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Naturalist Vs Creationist

Inverness

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Creationism says that each species was created by God. But ever since, "The Origin of Species", by Charles Darwin, we have known that this is incorrect.

And further, we get proof that creationism is incorrect every day as we sequence the genome.

Not exactly, it simply goes head-to-head to challenge the most literal interpretations of Abrahamic texts. Darwin's work says nothing for or against creationism...as creationism is not a theory which can be empirically tested as true or false. There are several less-than-literal interpretations of religious texts that allow for evolution and creation to fit together just fine for some.

Personally, I hold a perspective in the grey area between the absolutist dichotomy of either a purely creationist or naturalist paradigm. Darwin's work is empirically true, but to further to suggest that it disproves something beyond what it actually states is a travesty. Creation theories cannot be tested by any knowledge we currently possess...and as the old qualifier goes...absence of a proof is not proof of absence.

I hold neither theory as 100% correct, merely, something in between.
 

Thalassa

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I favor naturalism, but I don't think the theory of evolution necessarily rules out creationism, like someone already said. If there is some driving creative force in the universe, or some kind of energy of intelligence, I don't think it's an old man with a beard, or like literal folk tales in religious texts (because that's what those are, they are METAPHORICAL FOLK TALES WHICH TRANSMIT LANGUAGE, HISTORY, MORALITY, AND CULTURE NOT "GOD'S WORD" ANYMORE THAN JACK AND THE BEANSTALK OR CINDERELLA IS "GOD'S WORD")...

But yeah I'm agnostic because though I believe evolution I don't rule out the possibility of there being something we still don't understand. Creationism could potentially be the root cause, and evolution the details of how it played out. :shrug:

I tend to want to push people who entirely reject evolution down smoking volcanoes, though, I'm not going to lie. It irks me, and generally I don't even challenge it. I just tensely smile and walk away. :pandarage:
 

Saslou

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I tend to think within a Kabbalistic framework.. which I bet somebody named Baruch Spinoza is influenced by. Basically it describes the universe as being a part of and an expression of God, but only partially. God is represented as having a shown face (the Universe as we can experience it) and as a hidden face.. that which we can never know.. the part of God that is outside anything we can measure/experience.

I like the idea of the hidden and shown face.
 

Lark

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Interesting ideas. Please keep them coming.

Baruch Spinoza goes with the idea (i think) that instead of having nature or god, he plays with idea of god being a part of nature as opposed to being outside of it.

I don't believe god is the creator of heaven and earth, but i think something played a part in bringing us/this into being. I'm just not ready to give it a label as of yet.

I think that Spinoza was a pantheist, although to be honest I think that pantheism is sort of tantamount to atheism, it stretches and reduces the concept of God in ways that change it totally from what it is to something it cant really be. There are authors who have speculated that Spinoza may have been more of a confirmed atheist if he had felt at liberty to be so.

I could understand anyone being an atheist if they felt that God was not the originator of the universe but simply part of it, it would be a little like deifying gravity or some other natural or cosmic law or process.
 

Lark

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I tend to think within a Kabbalistic framework.. which I bet somebody named Baruch Spinoza is influenced by. Basically it describes the universe as being a part of and an expression of God, but only partially. God is represented as having a shown face (the Universe as we can experience it) and as a hidden face.. that which we can never know.. the part of God that is outside anything we can measure/experience.

That's Kabbalism? Its similar to PKD's VALIS trilogy.
 

Qlip

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That's Kabbalism? Its similar to PKD's VALIS trilogy.

I only read VALIS itself, which made many references to early Xtianity and obviously Gnoticism. Where did this concept end up showing itself in the trilogy?
 

Lark

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I only read VALIS itself, which made many references to early Xtianity and obviously Gnoticism. Where did this concept end up showing itself in the trilogy?

It comes up big style in The Divine Invasion, the God head has split, the vengeful God, Yahwee, of the old testament has been exiled into space, he returns through an evil barrier to earth becoming incarnate as a human in the process, he is reunited with a compassionate, feminine, version of himself which has remained on earth and manifested as a number of deities over time, and also meets/makes real the "besides helper/Advocate" which could be an incarnation of Jesus depending on your reading of it (although the human incarnation of God/Yahwee, is called Emmanuel).

