what I meant.... *cough* I always get the names mixed up. Anyway, sorry, I'm not really such a nerd, biology is just the one subject I appreciate, and evolution is what we've just done, specifically human.

[BealtleManium]

since this topic is so serious, I'll provide some comic relief!

newgrounds.com/portal/view/205197

[New Allectomeister]

Some of you must not have studied the canonization of the Bible. There are scripts from the Old Testament that archaeologists have found. The New Testament books that were canonized all contain quotations from the Old Testament, and the Old Testament authors quote each other very frequently. So the clerics did not just slap some books in and pull others, it was a VERY careful, and long, process.

About the giraffes and finches- they STILL didn't turn into new species, even with all the changing. They still have the exact same genetic makeup as other giraffes and finches. Also with the finches, their beak size changed, but it is a seasonal change, when they run out of one kind of food, they get another, and the longer beaks prevail, but when their first source of food becomes more abundant again, their beaks shorten again.

There were probably only a few types of insects on the ark, and all the water animals didn't go on the ark. Also the ark was big enough to hold many thousands of other species.

Now please tell me the reference of the verse that says that Ireland could be seen from a high mountain. If you mean Matthew 4:8, that was a vision. Satan did not actually show him in the physical world all the nations.

[BealtleManium]

the finches cannot reproduce with each other, they are different species... bit thick aren't you?

[Used To Exist]

New said:

About the giraffes and finches- they STILL didn't turn into new species, even with all the changing. They still have the exact same genetic makeup as other giraffes and finches. Also with the finches, their beak size changed, but it is a seasonal change, when they run out of one kind of food, they get another, and the longer beaks prevail, but when their first source of food becomes more abundant again, their beaks shorten again.

No, they are a different species, thats why finches on some of the Islands can't mate with finches on the others as BeatleManium pointed out. Therefore they are different. Why is it so hard to accept that?

[Sheynat]

I admit that I'm unsure which verse it was that stated Ireland could be seen from a mountain in Judea. I'm going to look for it after writing this post to see if I was wrong. Nevertheless, even if my example is invalid, which is possible, the point remains valid; the Bible cannot be taken literally. Further, it did not say in the Bible that the water species didn't go on the ark. It said all the animals went aboard, two by two. It also said that ALL animals not aboard drowned. Therefore, to take the story of the Flood literally, you must state either that the creatures of the sea drowned, which is utterly ridiculous, or that two examples of every sea creature were taken aboard the Ark, which would have required water tanks. (Actually, either way, you must assert that aquatic creatures somehow drowned.) Two of EVERY creature, by the way, would require a modern lab for the keeping and care of various microbes, besides a collection of water tanks bigger than any modern aquarium holds. And yes, the microbes could have survived by living in the creatures; but consider Ebola. If Ebola had been on that Ark, uncontained, then when the Flood ended, humanity would have been extinct. Same thing with the bubonic plague. If every microbe in existence had been aboard that ship uncontained, well, every multicellular species alive is vulnerable to disease. That would have been a very empty Ark when it landed. I'm sorry, but no matter how you spin it, there simply could not have been sufficent room. The Noah's Ark story is quite simply inconsistent with reality. It's a good piece of fiction, but that's just it. It's fiction. As for the canonization of the Bible, I frankly don't care how careful and long the process was. The Bible we got is invalid, as it has been mistranslated, sometimes by an honest mistake, sometimes to further political ends. There was a recently released translation of the Old Testament, directly from Hebrew to English. ("The Five Books of Moses", translated by Robert Alter.) It only somewhat resembled the King James Version. For example, the first line of KJV is When you consider that the KJV went through multiple translations before James ordered it translated, it's inevitable that it is filled with inaccuracies. For example, Genesis 1:1 in KJV is "In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth." (I have a King James Version Bible right on my lap as I type this; there are multiple copies in my home.) Genesis 1:1 in the direct translation is "When God began to create heaven and earth..." pretty close, right? This isn't so close. Genesis 1:2 (KJV) says "And the earth was without form, and void..." The Alter version describes the world as "welter and waste", meaning, essentialy, that the KJV would have us believe that the Earth flat-out did not exist, and the more direct translation says it existed, but was lifeless. Now, returning to evolution, I'm going to not use the previous examples, as most of the creationists here clearly regard those as false. Instead, I'll tell you of something else. Find yourself a copy of the November 2004 issue of National Geographic. Not right now, necessarily; look in a library. I have one right here. It mentions a whale-like creature called Dorudon and shows a picture of its skeleton. This thing quite clearly has vestigial legs. So, as a matter of fact, do boa constrictors. It also mentions the fact that evolution has been observed. A man named Richard E. Lenski at the University of Michigan, and quite seperately, William R. Rice and George W. Salt have both observed generations of fruit flies, placed in different environments. By the end of both experiments, the various populations of flies placed in various environments had changed to the point that they were almost different species. And the (IMHO) most compelling evidence for evolution is the fact that, for centuries, dog and horse breeders have been consciously taking advantage of it. Look at the vast variety of dogs. They ALL came from tamed wolves, who were bred for different purposes. Breeding is controlled evolution.

