In it's most simple, logical form I can think of, and have used this as a base "argument" before. Look in your house. Find the most simple, basic thing you can find. Maybe it's a hammer...a fork...a screw. Now, as simple as those things are, what do the all have in common? They all had a creator. Someone made them, they just didn't form over millions of years. Now, look around your house and find the most amazing, complex, intricate, complicated thing you can find. Look no farther than the next mirror, or maybe your son if he's in the room. Your looking at it. You/we are the most amazing thing on the planet. If the most simple thing like a fork has a creator, how can the most amazingly complicated, greatest thing to ever grace the earth have just come together by happenstance? Answer? It didn't. We have a creator as well. Made in his image. To me there's just no question about it.

 

I had not thought about it exactly that way before, BigV, but I like it. Here's one that I've heard someone else use...

 

Take an ordinary wristwatch. One that works, and tells time accurately. Now, take it apart, piece by piece. And put every bit of it into a bag. Every gear, every hand, every dial, every spring, every screw...everything that makes up that watch...gets put into the bag.

 

Now, you KNOW you have everything you need to make a watch...because you just took it apart. But, instead of having a plan to put it back together, you're going to leave it to randomness, and let the parts come together on their own...so you just shake the bag. Doesn't become a watch after a few shakes? Then shake it some more. And some more. And...you get the idea. But, it's never going to become a watch again, no matter how long you shake it, is it? No. Because there has to be a design in mind, for each and every little piece.

 

To expect that shear randomness has led us to all the living things at this point in time...to me, requires an inexplicably larger amount of faith than does creation.

I had not thought about it exactly that way before, BigV, but I like it. Here's one that I've heard someone else use...

 

Take an ordinary wristwatch. One that works, and tells time accurately. Now, take it apart, piece by piece. And put every bit of it into a bag. Every gear, every hand, every dial, every spring, every screw...everything that makes up that watch...gets put into the bag.

 

Now, you KNOW you have everything you need to make a watch...because you just took it apart. But, instead of having a plan to put it back together, you're going to leave it to randomness, and let the parts come together on their own...so you just shake the bag. Doesn't become a watch after a few shakes? Then shake it some more. And some more. And...you get the idea. But, it's never going to become a watch again, no matter how long you shake it, is it? No. Because there has to be a design in mind, for each and every little piece.

 

To expect that shear randomness has led us to all the living things at this point in time...to me, requires an inexplicably larger amount of faith than does creation.

 

Thanks Cincy. After reading yours, I think I like it even better than mine and might just steal it.

I had not thought about it exactly that way before, BigV, but I like it. Here's one that I've heard someone else use...

 

Take an ordinary wristwatch. One that works, and tells time accurately. Now, take it apart, piece by piece. And put every bit of it into a bag. Every gear, every hand, every dial, every spring, every screw...everything that makes up that watch...gets put into the bag.

 

Now, you KNOW you have everything you need to make a watch...because you just took it apart. But, instead of having a plan to put it back together, you're going to leave it to randomness, and let the parts come together on their own...so you just shake the bag. Doesn't become a watch after a few shakes? Then shake it some more. And some more. And...you get the idea. But, it's never going to become a watch again, no matter how long you shake it, is it? No. Because there has to be a design in mind, for each and every little piece.

 

To expect that shear randomness has led us to all the living things at this point in time...to me, requires an inexplicably larger amount of faith than does creation.

 

:thumb:

There is also variations. There is the Ken Ham "Answers in Genesis" version and the moderate views of those who believe in a Creator's design, but have an appropriate appreciation for the role of science in understanding Earth's history.

 

Would you please give us a short breakdown of each version?

One good line I heard once: If an all powerful, timeless, omnipresent God can redeem us through a virgin birth and do all the other miracles why is it hard to believe he created the earth the way the bible says?

 

This is strictly faith based and doesn't help me any.

In it's most simple, logical form I can think of, and have used this as a base "argument" before. Look in your house. Find the most simple, basic thing you can find. Maybe it's a hammer...a fork...a screw. Now, as simple as those things are, what do the all have in common? They all had a creator. Someone made them, they just didn't form over millions of years. Now, look around your house and find the most amazing, complex, intricate, complicated thing you can find. Look no farther than the next mirror, or maybe your son if he's in the room. Your looking at it. You/we are the most amazing thing on the planet. If the most simple thing like a fork has a creator, how can the most amazingly complicated, greatest thing to ever grace the earth have just come together by happenstance? Answer? It didn't. We have a creator as well. Made in his image. To me there's just no question about it.