The description of the spliting of the Godhead and fall resemble the aspects you have described, the knowable and cosmic actual and the unknowable/unfathomable are mentioned as facets throughout. Its interesting since the protagonist is God, brain damaged and trying to learn and know himself, if he forgets or doesnt properly come to know himself the universe may blink out of existence or an evil spirit Belial, will triumph and savage mankind.

I'm not sure if the VALIS is God or just is something which serves God, it features in a novel before and after Divine Invasion.
 

Qlip

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It comes up big style in The Divine Invasion, the God head has split, the vengeful God, Yahwee, of the old testament has been exiled into space, he returns through an evil barrier to earth becoming incarnate as a human in the process, he is reunited with a compassionate, feminine, version of himself which has remained on earth and manifested as a number of deities over time, and also meets/makes real the "besides helper/Advocate" which could be an incarnation of Jesus depending on your reading of it (although the human incarnation of God/Yahwee, is called Emmanuel).

The description of the spliting of the Godhead and fall resemble the aspects you have described, the knowable and cosmic actual and the unknowable/unfathomable are mentioned as facets throughout. Its interesting since the protagonist is God, brain damaged and trying to learn and know himself, if he forgets or doesnt properly come to know himself the universe may blink out of existence or an evil spirit Belial, will triumph and savage mankind.

I'm not sure if the VALIS is God or just is something which serves God, it features in a novel before and after Divine Invasion.

Ahh okay. Although there *may* be a relation to Kaballah, that's actually pretty much straight up Gnosticism. Yaweh being the demi-urge and ursurper, and the other one is Sophia the true creator. You should read up on it, it's very interesting.

FYI: Gnosticism is also recounted very closely in The Matrix and in His Dark Materials series.
 

Mole

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Creation and Creationism

There's a distinction between creation and creationism.

Creation says God created everything, while creationism says God created the individual species.

And although we now know that God did not create the individual species, we do not know whether God created everything.

So logically it follows we can believe in natural selection and creation, but not natural selection and creationism.
 

Sanctus Iacobus

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I believe in Creationism (God created the universe). My reasoning is this: if God did not create the universe, then the universe came to be out of nothing, all of existence is finite, and at some point will eventually come to an end. If God did not create the universe, then the knowable universe is all there is, no more.

This could not be true, however, because the nature of existence has a number of infinite qualities which demand that the knowable universe is suspended in a state of infinity and was in-fact created by an infinite God. There is, for instance, the fact that it infinitely the present moment, it is never the past or the future. We know by experience that people who think of the past or the future in concrete terms are a bit foolish, because the past cannot be changed and the future not predicted, and these people usually end up face to face with their assumptions otherwise. I wouldn't feel too bad, though, even Einstein thought space and time were unified.

If it weren't infitely the present, then time would be unified to space (as we now know is incorrect in terms of quantum theory), and time would have begun at the same time space did, as well as end when space will end. However, we know this is not the case by the simplest means of our human consciousness and how we experience existing. It's perpetual. It is not broken up in finite chunks. Even though you are a year older on your birthday, you'll feel as you did one moment ago. We do break things down in a finite fashion, but if you were to break down the passage of time into smaller and smaller and smaller events, you'd never reach a point where the human consciousness differentiated in a segmented fashion. Considering that, why do we measure time? Because this correlates to the changes and developments in the physical world, like the aging process, seasons, etc.

The thing is, if you were to expand these changes and developments larger and larger, as you did time segmentation smaller and smaller, you'd likewise never reach an endpoint that was finitely segmented. This is because there isn't one. The finite, known universe is suspended and sustained in an eternal realm, by an eternal God (the "heavenly realm"). We, as beings, are created in the image of God and are designed for an eternal existence, which is why we experience time this way despite the fact that we segment time by finite alternations in the finite realm.

How do we measure time? It's intangible. Yet, we believe it's measurable so we use the observable changes and determine that time passes, and so it came to pass, and will eventually all pass away. This is not true, because it will always be right now. The only thing that will change is that the finite will pass and the infinite will come, the perishable will perish and the imperishable will come and remain forever.
 

wildcat

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Creationism says that each species was created by God. But ever since, "The Origin of Species", by Charles Darwin, we have known that this is incorrect.