[miserisland]

Just wanted to jump in with regards to comments about the Big Bang. I am by no means an expert, but to say that the Big Bang is impossible clearly flies in the face of modern scientific research. Although not proven, there are volumes of evidence supporting the theory - certainly much more evidence than there is for the idea that God made the whole shebang on his week off a few thousand years ago.

It has also been said here that you can't form something from nothing and therefore there must have been something there and that something was God and that God is directing things (or something to that effect). First of all, just because we don't know how something works doesn't mean that it must prove that God is responsible for it. I'm not entirely sure how a Google search works from a technical standpoint, but that doesn't mean that God is finding my porn for me. Also, I subscribe to the theory that there never was a point where there was nothing. The universe expands until it reaches it's limit, collapses in on itself and implodes and then expands again - it's cyclical.

At the end of the day it comes down to faith. There is little or no scientific evidence supporting the existance of God but if God exists, then this makes perfect sense. At the end of the day, either you believe in him or not - logic be damned. Many do, many don't.

The Bible is a little different though, as it contains stories that at least in part can be proven or disproven through scientific methods. I think that a literal belief in the Bible is dubious at best, given the evidence against such ideas as Creationism and the Flood but more importantly simple ideas of translation. The damn thing was written by different authors thousands of years ago and has been translated and re-translated hundreds of times since then. When you go to pick up your King James Bible in the motel bedside drawer, that text has passed through thousands of hands to get to the text as it appears today. How can you have any confidence that it is 100% literally exactly the same as the initial text, even if you are to assume that they were accurate to begin with?

Also, talking about the improbability of evolution. Sure it's improbable. Staggeringly so. Heres the thing though: if any of the millions factors which could have gone wrong to totally screw over the evolutionary process had indeed gone wrong, we wouldn't be here debating it's improbability. It's like if I went to sleep here in Canada tonight and woke up on the moon in some wierd biodome, and then concluded that because it is so fantastically unlikely a thing to happen that it actually didn't. Despite my beliefs, I'd still be on the f**king moon - so it's a better idea to get my head out of my ass and figure out what happened.

Besides, what are the statistical odds that God exists and created us? A lot less than evolution, let me tell you.

[Amattica]

The Bible, though it can't be proven, is actually far more reliable than, for example, Homers Odyssey, which was available in fewer manuscripts, written over a longer period of time, and did not fulfil ANY prophesies, while the Bible was written over 30 years (the new testament), had 4000 available manuscripts, and fulfilled hundreds of prophesies. The chances of any 9 prophesies being fulfilled by random chance would be the equivalent of stacking the entire state of Texas three feet high with quarters with one of those quarters marked, walking into Texas, and immediately selecting the marked quarter on your first try.

[Sheynat]

First of all, Homer's Odyssey, if you accept your timeframe for the length it took to write the New Testament (which I do not), was written in less time. It was written in a single lifetime; that of a blind Greek named Homer. Thus, HOMER'S Odyssey. Second, whether or not ANY prophesies were fulfilled is debatable. It's the same as every other "fulfilled" prophecy. I have heard of a single prophecy which states an exact date, namely, December 21, 2012. This is the last day in the Maya calendar. When the Mayan date equivalent to this Roman date is reached, the calendar just stops. The problem with this prophecy, which, as I've said is the only one that offers a date, is that it says jack sh*t about what's going to happen that day, except that it's the end of this era. It could be first contact with an alien species, it could be the end of the world, it could be the day somebody freaks and launches a nuke and starts a nukefight...it could be nothing. We could just pass into the next era quietly without even realizing it. The thing about all prophecy is that it is sufficently vague that you could interpret it to mean anything you so desired, when, in fact, it is simple gibberish. And anyway, neither side of the debate is standing on the Odyssey as proof. Evolutionists stand on a mountain of evidence, and creationists on the Bible, which I believe I have proven over the course of this thread to be no proof at all.

[Crackenback]

Used said:

That is 100% correct.

When it says god created the world in 7 days, don't take that literaly, take that to mean 7 billion years (or whatever). When it says god created men and animals, take that to mean god created single celled organism which overtime evolved into what we now know as animals.

To believe that everything the bible says is literaly correct is strange...... but to believe in the bible as a series of metaphores, that makes sense, and is perfectly sane.

Exactly ...... Somewhere in the bible (i dont know where off-hand) It states that a day is as a million years to God, and a million years is as a day. So, it IS quite possible that the 7 days of creation mentioned in the bible is not really days as we know it. However, I dont believe the whole "God created a single-celled organism thing ....

To quote Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

So, therefore God is a single-celled organism? Kinda ridiculous ..... and how can you have male and female single-celled organisms?

And Genesis 2:7

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

I dont prophess to know how God operates and works, and how he does what he does. Maybe that's something I'll ask Him when I get to the other side. But, in the meantime, I think it's better to have faith and believe there is a God who has everything under control. This offers a peace in this world of turmoil. To deny the existence of God is to deny yourself peace. If nothing else, if believing in God gives me a peace of mind that nothing else could give me, then I will contin ue to believe.

