Spirituality and Consciousness

Star dust started it all..

Evolution is natural and continuos..

IMHO ..there is no such thing as "creationism or creative design", that is religion and not known science !

BadFrog

Creationism is the religious belief that the universe and everything in it was created by a deity. Those who practice lucid dreaming (becoming aware of the 2nd of the 3 major states of consciousness while in REM sleep) experience universes that do not exist in this state of consciousness (waking/gross) but only in their minds. This is not to say that a diety did not create the mind that has the experience, but in that experience itself, you are the creator.

Also, I would like to respond to your great post, but before I do could you please explain which 'evolution' you speaking of here: the evolution of the self (subjective/intentional), evolution in the objective world (exterior/behavioral), the evolution of cultures, or evolution in society?

Evolution, it's about as close to proven as any theory gets.

Now, if you want to talk about abiogenesis, that's a different story.

I think the best I can offer is something I snagged from someone else. I just love this:

Intelligent Designer On Crack

By: Joseph R. (Gather.com)

March 03, 2007

"What are you doing here Uncle Rico?"

"Grandma took a little spill down at the sand dunes. Broke her coccyx."

"What? Since when does she go to the dunes?"

"Looks like there's a lot you don't know about."

Despite being belittled by Uncle Rico, young Napoleon Dynamite seems aware of what a coccyx is. However, he might not know its significance in evolutionary theory. The coccyx, or tailbone, is an example of a vestigial structure.

A vestigial structure is a body part that has lost its original function and now either performs a different function or no function at all. You can think of them as evolutionary "leftovers" as a species evolves to adapt to its local environment.

People wondered why, in a world designed so perfectly and intelligently, would the designer construct humans with a tailbone. It didn't make sense. The design didn't seem very intelligent. Along came Darwin (and Wallace) to put this into perspective.

Our tailbones are what remain of the tails our ancestors had. To this day somewhere on Earth humans are occasionally born with a tail. It was the unlucky mother living in the Middle Ages if her child was born with a tail. Both surely would have been burned as witches.

Sometimes humans are called "the naked ape." But that's not really true. Humans are covered with a fine (or not so fine in some cases) coat of fur. What? You say it's hair and not fur? Whatever helps you sleep at night. Actually, our body hair and the hair on our heads is different. The hair on our head doesn't stop growing. Our fur does stop growing at a certain length. What's that? Your fur keeps you warm? When was the last time you relied on body hair to keep you warm? Early humans didn't either. They "borrowed" fur from other animals.

How about goose bumps? Why would an intelligent designer give us goose bumps? What purpose do they serve? None, in us. However, in our ancestors and other living species (like your pet dog) they serve a critical function.

Technically they are called erector pilli and they are weird little muscles that cause your dog's "hackles" to go up. Lots of mammals use these to communicate the largeness of themselves to a rival or predator. They are also used in conjunction with fur to increase their insulation properties. That's why yours activate when you get a rush of adrenaline or get chilly. But still they are just weird, useless "leftovers", ghosts of our evolutionary past.

Did you ever wonder why men have nipples? They serve no purpose in males. Why would a designer give me nipples? Look at the picture! I'm not attracting a mate with my nipples. The answer, of course, is that a designer wouldn't, and didn't.

Why do I have them then? Very early in our development when we were in our mother's womb we were neither male nor female. As we developed genes and hormones did their work on us. Evolutionarily speaking, it's much easier to work with what you have than it is to redesign a new gender. Evolution didn't make males from scratch but rather worked with the same basic human structure and made essential male parts.

Have you ever had your wisdom teeth removed? If you had then you might have concluded that our designer had no wisdom at all. Of course there was no designer, because why would a designer give us more teeth than a mouth could hold?

Wisdom teeth are an additional set of molars that are still embedded in our gums. Sometimes in early adulthood they try to join the other teeth. The problem is, there's no room. Evolution can explain this bad design. Early hominids had larger jaws and ate lots of tough plants. As modern humans evolved our faces got less prognathic, our jaws got smaller and our diet switched to omnivore status.

So maybe all this talk about the useless parts of humans is freaking you out. Let's look at a different organism. The common dandelion has some great examples of vestigial structures, namely its pistil and its stamen. Think back to high school. The pistil and the stamen are the "female" and "male" reproductive parts of flowering plants. The thing is, dandelions evolved internal fertilization. They don't need the bee to pass pollen from the stamen to the pistil. Yet dandelions still produce external pollen and still have pistils and stamens. Again, “ghosts” of their evolutionary ancestors.

I could go on and on (we haven’t even mentioned wings on flightless birds and pelvises on whales) but I think the point has been made. I bring up the topic because in a recent poll of believers the question “why do you believe in God” was asked. The number one response was “the good design/natural beauty/perfection/complexity of the world or universe.” with 28.6%.

You may not believe me, but I truly don’t care if you believe in God or not. I’m not trying to disprove God or talk anyone out of their belief in God. But science is not based on belief, it’s based on evidence from natural phenomena. The existence of God is not testable. However, some of the assertions made by advocates of intelligent design are wrong scientifically. The scientific claims for intelligent design have been debunked by a consensus of the world’s skilled, dedicated scientists, a large class of people that are smarter than I am. What you are left with is the supernatural, which does not belong in the science classroom.

Earth’s living inhabitants are not perfect and not generally well designed. Living things are susceptible to disease, breaking and dying for lack of energy. Over 99% of all species that have ever inhabited Earth have gone extinct. I thank my ancient ancestors every day for providing me with just enough genes so I can eke out a living, find a mate and avoid getting eaten by wolves.

Humility leads me to the belief of creationism. I don't think the belief in the creator of the universe is necessarily anti-science. One can say that a creator created the universe, and he might have done it in the evolutionary way. There had been , there are,and will be many brilliant minds on both sides of this subject, and in my frail and limited mind, I think I will take comfort in Pascal's Wager.( If God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.

If God does not exist, you gain nothing and lose nothing)

GatorGal,

'Belief isn't something that can be evaluated using the scientific method. Nor should it be. It is just that: belief.'

As I have mentioned in some other posts that Knowledge + experience= belief. My belief in the existence of a Creator of the universe was not arrived without some scientific learning and reasons. It would require a lot more faith for me to believe that the universe happens by chance . One quick read of any physics text book will tell you that the universe is fine-tuned for humanity.Logics and order don't happen by chance, nor a belief in God is blind faith.

I hope Mick realize that this is not a subject which can be settled here in this forum.

Flying,

The good old Anthropic Principle, AP because I'm a lazy typist.

What the physics books and biology texts really tell us is that life is tuned to the universe. Apparently not too finely though. Otherwise, life would be everywhere.

Here's a good analysis of the AP claim <==Click

I believe the book of Genesis 1:1-25 nuff said.

LanSr,

Since He created only one woman, we have to conclude the modern prohibition against incest is wrong.

Evolution is an observable fact. We merely have a theory to explain how it happens.

Creationism is a religious belief, honestly no more valid a science than the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

http://www.venganza.org/

As has been stated by others, to the best of our understanding, the universe began with a bang, and we're all made of the dust of dead stars... which to me, is pretty amazingly cool.

A lot of sound scientific theory posted here on this discussion. One person questioned why no one was defending or promoting creationism.

Most of us have learned not to argue religion--that is why I haven't put my two cents in!