1 Okay, I'm a practicing Catholic - been Christian my whole life, no need to be born again... I have always believed that creationism and evolution can and must coexist. The bible is a work of man/men inspired by God. The bible was written as a means for God to speak to the world. It had to be written in terms that the general public could understand - the world being created in many millenia would be too mind-boggling for the average man to fathom (they thought Earth was flat and the Sun and the rest of the heavens revolved around it, right?) To humans of these times everything was pretty miraculous and believing that "poof" we sprung from the ground was easier than believing that it took several million years to get the recipe for humans, etc. just right. The thing that gets most creationists hung up is the "God created man in his own image" thing. First of all what exactly does that mean and second of all what does God look like if that's IS what it means? Maybe God is more "apelike looking" or maybe it just took a few thousand or million years for humans to get "done" kind of like the baking process. When's the last time any of these creationist saw God face to face? Most of our ideas of what God and Jesus look like came from the times of the middle ages, the renaissance and the like, when artists started depicting religious writings through illustrations and paintings. I'm not a literalist when it comes to religion. I know that I don't know everything and that the priests don't know everything and the writers of the Bible didn't know everything. You have to have faith, but you also have to look at the hard facts before your eyes. Sure, there are miraculous things that happen all the time, but most things are confined to the laws of physics - which like all other things were created by our higher power, the greatest physicist of them all. Right? And that's all I have to say about that... Merry Christmas, Harvey!

2 Very well stated, Momo. And Merry Christmas to you, too :-)

3 First, thanks, Harvey, for the link to the Origin of Species, I'm reading through it right now. I'm a born again Christian and have been very interested in creation. The English translations of the Bible we have today don't perfectly reflect the Hebrew text. The word used in the Tora that we read as day in Genesis actually has a double meaning in Hebrew. It can mean age or day, and is used for both in Genesis. Also, the Bible states the earth is a sphere. I believe the passage is in Job. The ancient Greeks also were aware of this. It wasn't until the middle and dark ages that people lost that knowlege and started believing the Earth was flat. The Catholic church making that doctrine didn't help much in recovering the knowlege. Creation as described in Genesis fits hand in hand with how current science believes the Universe was created. As Momo stated, He is the greatest physicist; He created physics. However, the more and more I'm looking into evolution theory as it stands today, it has some HUGE gapping holes. Carbon dating and it's partners for dating older things is notoriously inaccurate. Chips of bone from the same fossil have been sent to several universities and the results usually have a window of error around 200 million years. The scientists tend to pick the number that best fits with when they believe the fossil existed. There's also a severe lack of transitory species. They should be the norm, and the final species abnormal, yet that is not the case. There are more examples, but this gives you an idea if you weren't aware. I'm not saying the world must have been created in 6 days because of these holes, only that evolution is by no means completely filled in with the answers. It is, however, the best explanation we have so far. Before people were aware of nuclear reactions, they believed, and had worked out pretty solidly, that the sun was actually molten iron generating static electricity through it's movements which would create heat and light. (Outline of Science, 1927 Chapter 9) Merry Christmas, Harvey and Momo and anyone else who suffered through this incredibly long comment!

4 Nobody's saying that Darwin had it mostly wrong; what many people refer to as 'evolution' and what Darwin observed on the earth and recorded in his books is quite possible - and observable - on earth. In fact, most creationists with at least half of a scientific background believe in intra-species adaptation, or what is called "Microevolution". On a small scale, it's what happens when bacteria mutate and become more dangerous to humans. On a larger scale, it's responsible for different types of birds, even different forms of the same bird. However, what I strongly disbelieve and what a scientist has yet to prove without drawing from wild assumptions and creative liberty, is that one species could evolve from another.

5 Junglejake - I'd be interested in more information about the inaccuracy of radioisotope dating. I'm aware that the processes used have their limitations but the 200-million-year variance sounds a bit extreme Anyway, here's a link to some radioisotope dating information: http://www.tim-thompson.com/radiometric.html A quick googling has a lot of Christian "young-earth" sites on top. Explanations by people who actually DO such dating tend to be further down, but the above link is a good start. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any completely "straight" information sites near the top. They seem to be specifically a part of one side or the other of the "young-earth" argument, so there's a feeling of agenda defense in some of these. By the way, Darwin DOES address the "lack of transitory species" problem in fairly extensive detail (see Chapters 6 & 9) Pietro - Well, species-to-species evolution is what Darwin's book is all about. You might give it a try. The thing about his work is that he's familiar with thousands and thousands of different kinds of plants and animals, not the mere dozens or hundreds that you or I know, so he might be able to fill in those gaps that you currently dismiss as wild assumptions. But it's your time, so I'll leave it up to you as to whether you should spend it reading that particular book

6 I'm a Christian (practicing) and a man of science (Tech University). But: If the human body is intelligent design then why do we have an air intake portal that is so easily flooded and lead to asphyxiation.(sp) And even worse, why (particularly in females) was a sewage outlet put so close to a recreation area?

7 Oh, and it's been ages, but I have read Darwin's work. I think the biggest thing 'most folks' have a problem with is that Darwin does not beleive in evolution being a constantly improving process. Evolution does NOT necessarily mean an improvement. If a being evolved consistently better, one could argue that evolution is truly guided. But if I remember correctly, Darwin explains that evolution is nothing more than random mutations, without a purpose. It is up to nature (the environment/habitat) to decide if the evolution is suitable enough (or not a hinderance) for survival. Darwin, our Copernicus, was a genious. Doesn't mean he was flawless, just way ahead of his time.

8 TB - First, since you're going that direction, the answer would be that he must work for the Department of Celestial Planning - just another bureaucrat, packing a lunch & bustin' his hump every day. And what about the nose? Did he REALLY think it was a good idea to put a nasty, wet, dripping thing like that upside down over your mouth? Speaking of ahead of his time, one of the most interesting things about his work for me is that he did it all without any knowledge of genes or DNA. All he knew of were mysterious, unexplained "tendencies" for offspring to be similar (although not exactly the same as) their parents, with no specific cause or consistency. Or as Richard Dawkins puts it: "the non-random survival of randomly varying hereditary elements"

9 he did it all without any knowledge of genes or DNA. EXACTLY - a visionary/trailblazer

10 First, Harvey you're doing a great job at making Frank J look bad on IMAO! Way to go! I just checked these comments about 10 minutes ago, and will get you the info, but I think I have it at home. It was, obviously, one of those things with an agenda (debunking evolution), but I checked the data online and it was valid. The specific incident had to do with an early human (pre-Sapien(SP)). The guy dug him up, suspected when he was alive, then sent a sample to Cambridge which came out with an outrageous number. This caused him to send 4 samples to 4 other colleges and another to Cambridge, and they all came out vastly different. He took the one that was closest to his predicted date and threw out the rest. I'll find the source and get you the name of the guy who was dug up (like Lucy, this fellah got a new name, too). For some fantastic information on this subject coming from educated people for and against evolution, go to www.talkorigins.org Very cool site! Keep up the funny, Harvey! (Also, if you're interested in an interesting, but very long, discussion on this, check out this link: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread47371/pg1 Yeah, it's a conspiracy website with a bunch of wackos, but I liked going there and talking God and politics with those heathen liberals =D