Which is a more likely explanation for creation?

[JJ Husker]

I blame NUance for starting such a contentious topic. That guy is a troublemaker

A big part of the problem is that people who do not believe in God or the Bible want to act like people who do, believe in the exact, word for word, account of the creation story in Genesis and literal interpretations of all text in the Bible. Problem is, I have yet to run into anyone personally that believes the creation story literally. Heck, priests and ministers I've discussed it with don't literally believe God created things in 7 days. It's a story, and is not intended to be an in depth physics text book, And yes, there are some on the fringes that believe every single word is unquestionable fact. That is how we end up with things like the creation museum portraying humans riding dinosaurs etc. Yes, I believe God created everything (was the first cause) and yes, I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. But I also think some of those words were laid out to be general in nature and in many cases to tell a story or get a point across and not absolutely, 100% the literal truth.

And back on topic-

It is much easier for me to believe that we have a purpose and that a higher power caused all this to happen. I just can't accept (and really don't want to) that this all happened by random chance and by a billion freaks of nature we crawled out of the primordial ooze and now here we are and that we really don't have any purpose other than to evolve and reproduce and survive. There has to be a master plan, a reason, a higher purpose.

 

[Red Dead Redemption]

And back on topic-

It is much easier for me to believe that we have a purpose and that a higher power caused all this to happen. I just can't accept (and really don't want to) that this all happened by random chance and by a billion freaks of nature we crawled out of the primordial ooze and now here we are and that we really don't have any purpose other than to evolve and reproduce and survive. There has to be a master plan, a reason, a higher purpose.

OF COURSE that's what the religious want to believe. Because the alternative is too scary for them to comprehend. So they take the easy way out, and it allows them to sleep at night.

 

[NebraskaHarry]

I blame NUance for starting such a contentious topic. That guy is a troublemaker

A big part of the problem is that people who do not believe in God or the Bible want to act like people who do, believe in the exact, word for word, account of the creation story in Genesis and literal interpretations of all text in the Bible. Problem is, I have yet to run into anyone personally that believes the creation story literally. Heck, priests and ministers I've discussed it with don't literally believe God created things in 7 days. It's a story, and is not intended to be an in depth physics text book, And yes, there are some on the fringes that believe every single word is unquestionable fact. That is how we end up with things like the creation museum portraying humans riding dinosaurs etc. Yes, I believe God created everything (was the first cause) and yes, I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. But I also think some of those words were laid out to be general in nature and in many cases to tell a story or get a point across and not absolutely, 100% the literal truth.

And back on topic-

It is much easier for me to believe that we have a purpose and that a higher power caused all this to happen. I just can't accept (and really don't want to) that this all happened by random chance and by a billion freaks of nature we crawled out of the primordial ooze and now here we are and that we really don't have any purpose other than to evolve and reproduce and survive. There has to be a master plan, a reason, a higher purpose.

You should be skeptical and ask questions. That's what science is. However, it sounds like you're not interested in trying to answer those questions yourself or learn how those questions are approached by scientists. You're simply accepting the notion that God did it. That's all fine in dandy, but you don't learn anything that way. We are where we are today, because for thousands of years, humans have tried to answer the questions about life. How things work. It's why we don't die when we're in our 20's and 30's on average anymore.

 

[knapplc]

I voted for the non-god answer. If you vote for "god," you've got to decide which "god" you're talking about, and there are literally thousands. Each comes with their own creation myth, each has their own flavor of religion, all of those religions can be traced back to man-centric themes and are not reliant solely on supernatural things. There is no proof of the existence of "god" or of any god. there is no reason to believe that Odin is more real than Zeus or Jupiter or Allah or Aten or Quetzalcoatl or any of the other literally thousands of them.

Your religion is not a true thing, it is an accident of your location of birth. In this thread, this country, the predominant religion is Christianity. It, then, is no surprise that most here are Christian. If you conducted this poll on a forum dedicated to some soccer team in Riyadh, you'd likely get a lot of "yes, god" votes - but those votes would be for Allah, not the Christian god.

