Excellent point, lostclimate!

And you know what? I'm a Christian.

I've never posted here, but sometimes read threads for a laugh, lol. But sometimes I'm bothered by the amount of conflict between atheists and Christians today (not just here, everywhere). It's really sad. So, I hope to make a few points and at least get people thinking, even if you don't agree with me. The thesis of my monstrous post is that one CAN believe in BOTH God AND science. And, we ALL rely on "faith"; we just put in in different things/places.

It's a proven fact that ADAPTATIONS occur naturally in the animal kingdom. WE can even produce them artificially amongst a certain genus. Look at dogs... They came from wolves as a result of our artificial breeding. Chickens... They came from wild jungle fowl which we domesticated and selectively bred for their fighting abilities (surprisingly, not food, but cockfighting! One of the oldest known sports! Lol! :D).

Most people don't realize what the Bible, as we Christians know it, is meant to be. The Old Testament is a compilation of Jewish history and oral tradition. Every story is NOT to be taken literally (like any other work of literature, duh). Many stories are metaphors, parables, and analogies to demonstrate abstract points about life, God, the earth, etc. I've often wondered if the story of Adam and Eve is a parable that gives an abstract account of the Neolithic revolution, and man becoming intelligent and self conscious; developing the concepts of good and evil, and becoming forever separated from animals.

However, it is VERY true that the universe and earth was created in only six days. How? You've heard it took billions of years, right? Well, that is also true. Time is all about perspective. When the "Big Bang" occurred, according to contemporary science, matter exploded from the singularity in all directions. As the universe unfolded, space and time were warped by a factor of 1trillion. From earth, the universe appears to be anywhere from 12-16billion years old. To find the age of the universe at the very center, where either the "Big Bang" or "God" (whatever you believe) created everything from, we must divide the 15billion (for this point) by that factor of 1trillion. Doing so, we arrive at 0.015, which converted to earth days equals 6 days. And no, that's not "religious", it's "Einstein-ian" physics in action. Time and space simply aren't constants, as we think they are on earth. Time travel is actually possible from traveling at high speeds. We just lack the technology to go fast enough to make any significant leaps.

Back to life and "Evolution" before I try to cut this off....

Like I said, adaptation in plants and animals is undeniable. However, there are MANY problems with the "Theory of Evolution" as it is presented in textbooks and by scientists. The main problem is that a large portion of its assertions are totally unsubstantiated. First and foremost, the concept of "spontaneous generation". There's not a single shred of evidence that raw elements can just "create" life without outside influence. WE can not even produce it in a laboratory. The idea violates a very old law of science: Life can only be produced by other life. Louis Pasteur disproved the "Spontaneous Generation" theory in the 1800s. But somehow, it was resurrected for the theory of evolution. Life does not "generate" from elements today. Some scientists claim it is because the conditions on early earth were different, however attempts at doing it in a lab always fail (even though conditions can be fully controlled). It just doesn't work. Only amino acids can be formed in a lab, which sadly, are water-soluble. Therefore the "primordial soup" idea is also bunk. This idea also violates the second law of thermodynamics (look it up, too long to explain). The fact is, life can NOT be generated naturally NOR artificially. In fact, the simplest of bacteria is far more complex than a clock or an internal combustion engine. There are actually better odds of a clock or engine being produced "naturally" by the environment than life. And all of the "materials" needed to "generate" one exist naturally. Trippy!

The next problem with evolutionary theory deals with the concept of "mutation", and lifeforms transforming in radical ways (i.e., eventually going from a frog to a bird). Firstly, mutations always have one of three basic effects: 1) harm to the organism 2) kills the organism 4) no/negligible effect. Hemophilia and albinism are examples of mutations (obviously bad things). Humans are one of the only animals that can survive things like hemophilia because we have the medical technology to do so. Even albinism is deadly to wild animals because they are often blind, and always too poorly camo'd to survive. Therefore, they don't pass on their genes (which is actually good). You'd never want your child to have a mutation and "evolve", lol. Plain and simple, mutations are never good, and can not explain the diversity of life on earth. Secondly, there is NO genome flexible enough to "evolve" as extremely as the theory requires. A fish simply can not become a bird, no matter what. Humans have selectively bred animals for all of history, yet we can not go any further than making changes to a genus>species. Even with our hi-tech labs, cloning, and gene manipulation, we can not produce such radical changes even in billions of lifespans of bacteria (we have tried). We've also tried with fruit flies and other organisms that reproduce and die very quickly. It allows us to simulate millions, even billions of years of mammal "evolution" in a lab. We've produced interesting bacteria and flies, but never anything more than what we started with (flies and bacteria). I believe the "canis" (canine/dog/wolf) genome is the most flexible in animalia, yet we can not produce anything other than a new breed of canine. No cows, no monkeys, and no fish.

So here's the current scoreboard:

Universe had a beginning : PROVEN
Adaptation through selective reproduction : PROVEN
The modern "Theory of Evolution" : NOT PROVEN
Creationism as described by most Christians : NOT PROVEN

Evolution and Creationism BOTH rely on faith. We can not "prove" either one. It's that simple, yet many people are literally at each others' throats about "who is right".

In reality, there is NO conflict between science and religion. You can believe in BOTH. Science is to explain the "how", and religion can explain the "why". Science has no explanation for why we exist. Religion doesn't explain how we exist. Believing in both can give you a much better understanding of your existence (for some people). There is no need to fight over it or hate each other.

Personally, I don't see WHY anything should exist without a higher, sentient power. Why would life essentially "create" itself from raw elements so that it could feel pain and suffer? Then why would it "evolve" (if it could) to more advanced forms, more conscious and aware of its own suffering? Why should a universe/multiverse and any type of matter exist? And where in hell did that "singularity" responsible for the Big Bang come from? Of course, we can ask where did God come from as well. But I see an omnipotent and omnipresent God as being "infinite", having no beginning or end. Such a God is unexplainable and inconceivable with human language or even the human mind. Maybe one day we will understand, when we leave this world behind? Who knows? It blows your mind to think about the universe's origins whether you believe in God or not!

Sorry to go on and on for so long, but I hope I made an impact on all the "bad blood" between believers and non-believers. We ALL rely on faith, and have personal convictions and beliefs that we can not prove. And it is wrong to hate each other over those beliefs. At the end of the day, one thing is certain: we are all human beings who are stuck on this same planet together, and we might as well make the best of it!