Evolution Or God... How were we created?

[iGuest 3]

I don't know if there is a god, don't know if there is a Buddha, I do know, things happen for what they are meant for. We can't explain how we were born, or how we were even put on this planet, but we can say, we are evolving. Maybe someone gave us te intellect to do so? Who knows. We are evolving by ourselves, by what we were given at birth. Someone can't possibly control what we are doing am I correct? I believe we are justified for the actions we make, and how it will affect OUR OWN future. We built this place ourselves, the only thing someone can give us is the small push to start. Whoever created us, didn't possibly mean us to evolve so rapidly.That's what I think. It's hard to base it on anything but your own opinion, but at least it's something, and you should respect yourself for doing so in finding what you might believe it to be.

[half1405241509 0]

I think we are products of evolution, but I also believe there is some for of higher power that guides us in a way. I've heard some pretty convincing things about how we evolved from amphibians what used to live in water but came to land. Kind of interesting to think about.

[destinyblue21 0]

I was taught that we was created from the same thing Adam and Eve was created and that isdirt, and not any apes, or gorillas or what ever they say we evolved from, but I do wonder since God create us who create him?

[kaputnik 0]

This is something  I have been wondering on what other people think. Evolution, defined as: Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species. (from dictionary.com)

 

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Evolution theory dictates that organisms with biological systems change through time in response to pattern changes that affect the organisms, in the immediate or even the indirect environment. This essentially means that anything that is animate or has life should in the course of a few generations evolve to better blend in its functions within its environment. The recent outbreak of disease in India like Japanese Encephalitis (http://news.trust.org//humanitarian/) and in Singapore like Dengue; and of course the spread of SARS indicate how organisms at the lower order range (simple organisms with one or few cells), evolve at a much faster pace in reaction to even the most minute changes in their environments, then their much more complex counterparts. In reflection, it got me thinking that evolution is a process not only of natural selection, but also a designable and planable scenario.

 

We humans consider (and possibly rightly) ourselves to be the most advanced form of evolution on the planet. This since we have visible and tangible results of our evolution evident across the globe; and, because we are mostly able to control the environments in which we live in to a great extent. An article I recently came across (http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_9565.shtml/?gtnjs=1) tells of how the human brain is constantly in a state of evolution, and how major changes in the brainâs structure and makeup, and, possibly functioning have coincided with dramatic changes in human social environment. Like, there was a possibility of mass changes to the evolution of the brain when humans first began to grow crops through agriculture (defining a quantum shift from the nomadic thinking required to hunt and forage to the more settled and social shift to locational dominance through development of land and the harnessing of nature to produce food instead of going hunting or foraging like the rest of the biological environment).

 

Now, my thought is that: how about making evolution an active part of our lives. Perhaps we are geared to forge ahead with our natural evolution by making a conscious effort to evolve. Learning is a part of our everyday lives â especially so during the early years of our life. Perhaps we ought to bring about the thought of conscious evolution into human minds at the very school level, so that by the time children grow up, they automatically make an attempt to learn, they automatically attempt to make a conscious effort to hear better, see better, learn better, think better, utilize physical and mental human resources better. Perhaps as adults, the thought process ought to be self evident. As humans, we automatically compete with one another for resources from the very basic like food to the most complex like having the very latest in gadgetry. Personally evolving, may institute a change in everyone to collaborate â overcome world hunger â develop technologies in a collaborative environment instead of a competitive one. Perhaps it comes down to our very competitive spirit. We as humans are naturally competitive â so are every other living organism, and competition within ourselves as well as without is what drives the evolutionary process. So, how about we all compete as we normally will in our lives â but consciously compete to evolve. Perhaps that is the momentum required to jump into the next human realm of creativity and progress.

[mitchellmckain 0]

Now, my thought is that: how about making evolution an active part of our lives. Perhaps we are geared to forge ahead with our natural evolution by making a conscious effort to evolve.