That I cannot explain how random bits of matter could coalesce into life does not mean gods are real. It means I (we) don't understand how that happened yet. That humans could not explain how birds flew 5,000 years ago did not mean that flight wasn't real, or possible - it just meant they didn't know how to do it yet.

Based on the progression of knowledge of the human species, it's more likely to me that we'll eventually figure out how life formed. It's a difficult puzzle, but if we have long enough, we'll get the answer. I find that more plausible than a story of "god."

 

[C N Red]

I voted for the first option, because it's what I believe (sort of)..

My belief is that God (of Abraham) created the universe. But I also believe he created it in a way that follows laws, such as physics. These laws are constant. He may very well have created it from a singularity, and used the physical laws he created to carry out the second option.

I don't believe Creation happened on a 24-hour day, and 7-day week schedule like the creation story of the Bible says. I think it could have if He wanted to, but instead He chose a way where humans can actually find His works in Science and witness His creation first hand.

Yes, yes.

 

[funhusker]

And back on topic-

It is much easier for me to believe that we have a purpose and that a higher power caused all this to happen. I just can't accept (and really don't want to) that this all happened by random chance and by a billion freaks of nature we crawled out of the primordial ooze and now here we are and that we really don't have any purpose other than to evolve and reproduce and survive. There has to be a master plan, a reason, a higher purpose.

OF COURSE that's what the religious want to believe. Because the alternative is too scary for them to comprehend. So they take the easy way out, and it allows them to sleep at night.

Why is choosing to believe in God the "easy way out"?

Believers and non-believers will both die. Odds are it will happen in either a tragic or painful way, if not both. Life isn't easier for either group because they believe a certain way. We all need food, shelter, and relationships. We all, hopefully, have a set of moral standards. I'm just not sure what you mean...

Edit: For instance, there are things that I would love to do but don't because I chose to believe. Something as simple as sleeping in on a Sunday morning or not volunteering a week of my summer break to help at Vacation Bible School. These are just simple time issues. I tried to ignore my beliefs in my 20's because I thought it would make life easier and more fun.

Nonbelievers can volunteer as well; many do. We all face the same hurdles and desires to help the community. The only difference is our driving force.

 

[knapplc]

Why is choosing to believe in God the "easy way out"?

Because it becomes the answer for anything too difficult or complex. Ancient man asked, "What is lightning?" They didn't have an answer for that, so they decided it was the weapon of some god - Zeus, in that case. Ancient man asked, "What is that crazy shiny thing up in the sky?" They didn't have an answer, so it became a god - Aten, Apollo, Helios, Freyr, Sol, etc. Ancient man asked, "Why does the ground shake?" They didn't know, so they invented another god - Vulcan, Neptune, Poseidon, Cabrakan, etc.

It's a cop-out answer. Lightning is caused by differences in electric polarity between cloud and ground. The sun is a star. Earthquakes are tectonic activity. Once man reasoned these puzzles out long enough, they discovered the answer.

If anything you can't understand is answered by "god," you're just pushing the Easy Button.

 

[Moesker]

Why is choosing to believe in God the "easy way out"?

Because it becomes the answer for anything too difficult or complex. Ancient man asked, "What is lightning?" They didn't have an answer for that, so they decided it was the weapon of some god - Zeus, in that case. Ancient man asked, "What is that crazy shiny thing up in the sky?" They didn't have an answer, so it became a god - Aten, Apollo, Helios, Freyr, Sol, etc. Ancient man asked, "Why does the ground shake?" They didn't know, so they invented another god - Vulcan, Neptune, Poseidon, Cabrakan, etc.

It's a cop-out answer. Lightning is caused by differences in electric polarity between cloud and ground. The sun is a star. Earthquakes are tectonic activity. Once man reasoned these puzzles out long enough, they discovered the answer.

If anything you can't understand is answered by "god," you're just pushing the Easy Button.

 

[funhusker]

Why is choosing to believe in God the "easy way out"?