And further, we get proof that creationism is incorrect every day as we sequence the genome.

When did God put the soul into the monkey?
The day when the Heidelberg Man developed the brain?
There was not such day.
The brain grew little by little.
So when was it?

God put the soul into the monkey when monkey became a man?
There was no such occasion.

Creationism is synchronism.

An analogy.

When you take the coastal road from Italy into France, in which place does French change into Italian?
On the border of Italy and France?
They speak the same language on both sides of the border.
Neither Italian or French.
A language that God created?
So God created all the dialects as well.
Ready-made.

But we know when God put the soul into the woman. It happened in Nicea. I have forgotten the date.
 

Sanctus Iacobus

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Do you believe God created the species?

Did God create the actual animals, or the concept of separating them out? Is that what you're asking... I believe God created the actual animals, and that man named the animals one from another.
 

Mole

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The Living Family of God

Did God create the actual animals, or the concept of separating them out? Is that what you're asking... I believe God created the actual animals, and that man named the animals one from another.

If you believe God created each individual species of animal, such as elephants, then you will have a hard time understanding biology which is based on natural selection.

And worse, if you can't understand biology, you won't be able to understand modern medicine.

So there are two things you need to do - read, "The Origin of Species", and just follow the news as we sequence the genes of all the animals and plants.

And then you will be pleased to discover that all living things are part of the one family - the family of God.
 

wildcat

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If you believe God created each individual species of animal, such as elephants, then you will have a hard time understanding biology which is based on natural selection.

And worse, if you can't understand biology, you won't be able to understand modern medicine.

So there are two things you need to do - read, "The Origin of Species", and just follow the news as we sequence the genes of all the animals and plants.

And then you will be pleased to discover that all living things are part of the one family - the family of God.

Is the elephant man-made or god-made?
Half and half.

Is the domestic cat man-made or god-made?
What about the dog? Is it a wild animal? Created by God, as it is?

Let us have a look at the plants.
Charlie liked them so much. And George even more.
Tomatoes?
Where do the wild tomatoes grow?
Wheat fields? God planted them?
Apples? Where do the wild apples grow?

I see two options only.
Either God created man.
Or then man created pigs and policemen.
And God, of course.
 

CzeCze

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All I know -

Creationism has no business in public schools. As other than a side note in history class.
 

InvisibleJim

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All I know -

Creationism has no business in public schools. As other than a side note in history class.

This post is off the loosely applied definition of off topic and should be moved to 'creationism in schools' thread. As a mod you should not be applying the rules selectively.
 

Kraska

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I belive that both of the ideologies go hand in hand.

Creationism says that God created life on Earth while Evolutionism says the man evolved from the monkey (correct me if I'm wrong).
I think thing happened at the same time. While Adam and Eve were happy in Heaven, here on Earth that specie of monkey evolved. When God expulsed Adam and Eve the first homo sapiens appeared on Earth. So we can say that Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens.
 

Magic Poriferan

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Basically, if you believe in creationism, you believe in something so invalidated by scientific evidence that it would be just as plausible to believe in anything else.

God created all animals as they are today, you say? Then I say the earth is a tortoise held up by elephants.
 

King sns

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I vascillate. I'm not a pure biblical creationist at all, more of an intelligent design kind of girl. I believe that either we were created by random chance, or that God did not create something from nothing, but something from himself. (Or, God was a combination of energies merging together.) Like, God was an original energy that created big bang, therefore, God would be the world and universe itself, not a specific entity, but an energy that is growing. That is the best way that I can make sense of a God in my mind. Pure creationism is just ignorant to me, I just don't understand how there is any possible room left for it in modern society. Of course, in future society, there may not be any room for the popular beliefs now. I also believe that it is a coping need for human minds to make sense of things and have solid beliefs. People need "God." I need "God." Things without a God make things unusual and detached and nonsensical in the human brain. So, if I want God here, I try to think of that original energy, and think about how everything connects, and how bizarre it would be if we were a result of a bunch of strange coincidences.
 
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