Good thought depending on what you think that means. The kind of evolution of the individual described by Darwin lead to a socially destructive philosophy known as social darwinism. I also think it played a crucial role in the philosophy of nazi germany. The problem is that Darwin's theory is incomplete.

Learning is a part of our everyday lives â especially so during the early years of our life. Perhaps we ought to bring about the thought of conscious evolution into human minds at the very school level, so that by the time children grow up, they automatically make an attempt to learn, they automatically attempt to make a conscious effort to hear better, see better, learn better, think better, utilize physical and mental human resources better.

This does not sound like any kind of evolution at all. It sounds like the inheritance of aquired characteristics supplanted by Darwin. But on the other had there must be something right in what you are saying. Intuition tells us so.

Perhaps as adults, the thought process ought to be self evident. As humans, we automatically compete with one another for resources from the very basic like food to the most complex like having the very latest in gadgetry. Personally evolving, may institute a change in everyone to collaborate â overcome world hunger â develop technologies in a collaborative environment instead of a competitive one. Perhaps it comes down to our very competitive spirit. We as humans are naturally competitive â so are every other living organism, and competition within ourselves as well as without is what drives the evolutionary process. So, how about we all compete as we normally will in our lives â but consciously compete to evolve. Perhaps that is the momentum required to jump into the next human realm of creativity and progress.

Darwin's theory of the evolution of the individual doesn't apply to humanity anymore. We are clearly in the next stage of evolution, which is the evolution of the community, which changes all the rules. We embarked on this stage of evolution once we began to protect the weaker members of society and made possible ways of life freed from the immediate concerns of individual survival. How does a computer programmer compete for food. He doesn't, not as an individual. Instead there is a mutually benifical dynamic between him and those who do aquire food. Learning and human technology are all part of this new stage of evolution of the community. Competition has proven to be an effective economic dynamic for the human community but its proof is not Darwinism but in the improvement of cooperative acheivements of the human community.

[Logan Deathbringer 0]

To be a "Religious" person is not to say that you can't study, understand, and "believe" in science. To totally give up science and give in to religion totally you would become a fanatic and thus you would become a "cultist."Those that go to the extreme and say that creationism is true and evolution is false, or the other way around, are just unable to release their deeply ingrained religous indoctrination and afraid that everything that they have believed for years cannot be true.Now don't get me wrong I'm no expert on the subject but from what I've read, both in the cristian religon as well as the science I've studied, and the discussions I've had with friends and aquaintances and during these discussions/debates we came to the conclusion that has seemed to float around this thread. That "primative man" used religion to explain the world around him/her that their current "science" couldn't. As an example of this, and to pull away from modern religion, look at what we now call Greek Mythology, which at the time was a religion. They had a "God" to describe/explain why different things in nature and the world around them happened, then came along people like Socrates, Plato, and other such people and they started to use deductive reasoning to explain things, and such science was born.Now skip a few hundreds years forward and if you look at what we now take for granted as science and look at what happened when certain theories were first brought to the public their was much controversy. The whole problem here is that people have used Religon to control others, and as science threatens that control their is an attempt made to dispute the findings. Earlier civilizations made war in the name of their religion as a way to prove their religion was the true one and that their Deity/Deities was/were the real one/ones. Even today we have war in the name of Religon.Some may say that it has to be either science or religion...why can't it be both. Why can't it be that the universe was created in a big bang set off by some Deity that was playing marbles with their offspring. Then as man evolved the Deity communicated with the evolving civilization in an attempt to keep them from killing themselves and to point them in the correct direction and hope that doing so will save the fledgling civilization.Or you could surmise that we are just an experiment in a lab in a huge petri dish and to that scientist we are just a bunch of bacteria to be played with and experimented with. Or how about this, we are just someones dream or video game.My over simplification of everything is this, if you need religion to keep things in perspective thats cool for others its science but lets not force them to do battle any more then we should continue the battle over which religion is the true one and blood has to be spilled over a difference of opinion. The one thing that I find truely funny is that their are people out there that try to force science to meld with what their religion says happened.Well thats my 2 cents and 1 dollar rant...hope you find it amusing if nothing else.