Because it becomes the answer for anything too difficult or complex. Ancient man asked, "What is lightning?" They didn't have an answer for that, so they decided it was the weapon of some god - Zeus, in that case. Ancient man asked, "What is that crazy shiny thing up in the sky?" They didn't have an answer, so it became a god - Aten, Apollo, Helios, Freyr, Sol, etc. Ancient man asked, "Why does the ground shake?" They didn't know, so they invented another god - Vulcan, Neptune, Poseidon, Cabrakan, etc.

It's a cop-out answer. Lightning is caused by differences in electric polarity between cloud and ground. The sun is a star. Earthquakes are tectonic activity. Once man reasoned these puzzles out long enough, they discovered the answer.

If anything you can't understand is answered by "god," you're just pushing the Easy Button.

I think all the believers in this thread have said that they believe in evolution and scientific research. You ask the question, "how does nature do it?", most believers ask the question, "how does God make nature do it?

what's the difference?

I agree that people who ignore observable science, and sound theoretical science for that matter, are blind to the world. But I don't think that is a large population of believers. The Catholic Church and Lutheran Churches (that is a big chunk of Christians) believe in the scientific methods and are happy to use discoveries to better humanity.

 

[Red Dead Redemption]

Why is choosing to believe in God the "easy way out"?

Because it becomes the answer for anything too difficult or complex. Ancient man asked, "What is lightning?" They didn't have an answer for that, so they decided it was the weapon of some god - Zeus, in that case. Ancient man asked, "What is that crazy shiny thing up in the sky?" They didn't have an answer, so it became a god - Aten, Apollo, Helios, Freyr, Sol, etc. Ancient man asked, "Why does the ground shake?" They didn't know, so they invented another god - Vulcan, Neptune, Poseidon, Cabrakan, etc.
It's a cop-out answer. Lightning is caused by differences in electric polarity between cloud and ground. The sun is a star. Earthquakes are tectonic activity. Once man reasoned these puzzles out long enough, they discovered the answer.

If anything you can't understand is answered by "god," you're just pushing the Easy Button.

Yup. Same with explaining away bad things with, "It's all part of God's plan"

When somebody dies: "There's a purpose for everything."

When somebody survives: "God must have a plan for me"

 

[JJ Husker]

I voted for the non-god answer. If you vote for "god," you've got to decide which "god" you're talking about, and there are literally thousands. Each comes with their own creation myth, each has their own flavor of religion, all of those religions can be traced back to man-centric themes and are not reliant solely on supernatural things. There is no proof of the existence of "god" or of any god. there is no reason to believe that Odin is more real than Zeus or Jupiter or Allah or Aten or Quetzalcoatl or any of the other literally thousands of them.

Your religion is not a true thing, it is an accident of your location of birth. In this thread, this country, the predominant religion is Christianity. It, then, is no surprise that most here are Christian. If you conducted this poll on a forum dedicated to some soccer team in Riyadh, you'd likely get a lot of "yes, god" votes - but those votes would be for Allah, not the Christian god.

That I cannot explain how random bits of matter could coalesce into life does not mean gods are real. It means I (we) don't understand how that happened yet. That humans could not explain how birds flew 5,000 years ago did not mean that flight wasn't real, or possible - it just meant they didn't know how to do it yet.

Based on the progression of knowledge of the human species, it's more likely to me that we'll eventually figure out how life formed. It's a difficult puzzle, but if we have long enough, we'll get the answer. I find that more plausible than a story of "god."

I disagree. A person does not have to decide which god or which religion to come to the conclusion that a higher power caused this all to come about. And it is a logic leap to claim that because humans have come up with multiple versions of God that there must be more than one and for some reason now we have to choose which one. What if there really is only one true God and mankind's attempt to explain him has simply left us with all these multiple "gods" and religions you trot out in every thread like this? I think there is one true God with a multitude of human attempts at explaining him. Sure doesn't mean there is really more than one, and if there isn't more than one, then it is not necessary to choose which one and it doesn't matter where you were born or the predominate religion in the area. Too many people get hung up on the constraints generated by mere human beings. Yeah, humans probably don't have it right. So what? The existence of one God, one creator, one all powerful being, is not dependent on our ability to explain him.