Sheynat said:

Further, it did not say in the Bible that the water species didn't go on the ark. It said all the animals went aboard, two by two. It also said that ALL animals not aboard drowned. Therefore, to take the story of the Flood literally, you must state either that the creatures of the sea drowned, which is utterly ridiculous, or that two examples of every sea creature were taken aboard the Ark, which would have required water tanks. (Actually, either way, you must assert that aquatic creatures somehow drowned.)

To quote Genesis 6:17

And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven

God only destroyed everything that had the breath of life, and if you read the creation account first, you will realise that man (humans) were the only ones with the breath of life.

Also, in Genesis 6:19-20

And of every living thing of flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female
Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

Therefore, the creatures in the ark were all of flesh, and also all crept upon the earth

Therefore, fish and water-dwelling creatures were not there, since they do not creep. Maybe Amphibians were, but only since they can survive out of water. Diseases and bacteria do not have flesh, and I doubt a flood would have killed them anyway, since couldn't a bacteria survive IN the water, or on the surface of the water?

As for the direct translation of the bible from Hebrew to English.

There is nbo such thing as a totally accurate translation of the bible, due to the limitations of the english language. As just one example. Jesus asks Peter three times in a row "Do you love me?" and just repeats it three times

Seems mundane, but when you go back to the original texts, I believe he was actually asking him if He loved him first as a teacher, then as a friend, then as God loves him. The english language just does not have the capabilities of the hebrew language. They have multiple words for love. We have one.

I could go all night, but I'll type more later, it's 2:16am

[Sheynat]

This is another case of Bible-supporters interpreting the Bible to make it possible. Your reasoning with Genesis 1:27 assumes that it's the literal truth at all. This has made it clear to me that you are so convinced of it as the literal truth that you actually make arguments based on the Bible as the truth and expect them to sway me. I really should disengage with that knowledge; as, using such reasoning, you will never convince me and I will never convince you. But these statements must be addressed, Further, your intepretation of "the breath of life" is debatable, as is mine. However, the only clergy I have ever followed disagreed with you. They all said it mean EVERYTHING. You interpret it as sentience. (Which, by the way, would mean whales, dolphins, chimps, gorillas, orangutangs, elephants, and a certain African species of bird whose name escapes me right now all have the breath of life; all being sentient.) I believe you interpret it wrongly; and that it means just what it says, "the breath of life", meaning anything alive. That's the problem with trying to use the Bible as the basis for reality. No two people agree on the meaning of verses. While your points on the Ark may or may not be valid, you have still failed to decrease their numbers to the point that such an Ark could possibly carry them. There are still so many land animals to try to cram into this boat. This is a big boat we're talking about, but it wasn't THAT big. Finally, if even you admit that the Bible is not a perfect translation, why do you try to call it the literal history of the world? No matter how deeply you believe, I'm the one with the evidence. And as for God, speaking as a former believer, a former disbeliever and a current agnostic, I actually find more peace in disbelief. I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of an all-powerful being capable of such cruelty.

[The Undaunted]

To start with, I picked option 4, the one about unaided evolutionism. Not because I think its correct, but because I think it is far closer to what actually happened than all the other options. I can't give those other options a chance, because I don't believe in God.

I didn't read all 4 pages of responses, so if I'm double covering a topic, read on anyways.

I don't belive in God, and consider myself unreligious simply because I think that all religion was created so that people had something to give them hope with which to live their lives. People were scared of the thought of dying and created an organization that made living life easier, and took the fear out of dying.
All religion, therefore, is just man-made.

I don't try and push my beliefs onto others, I just think if you want to belive in something that helps you deal with an issue such as death, go for it; just don't take it to such extremes as to force others to believe what you do, or do crazy stuff such as terrorist acts for your "God".

[miserisland]

I think beyond any consideration of whether or not you could fit 2 of every animal onto a big boat, a literal acceptance of the Ark story is wrecked by genetics. 2 of each animal just wouldn't be a large enough genetic pool to sustain a species. They would likely need several dozen of each animal just to avoid the extinction of every species due to genetic irregularities within a few generations.

Also, I took exception to this line from Crackenback:

"To deny the existence of God is to deny yourself peace."

Why is it so difficult for believers to accept that I as an unbeliever am at peace? In discussions with believers they often refer to "the great emptiness" I must feel in my life without God, which let me tell you doesn't exist. Would believing in God alleviate the uncertainty that exists about where we came from, why we are here and what happens to us when we're gone? Of course. It would also blind me to the truth though. If you don't know what 2+2 equals, you shouldn't just accept that it's 7 for the sake of inner peace.

I am 100% at peace with my ignorance about the workings of the universe.

[Sheynat]

Actually, all modern cheetahs are descended from a single breeding pair. But Miser Island's point stands in that a single breeding pair, while technically providing enough genetic material to maintain the species, will result in havoc. The cheetah, which came from a single pair, are insanely fast, but have difficulty breathing. This is because the last pair was probably of a slightly faster than average cheetah and a cheetah with a mild respiratory problem.

[Krupponia]

I think its almost a certainty that we evolved from lesser animals, just like every other lifeform on this planet. Whether or not that evolution was guided by a higher power, be it gods or aliens, can't really be answered by the evidence available today.

Krupp