[stusrud 0]

No, that was not to be funny or made fun of at all. That is good, it is what you beleive and you spoke it out bravely. I do aggree with some of your beliefs also. Thanks for posting that!

[macace8 0]

i definatly think God created everything. And those of you who try to argue with science and logic that creatonisim is false, I don't belive that science and logic can be used to disprove God because God created science and logic.

[mitchellmckain 0]

Logan, first I would like to say that I am responding to your post because I found it interesting not because I wish to refute everything you say. I have had so many people automatically assume this and obvious confusion results because they cannot see the validity of the refutations which I am not making.

To be a "Religious" person is not to say that you can't study, understand, and "believe" in science.  To totally give up science and give in to religion totally you would become a fanatic and thus you would become a "cultist."

Being both christian and a physics teacher I cannot agree more with what you are saying here in the main, but I would like object to final sentiment. Standing in between science and religion and absorbing the confusion, trying to make sense of it, is not a comfortable place to be. There are many people, even the majority who have little reason to even try. Therefore I object to calling people fanatics or cultists (even though many of these would wear the badge proudly), because I think they are far more ordinary than these labels imply. I am often surprised at how little of what science is saying is understood by the majority of people, including those who adopt it (science) as a sort of life philosophy or religion. Because of this, I think it has become a pretty common attitude to give up on science. People buy in Kuhn's nonsense about scientific revolutions and think that the discoveries of science will eventually be overturned, and so they believe what they want to believe. As strange as it may sound, I think that Star Trek has a greater following than science these days. People find it easier to believe in a well told story. For lets face it, the stuff of todays physics has gone so far out of the realm of common sense that it is far stranger than science fiction.

Those that go to the extreme and say that creationism is true and evolution is false, or the other way around, are just unable to release their deeply ingrained religous indoctrination and afraid that everything that they have believed for years cannot be true.

Indoctrination really has very little to do with it. In our society people make their own choices about what to believe and they change their minds all the time. What you are really saying here is that you think the rejection of evolution is unreasonable and therefore anyone who does this must be crazy or deluded. You are wrong. People can and do believe in just about anything for reasons too numerous to count. Reason is not a one way street, it is more like an infinity of parallel worlds because it must begin with assumptions, postulates, or first principles.

That "primative man" used religion to explain the world around him/her that their current "science" couldn't.  As an example of this, and to pull away from modern religion, look at what we now call Greek Mythology, which at the time was a religion.  They had a "God" to describe/explain why different things in nature and the world around them happened, then came along people like Socrates, Plato, and other such people and they started to use deductive reasoning to explain things, and such science was born.

This is too simple a picture. Originally science, philosphy, religion, art and entertainment were all one with no divisions between, it was the expression of the pure and innocent wonder, curiosity and creativity of mankind. You think like a modern man when you separate these elements. Their stories were not only to explain like a science, but to give them meaning like a philosophy, to inspire them like a religion, to express beauty like an art, and engage their heart, humor and passion as our numberous forms of entertainment does today. So we have become more sophisticated today with all these specialize activities to excel in specialized tasks. But confusion and some siliness results when we compare these different activities based on goals of one of them. Science is in the business of explaining things rationally and of course religion cannot compete on that basis because that is not its primary function in life of the believer. When we compare these in this foolish manner and force people to choose, I think were are in danger of becoming fragments of a whole.

Now skip a few hundreds years forward and if you look at what we now take for granted as science and look at what happened when certain theories were first brought to the public their was much controversy.  The whole problem here is that people have used Religon to control others, and as science threatens that control their is an attempt made to dispute the findings.  Earlier civilizations made war in the name of their religion as a way to prove their religion was the true one and that their Deity/Deities was/were the real one/ones.  Even today we have war in the name of Religon.