Once a person can accept that there is one true God (however, whoever that may be) then it becomes very easy to realize we were created and not just some random accident. Then the only challenge is figuring out which religion, which explanation, which description of God a person is going to gravitate towards. Then, at that point, you are correct, it depends where your were born, how your were raised and what you were exposed to. But none of those human inspired details are the least bit important to come to the conclusion that there must be a higher power, an architect, a God.

 

[Moesker]

I voted for the non-god answer. If you vote for "god," you've got to decide which "god" you're talking about, and there are literally thousands. Each comes with their own creation myth, each has their own flavor of religion, all of those religions can be traced back to man-centric themes and are not reliant solely on supernatural things. There is no proof of the existence of "god" or of any god. there is no reason to believe that Odin is more real than Zeus or Jupiter or Allah or Aten or Quetzalcoatl or any of the other literally thousands of them.

Your religion is not a true thing, it is an accident of your location of birth. In this thread, this country, the predominant religion is Christianity. It, then, is no surprise that most here are Christian. If you conducted this poll on a forum dedicated to some soccer team in Riyadh, you'd likely get a lot of "yes, god" votes - but those votes would be for Allah, not the Christian god.

That I cannot explain how random bits of matter could coalesce into life does not mean gods are real. It means I (we) don't understand how that happened yet. That humans could not explain how birds flew 5,000 years ago did not mean that flight wasn't real, or possible - it just meant they didn't know how to do it yet.

Based on the progression of knowledge of the human species, it's more likely to me that we'll eventually figure out how life formed. It's a difficult puzzle, but if we have long enough, we'll get the answer. I find that more plausible than a story of "god."

I disagree. A person does not have to decide which god or which religion to come to the conclusion that a higher power caused this all to come about. And it is a logic leap to claim that because humans have come up with multiple versions of God that there must be more than one and for some reason now we have to choose which one. What if there really is only one true God and mankind's attempt to explain him has simply left us with all these multiple "gods" and religions you trot out in every thread like this? I think there is one true God with a multitude of human attempts at explaining him. Sure doesn't mean there is really more than one, and if there isn't more than one, then it is not necessary to choose which one and it doesn't matter where you were born or the predominate religion in the area. Too many people get hung up on the constraints generated by mere human beings. Yeah, humans probably don't have it right. So what? The existence of one God, one creator, one all powerful being, is not dependent on our ability to explain him.

Once a person can accept that there is one true God (however, whoever that may be) then it becomes very easy to realize we were created and not just some random accident. Then the only challenge is figuring out which religion, which explanation, which description of God a person is going to gravitate towards. Then, at that point, you are correct, it depends where your were born, how your were raised and what you were exposed to. But none of those human inspired details are the least bit important to come to the conclusion that there must be a higher power, an architect, a God.

Even if there is one true God, that doesn't mean that any of man's religions is correct. God's existence doesn't automatically point to a known religion as being true.

I think the fact that there are so many religions points to man having a need to create ways to explain things he does not understand. The concept of God is likely not completely understandable to humans thus, its likely no earthly religion is the truth.

 

[NUance]

I think that both 'options' (neither is the correct one imo) are not mutually excluse and in fact the second one follows from the first. The 'big bang' is suspect and admittedly is such a wild hypothesis that it just might be true but there seems no logical reason why God would not have created the big bang and all things that follow from it.

Ding, ding, ding! Winner winner chicken dinner! +1 to you, sir!

I purposefully hadn't voted yet wondering whether anyone would pick up on the nonexclusivity of the answers. The the poll allows you to vote for either answer, or for both. I happen to feel both answers are true.

In fact, I happen to feel that both answers have to be true. I mean, what are the odds of life randomly sparking into existence? Then, on top of that, what are the odds of that simple one cell lifeform somehow becoming able to reproduce? And not just reproduce into similar, or lesser, creatures like you'd expect. But reproduce and be subject to natural selection in such a manner that it diversifies and evolves to produce an earth teeming with all manners of life. Including mankind. What are the odds of THAT? There has to have been a guiding hand helping this process out. There was a watchmaker, I tell you!

