Two potential creation scenarios

[agnosticatheist]

Let's assume for the sake of this debate that the following premises are true:

A: The Christian God exists

B: The Christian God created the universe

Now, let's consider two possible creation scenarios.

Scenario 1: God created each species in a separate creation event.

Scenario 1 questions for debate:

1. Why would God create each species in separate creation events and yet make it appear that each species emerged from earlier lifeforms? Wouldn't that make God dishonest?

2. The Bible says that God is trustworthy; can he still be trusted if he made it look like large-scale evolution has taken place when in fact it hasn't?

3. Why would God make it look like large-scale evolution has taken place when in fact it hasn't, knowing full well that this will cause many to doubt God's existence?

Scenario 2: God created the conditions in which carbon-based lifeforms could emerge and evolve on Earth, and eventually lead to the emergence of Homo Sapiens, which God would give a soul to (and perhaps make some other minor changes to), which would result in the creation of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, or Modern Humans.

Scenario B Question for debate:

1. Why would God go to all that trouble when he could simply create each species in separate creation events?

Here's a broader set of questions that apply to both scenarios:

Why would God create lifeforms other than humans? Clearly humans are important because they "house" the human soul. But what about Wolves? Crocodiles? Crows? Gorillas?

What is the role of non-human lifeforms in God's "plan"?

Do they have souls too? Consciousness/awareness is a state that people claim is possible due to the soul.

Well, the more we observe and study the non-human natural world, the more it seems that consciousness/awareness exists on a spectrum, from human-level awareness (or perhaps higher...), down to complete non-consciousness/non-awareness (e.g. bacteria). There isn't some absolute line where life is divided between conscious and non-conscious, except for maybe at the "lower lifeform levels", but definitely not at the "higher lifeform levels". Dogs are conscious, they just aren't conscious to the same degree that humans are.

So, why create lifeforms besides humans and have consciousness exist on a spectrum?

Why would God do this knowing full well that it would cause people to question his existence?

It just seems to be such an interesting coincidence that God created lifeform consciousness on a spectrum.

[Danmark]

The Great Danes and Chihuahuas comparison is not apt. They belong to the same species, just as Nordic giants and pygmies do.

I'm not saying they aren't. I'm saying if they continued to change with the same trajectory as they already have, but over the course of millions of years, wouldn't they become different species at some point? And if not, what would be the immutable barrier stopping them?

Nevertheless, the scientific literature does contain reports of apparent speciation events in plants, insects and worms. In most of these experiments, researchers subjected organisms to various types of selection--for anatomical differences, mating behaviors, habitat preferences and other traits--and found that they had created populations of organisms that did not breed with outsiders. For example, William R. Rice of the University of New Mexico and George W. Salt of the University of California at Davis demonstrated that if they sorted a group of fruit flies by their preference for certain environments and bred those flies separately over 35 generations, the resulting flies would refuse to breed with those from a very different environment.'
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... eationist/

Of course, what a creationist would say is, "well, they may not breed with each other, but they're still just flies." And really, you could say the same about Great Danes and Chihuahuas; could they ever breed with each other? I doubt it, but they're still just dogs. The point I'm making is that if you take that rate of change that's been shown to happen (which nobody's disputing as far as I know) within dogs or flies, and extrapolate that change to continue over millions or billions of years (like we believe evolution already has), would you expect that the result of that continued change would still just be dogs/flies, or an entirely new species?

Correct, there is no immutable barrier. For true speciation, two dog populations would likely have to be separated for thousands of years, plus there would likely have to be environmental changes that might favor sufficient variations surviving. It is the very complexity + great amounts of time + the fact there are several bases for change that make examples difficult to speculate upon.

[jerrygg38]

Let's assume for the sake of this debate that the following premises are true:

A: The Christian God exists

B: The Christian God created the universe

Now, let's consider two possible creation scenarios.

Scenario 1: God created each species in a separate creation event.



Scenario 2: God created the conditions in which carbon-based lifeforms could emerge and evolve on Earth, and eventually lead to the emergence of Homo Sapiens, which God would give a soul to (and perhaps make some other minor changes to), which would result in the creation of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, or Modern Humans.

Scenario B Question for debate:

1. Why would God go to all that trouble when he could simply create each species in separate creation events?

Here's a broader set of questions that apply to both scenarios:

Why would God create lifeforms other than humans? Clearly humans are important because they "house" the human soul. But what about Wolves? Crocodiles? Crows? Gorillas?

What is the role of non-human lifeforms in God's "plan"?

Do they have souls too? Consciousness/awareness is a state that people claim is possible due to the soul.