 

This is another faith based argument.

 

And if you are right, who made our creator? And if his creator made him, who made his creator and so on?

To me, it parallels the Biblical account of the start of the world...including earth and mankind. We (and everything) are here thanks to a Creator who spoke the world into existence. It is the antithesis of the theory of evolution, which explores the possibility that animal life came originally from a single cell organism of unknown origin.

 

Another faith based argument.

Good point. I used to assume Intelligent Design was just a "newer" term for creationism but have found out that is not the case. Many believers of an intelligent designer (God for Christians obviously) feel that evolution does not disprove God or his role in creation, it simply lays out in a scientific manner how God created.

 

Many creationists feel this is flat rejecting the bible which they feel tells the earth is only 5-6,000 years old and man has been part of Earth for the vast majority of it. Some Flat Earth creationists go even further and say if you accept the bible literally, you believe the earth is flat, has a firmament (similar to a dome) over it and is still surrounded by water so space exploration I guess is a complete sham in their view? I don't know. I have only read a little on their views.

 

I realize you are adding to the discussion but this response is "all over the place."

 

I will ask you too, if there is an intelligent designer, who designed him or her?

For me it's primarily a teleological argument. An intelligent design demands an Intelligent Designer.

 

To say the universe is the result of random chance, in my opinion, is sort of like saying Mount Rushmore was the result of a violent windstorm.

 

So who designed the Intelligent Designer?

 

And generally speaking plate tectonics explains Mount Rushmore.

I do not believe that everything came from absolutely nothing, so I believe there must be a creator.

 

And that creator came from?

What is left if creationism is not true? Big Bang Theory? The Big Bang Theory requires just as much faith as anything. I personally believe that the

Big Bang is probably the closest thing we have come up with that remotely explains how the creator created the universe.

 

I agree the Big Bang Theory holds a lot of promise.

Or, as someone else put it, "I believe in the Big Bang theory: God said it, and BANG, it happened."

 

Where did that God come from to make it happen?

What I meant is that I believe that science is correct when it claims the universe is expanding, therefore something must have caused it to expand. God never attempts to explain to us how exactly he created the universe. If a great force is causing the universe to expand, it is logical to conclude that something had to exert that force.

 

There doesn't appear to be any question the Universe is expanding.

 

I am not a physics major but after the initial "Bang" the Universe should have started slowing down only its not. The leading explanation at this point is Dark Energy which is believed to make up about 75% of the Universe. Granted we know almost nothing about Dark Energy but we know something is causing the Universe to expand.

I hate this. This is a discussion designed to place science and faith in opposition to one another, a framing I absolute loathe.

 

There is ABSOLUTELY NO ARGUMENT one can make in favor of creationism that doesn't ultimately boil down to faith in scriptural revelations and religious tradition. You can apply elements of logic and those particular arguments can be perfectly sound, but it isn't science and in the end, you're electing to accept and believe in an account that we have essentially zero scientific evidence to support. AND THAT'S FINE.

 

By the same token, accepting the basic tenets of evolution and the billions-of-years old universe IS NOT FAITH. It is an acceptance of the overwhelming mountain of evidence for how the universe as we know it came to be. For those of a scientific bent, "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer to any question.

 

What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know.

 

But I do know that simply saying "Well that's where God comes in" is a two-fold poor answer. 1) It's a scientific cop-out and just plugs in God to the places where we don't have any real understanding, essentially erecting an artificial stopping point beyond which science is to have no place. 2) It does a great disservice to God by making Him seem small and putting him in some little box. The "God of the gaps" concept is as useless to religion as it is to science.

What makes so many people believe in Creationism....for me God does not force us to believe in him, though he could. Instead, he has provided sufficient proof of his existence for us to willingly respond to him. The earth's perfect distance from the sun, the unique chemical properties of water, the human brain, DNA, the number of people who attest to knowing God, sense of knowing right from wrong, holding a newborn baby for the first time doesn't just happen. I feel I had a innate sense at an early age that there was someone bigger than me who had a plan that someone is Jesus Christ who died on a cross, then arose so I might have eternal life. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God not simply a good read which starts with Genesis and tells how the earth and man was created.

 

Mostly a faith based response other than the Earth being just the right distance from the sun with just the right ingredients. However, scientifically speaking there are probably millions of "Earths" just in the Milky Way and many billions/trillions in the entire Universe. In other words, Earth really isn't all that unique when you look at the big picture.