 

[NUance]

I blame NUance for starting such a contentious topic. That guy is a troublemaker

A big part of the problem is that people who do not believe in God or the Bible want to act like people who do, believe in the exact, word for word, account of the creation story in Genesis and literal interpretations of all text in the Bible. Problem is, I have yet to run into anyone personally that believes the creation story literally. Heck, priests and ministers I've discussed it with don't literally believe God created things in 7 days. It's a story, and is not intended to be an in depth physics text book, And yes, there are some on the fringes that believe every single word is unquestionable fact. That is how we end up with things like the creation museum portraying humans riding dinosaurs etc. Yes, I believe God created everything (was the first cause) and yes, I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. But I also think some of those words were laid out to be general in nature and in many cases to tell a story or get a point across and not absolutely, 100% the literal truth.

And back on topic-

It is much easier for me to believe that we have a purpose and that a higher power caused all this to happen. I just can't accept (and really don't want to) that this all happened by random chance and by a billion freaks of nature we crawled out of the primordial ooze and now here we are and that we really don't have any purpose other than to evolve and reproduce and survive. There has to be a master plan, a reason, a higher purpose.

cough, cough, six days, cough, cough.

 

[JJ Husker]

I voted for the non-god answer. If you vote for "god," you've got to decide which "god" you're talking about, and there are literally thousands. Each comes with their own creation myth, each has their own flavor of religion, all of those religions can be traced back to man-centric themes and are not reliant solely on supernatural things. There is no proof of the existence of "god" or of any god. there is no reason to believe that Odin is more real than Zeus or Jupiter or Allah or Aten or Quetzalcoatl or any of the other literally thousands of them.

Your religion is not a true thing, it is an accident of your location of birth. In this thread, this country, the predominant religion is Christianity. It, then, is no surprise that most here are Christian. If you conducted this poll on a forum dedicated to some soccer team in Riyadh, you'd likely get a lot of "yes, god" votes - but those votes would be for Allah, not the Christian god.

That I cannot explain how random bits of matter could coalesce into life does not mean gods are real. It means I (we) don't understand how that happened yet. That humans could not explain how birds flew 5,000 years ago did not mean that flight wasn't real, or possible - it just meant they didn't know how to do it yet.

Based on the progression of knowledge of the human species, it's more likely to me that we'll eventually figure out how life formed. It's a difficult puzzle, but if we have long enough, we'll get the answer. I find that more plausible than a story of "god."

I disagree. A person does not have to decide which god or which religion to come to the conclusion that a higher power caused this all to come about. And it is a logic leap to claim that because humans have come up with multiple versions of God that there must be more than one and for some reason now we have to choose which one. What if there really is only one true God and mankind's attempt to explain him has simply left us with all these multiple "gods" and religions you trot out in every thread like this? I think there is one true God with a multitude of human attempts at explaining him. Sure doesn't mean there is really more than one, and if there isn't more than one, then it is not necessary to choose which one and it doesn't matter where you were born or the predominate religion in the area. Too many people get hung up on the constraints generated by mere human beings. Yeah, humans probably don't have it right. So what? The existence of one God, one creator, one all powerful being, is not dependent on our ability to explain him.

Once a person can accept that there is one true God (however, whoever that may be) then it becomes very easy to realize we were created and not just some random accident. Then the only challenge is figuring out which religion, which explanation, which description of God a person is going to gravitate towards. Then, at that point, you are correct, it depends where your were born, how your were raised and what you were exposed to. But none of those human inspired details are the least bit important to come to the conclusion that there must be a higher power, an architect, a God.

Even if there is one true God, that doesn't mean that any of man's religions is correct. God's existence doesn't automatically point to a known religion as being true.

I think the fact that there are so many religions points to man having a need to create ways to explain things he does not understand. The concept of God is likely not completely understandable to humans thus, its likely no earthly religion is the truth.

I wouldn't disagree with that. In fact, surprisingly, I really agree with that. Although I would modify it slightly and say that, logically, some earthly religions must be closer to the truth than others.