Religion has only been used as a convenient excuse for war and abuse when that seemed possible, but it has more often been simply ignored because it gets in the way. I mean get serious, where exactly was religion in the two world wars? And what about the atrocities committed by the communists in their cultural revolutions in the name of their anti-religious sentiments. Do you really think the conflict in Palestine is about religion? The muslims have always been 1000% more tolerant and sympathetic with the Jews than Christians have, until we decided that they had to give up their land for them. Ok, so what about the crusades? Religion was a convenient excuse for these barbaric conquerers of the Roman empire to continue their pilliage south, but the victims were often other christians. So people like to parrot this nonsense about religion being the cause of war, but I think it is time for people to grown up.

Some may say that it has to be either science or religion...why can't it be both.  Why can't it be that the universe was created in a big bang set off by some Deity that was playing marbles with their offspring.  Then as man evolved the Deity communicated with the evolving civilization in an attempt to keep them from killing themselves and to point them in the correct direction and hope that doing so will save the fledgling civilization.

Well, clearly I am saying that it really must be both, but we really don't want to turn the clock back and mix up science and religion back together again. In science we have learned that sometime apparently contradictory explaination are required for a real understanding of things (the photon is both a wave and a particle). But, on the other hand, not everyone can do it, so we need tolerance and even appreciation for people who are different.

Or you could surmise that we are just an experiment in a lab in a huge petri dish and to that scientist we are just a bunch of bacteria to be played with and experimented with.  Or how about this, we are just someones dream or video game.

Or a giant living computer created by mice to compute the ultimate question?

The one thing that I find truely funny is that their are people out there that try to force science to meld with what their religion says happened.

Yes this sort of pseudo-science is rampant today. We definite want to keep religion out of science. All in all, I think we see eye to eye. We definite need to find some way of healing this adversarial gap between science and religion. We need a greater acceptance of the true complexity of human life and take a step toward becoming more than just fragments.

[wwheeler 0]

I have a view that is kind of starnge to both the religious set, and the science set.I personnaly call it smart design.It states:That while planning the creation of mankind, God decided to let the human body change and adapt to living conditions around the globe. To accomplish this, he allow our bodie to adapt, and evolve, therefore, allowing us to survive as a species on about 80% of the planet that he gave us to live on...But, like I said, that is just my opinion, and could be as far from correct as possible.I don't think that God would have created a species that couldn't evolve from the base form that were Adam and Eve.-William

[pomjim 0]

The concept of a "godhead" was for two reasons.1. To explain the unexplained.2. To give humans the ultimate hope, life after death.As science has come to find answers, religous belief has dropped accordingly, naturally enough.So the main hope left for religion is the everlasting life idea. ('tho I notice even the Pope wasn't too happy about going to a better place!)Belief in a god is like believeing in Santa Claus, or the fairies.

[Shadow X 0]

I would have to say God because not even scientist can explain everything about the universe. Darwin's theory of evolution is also being doubted and anyway, at te beginning someone had to creata the first orgaism and it had to be God because he has the power to do this.

[Kid Saiyan 0]

Too True..Im religous...so i have to agree with SHadow on this one...and anyway...how would you explain miracles then?*gives everyone evils*

[pomjim 0]

Too True..

Im religous...so i have to agree with SHadow on this one...

and anyway...how would you explain miracles then?

*gives everyone evils*

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Well, what is a "miracle"? And have you ever seen one?

 

You cannot expect science to have all the answers YET. Understand that we really have only been looking for answers properly for about 600 years, so please give us time!

 

When scientists first started looking for answers, the world was regarded as flat, and was the centre of the universe. As I'm sure you are aware, that is not true, but it WAS true according to the churches.

[sickgrrl723 0]

the way i see it, god created the universe, but he lit the match that ignited the big bang... i believe in evolution, it makes perfect sense for humans and other species to have evolved and to continue to evolve... in my mind, the scientists have got it right, but there is a supreme being that watches over us all...