Well, the more we observe and study the non-human natural world, the more it seems that consciousness/awareness exists on a spectrum, from human-level awareness (or perhaps higher...), down to complete non-consciousness/non-awareness (e.g. bacteria). There isn't some absolute line where life is divided between conscious and non-conscious, except for maybe at the "lower lifeform levels", but definitely not at the "higher lifeform levels". Dogs are conscious, they just aren't conscious to the same degree that humans are.

So, why create lifeforms besides humans and have consciousness exist on a spectrum?

Why would God do this knowing full well that it would cause people to question his existence?

It just seems to be such an interesting coincidence that God created lifeform consciousness on a spectrum.

Firstly the Christian God is a subset of the God of the Universe. God is the God of all religions upon billions of billions of Earths.
As far as the soul of man being different than the soul of a fish, the spiritual energy is the same. Even a rock has a soul. what is a soul? A soul is an interaction between physical matter and spiritual matter. this entire Earth has a collective soul which I call the God of this Earth. This is higher light speed levels of God's energy which reached up to light speed infinity.
We come from a bacterial soul at the center of this Earth. this evolved toward the surface. the Darwinian evolutionary process driven by the spiritual dimension produced man. Cats and dots have collective souls. All lifeforms are important to God. When you go to the highest levels of humanity, you will find humans and animals. Within the spiritual realm you will find animals as well.

[FarWanderer]

[Replying to post 243 by FarWanderer]

But nonetheless, what he is referring to as "m2m" is what is commonly known as "the theory of evolution," and "m2m-ers" are commonly known as "evolutionists." It doesn't really matter whether other people believe in certain types of little things that could be called evolution, when you say "evolution" in the context of a debate like this, everybody knows what you mean.

So what should he call his "little things that could be called evolution" if not "evolution"?

If he went around saying that he doesn't believe in evolution, people would interpret that to mean he doesn't believe in speciation, wouldn't they? So... there's your answer as to why he doesn't just call it "evolution".

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 243 by FarWanderer]

But nonetheless, what he is referring to as "m2m" is what is commonly known as "the theory of evolution," and "m2m-ers" are commonly known as "evolutionists." It doesn't really matter whether other people believe in certain types of little things that could be called evolution, when you say "evolution" in the context of a debate like this, everybody knows what you mean.

So what should he call his "little things that could be called evolution" if not "evolution"?

If he went around saying that he doesn't believe in evolution, people would interpret that to mean he doesn't believe in speciation, wouldn't they? So... there's your answer as to why he doesn't just call it "evolution".

Thank you, Far Wanderer.

I hope this puts to rest this tempest in a teapot.

I cannot understand why "microbes morphed into men", or "microbes to men", or m2m, would be considered a pejorative by anyone. It was certainly not meant as one (unlike some of the examples cited by batman -- e.g., "zombie Jesus").

We live in an increasingly non-literate age of abbreviations, acronyms, icons, texts, tweets, etc. To demand a full clarification between the speculative idea of uphill increases in information to account for the initial formation of microbes, and the eventual emergence of men; versus the documented, scientifically verified process of the selecting out of information involved in the adaptive phenomenon in speciation, and disease resistance, is unrealistic. And the call for such a clarification is distracting; and in some cases at least, I think it is a deliberate diversion.

What we have is two diametrically opposed views: the m2m evolutionary view; and the ID view, of which YEC is a refined subset (that I believe is unqualifiedly true).

Is anyone offended by the term "Big Bang"?

[rookiebatman]

So what should he call his "little things that could be called evolution" if not "evolution"?

"Microevolution," just like everybody else does.

If he went around saying that he doesn't believe in evolution, people would interpret that to mean he doesn't believe in speciation, wouldn't they?

No! Nobody thinks that.

[FarWanderer]

[Replying to post 243 by FarWanderer]

But nonetheless, what he is referring to as "m2m" is what is commonly known as "the theory of evolution," and "m2m-ers" are commonly known as "evolutionists." It doesn't really matter whether other people believe in certain types of little things that could be called evolution, when you say "evolution" in the context of a debate like this, everybody knows what you mean.

So what should he call his "little things that could be called evolution" if not "evolution"?

If he went around saying that he doesn't believe in evolution, people would interpret that to mean he doesn't believe in speciation, wouldn't they? So... there's your answer as to why he doesn't just call it "evolution".

Thank you, Far Wanderer.

I hope this puts to rest this tempest in a teapot.

I cannot understand why "microbes morphed into men", or "microbes to men", or m2m, would be considered a pejorative by anyone. It was certainly not meant as one (unlike some of the examples cited by batman -- e.g., "zombie Jesus").

Personally, I think "microbes to men evolution" (or "m2m" once context is established) is perfectly fine.

"Microbes morphed into men" is not.

Is anyone offended by the term "Big Bang"?

I'm annoyed that it's become the standard term, but there's little I can do about it now.

If it weren't so, I would be on your case if you called it that.

[FarWanderer]

So what should he call his "little things that could be called evolution" if not "evolution"?

"Microevolution," just like everybody else does.

I interpret microevolution to mean that evolution only occurs within a species, and that speciation does not occur.

If he went around saying that he doesn't believe in evolution, people would interpret that to mean he doesn't believe in speciation, wouldn't they?

No! Nobody thinks that.

I would.

[Danmark]

Firstly the Christian God is a subset of the God of the Universe. God is the God of all religions upon billions of billions of Earths.
As far as the soul of man being different than the soul of a fish, the spiritual energy is the same. Even a rock has a soul. what is a soul? A soul is an interaction between physical matter and spiritual matter. this entire Earth has a collective soul which I call the God of this Earth. This is higher light speed levels of God's energy which reached up to light speed infinity.
We come from a bacterial soul at the center of this Earth. this evolved toward the surface. the Darwinian evolutionary process driven by the spiritual dimension produced man. Cats and dots have collective souls. All lifeforms are important to God. When you go to the highest levels of humanity, you will find humans and animals. Within the spiritual realm you will find animals as well.

And your evidence for this comes from where?
By that I mean, what distinguishes this scenario of yours from a sci-fi plot hatched strictly in the imagination?

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 243 by FarWanderer]

But nonetheless, what he is referring to as "m2m" is what is commonly known as "the theory of evolution," and "m2m-ers" are commonly known as "evolutionists." It doesn't really matter whether other people believe in certain types of little things that could be called evolution, when you say "evolution" in the context of a debate like this, everybody knows what you mean.

So what should he call his "little things that could be called evolution" if not "evolution"?

If he went around saying that he doesn't believe in evolution, people would interpret that to mean he doesn't believe in speciation, wouldn't they? So... there's your answer as to why he doesn't just call it "evolution".

How about "goofy ideas I pulled out of my asymmetrical cerebral cortex?" I guess everyone is entitled to his own theory on speciation whether he has evidence to support it or not. The question is not what to call it, but why should anyone pay attention?

[jerrygg38]

Firstly the Christian God is a subset of the God of the Universe. God is the God of all religions upon billions of billions of Earths.
As far as the soul of man being different than the soul of a fish, the spiritual energy is the same. Even a rock has a soul. what is a soul? A soul is an interaction between physical matter and spiritual matter. this entire Earth has a collective soul which I call the God of this Earth. This is higher light speed levels of God's energy which reached up to light speed infinity.
We come from a bacterial soul at the center of this Earth. this evolved toward the surface. the Darwinian evolutionary process driven by the spiritual dimension produced man. Cats and dots have collective souls. All lifeforms are important to God. When you go to the highest levels of humanity, you will find humans and animals. Within the spiritual realm you will find animals as well.

And your evidence for this comes from where?
By that I mean, what distinguishes this scenario of yours from a sci-fi plot hatched strictly in the imagination?

Firstly it is my belief that all religions provide a little understanding of God. When you combine all the concepts together you get an understanding that all forms of life have the same spiritual dimension as man. We are not unique. If we add Darwinian evolutionary theory, then we se that we came from the animals. As we go further down it is clear that we came from a form of bacteria. since types of bacteria have been found in the very hot underwater volcanic exhaust, it is clear to me that the process started near the center of the Earth.
It is unlikely that bacteria has individual souls, therefore a common soul for them is appropriate. The same is true of many animal species. The same is true for early tribal man as they evolved from the chimp/apes.
When we move upward from this physical Earth toward higher Earths and the spiritual world, it is clear to me that all life forms existed in the mind of God prior to this particular universe. Therefore it is clear that as we move upward toward God these lifeforms will appear as well.
As far as coexisting universes is concerned that is clear to many modern physicists. In fact the only way we can get a perpetual universe is by means of the elimination of one universe and the creation of another.
As far as there being billions of Earths in the entire universe that is pretty clear to me and many other people. It is also confirmed to me by my spiritual encounters who have specified that this Earth is only one of billions and that the Holocaust has occurred billions of times in the past. Thus the events upon this Earth basically repeat forever. Which unfortunately means that we repeat forever as well. We can move upward or downward but we are trapped in space and time. I am not happy about that but I have to accept it.