Case Study

Creation? or Evolution?
Jun 17, '07 10:21 PMby Mer Cedo for group circularrefuge
Missing link is a hypothesis there might have existed the pre humans that connect apes to modern humans. The reason of this claim is as follows. Although we can find many species closer to each other in the case of other animals, we can't find a closer species to modern humans. So assumption here is we must have had pre humans that were much closer to modern humans but we haven't found them -that is called ' missing link'. And the archaeological evidence that proves the existence of pre humans are not found yet. Missing link is used somehow to explain human's unique existence from other species. Missing link is supportive to creationist' s insistence.
Even if some result proves man's existence merely dated back to 6000 years ago, that doesn't tell anything whether humans existed before 6000 years ago.
Evolution was led from many scientific experiments and partly from archaeological evidence, but not entirely from artifacts. Lack of evidence in artifacts has nothing to do with the support of any theories.
So whatever the reason some believe a man was created by God around 6000 years ago.
But I believe 4.57 billion years ago the Earth was born and 3.7 billion years ago life on Earth started. 200,000 years ago current humans were born. 6000 years ago human civilisation started.
As to the reply to your question, yes, I think so. Our species were originated from a common human ancestor that appeared in some part of Africa 200,000 years ago. The number of our ancestors was considerably fewer than now.
And most important thing is as follows.
Creation? or Evolution? That's an obsolete dichotomy. It is unknown whether life was born by itself or created by God. But life evolves. If you are a creationist, you can say ' humans are a form of life that were brought by God on the Earth some 3.7 billion years ago.' If you are an evolutionist, you can say ' humans are a form of life that were born on the Earth some 3.7 billion years ago. ' Life evolves, but nobody knows the origin of life was spontaneously appeared or brought by some intelligent Being with intention.
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Comments:Chronological Reverse Threaded


mikemol wrote on Jun 18Hear, hear. This is a point often lost in the polarization of the issue.I think the origin of the 6,000-year-old Earth concept was specifically to counter the concept of evolution.Another way of looking at it, though, is that the Earth could have been created 6000 years ago, with all the evidence of evolution already in place, and a universe consisting of physical laws that support the evolution hypothesis. In such a case, it doesn't really matter when the Earth was created, just that we can perform science under the assumption that it's much older than 6,000 years.The whole debate is wonky.


infinitemonkey wrote on Jun 18
mikemol said think the origin of the 6,000-year-old Earth concept was specifically to counter the concept of evolution. The 6,000 year idea is much older than modern evolutionary theory. The specific version used by Young Earth Creationists originated with a 17th-century attempt to try and make a guess at an exact date for the creation of the Earth based on a literal interpretation of the Bible by John Ussher, an Anglican archbishop in northern Ireland in 1642. However, other similar such attempts were made as long ago as the early Middle Ages, such as by the Venerable Bede (a favorite author of mine, actually, a monk considered to be the father of English history) in the early 8th century AD.Of course, it's pretty stupid to cling to the notion, because even at the time most educated people (particularly scientists and philosophers and even many theologians) didn't think a literal attempt to deduce a specific timeframe from the Bible was worthwhile.Cheers,Ethelred


siliconjesus wrote on Jun 19There like some issue with the Catholic faith, as the Church portrays itself as infallible, and the Vatican has stood with the "Young Earth" model for the last couple hundred years, therefore, even if they agree that its wrong they cannot openly admit it, for it would show that the Church was wrong. Its part of why Pope John Paul II caught so much flack from the more conservative parts of the Church while he was pope, as he wasn't afraid to overturn previous papal law.


infinitemonkey wrote on Jun 19
siliconjesus saidThere like some issue with the Catholic faith, as the Church portrays itself as infallible, and the Vatican has stood with the "Young Earth" model for the last couple hundred years, therefore, even if they agree that its wrong they cannot openly admit it, for it would show that the Church was wrong. Not quite true. Catholic teaching essentially says that only certain specific things are to be held as definitive or infallible. Not everything taught by the church is in fact "infallible"; in reality very few specific things taught by the Roman Catholic Church are or ever were labeled as such (though the distinction wasn't terribly useful or interesting to people like Galileo, who ended up being persecuted anyway).The word "infallible" has a specific legal meaning in Catholic theology (that which is taught and defined by the Sacred Magisterium). The Roman Catholic Church has in fact reversed itself on Creationism, the heliocentric model and other areas. None of those things would be possible if its teachings had been infallibly held in those areas.The Catholic Church readily admits it was wrong on things like evolution, and has changed its position. It will not and cannot change its position on things like the Immaculate Conception of Mary, however, because that is indeed something infallibly held and to reverse itself on that would indeed destroy the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.Cheers,Ethelred


iamrevmike wrote on Jun 20
infinitemonkey saidNot quite true. Catholic teaching essentially says that only certain specific things are to be held as definitive or infallible. Not everything taught by the church is in fact "infallible"; in reality very few specific things taught by the Roman Catholic Church are or ever were labeled as such Thanks, Ethelred. This idea of the "infallible pope" has been used for a long time to drive anti-Catholic bigotry. It simply isn't true, at least in the way it is communicated to many non-Catholics.Essentially, there are three levels of teachings in the Church: Tradition, Doctrine, and Dogma. Traditions are the lowest level, and can be changed fairly readily. It is a tradition that the priests of the Roman Rite must be celibate. Since it is only a tradition, it can even be set aside in certain circumstances, such as when an married Anglican priest decides to join the true Church. Doctrine is a middle ground of teaching. Doctrine does change, but usually very slowly. It is doctrine that only males can become priests. It is possible for Pope Benedict to issue a new teaching tomorrow reversing the Church's position on that. Catholics are free to disagree with doctrine, and argue that a particular doctrine should be changed. Dogma is the infallible teaching of the Church, and cannot be changed. There is very little dogma. The Nicene Creed probably describes most of the dogma of the Church.In the very rare occasions that the Pope issues an infallible teaching, that teaching must have the effect of raising an already established Doctrine to to level of Dogma. If the Pope says "I think a ham sandwich would be good for lunch today," it doesn't mean that all Catholics must believe that today, ham sandwiches are indeed good for lunch. They can have a BLT or a Waldorf Salad and still be good Catholics.The dogma of papal infallibility was formally defined in 1870. In the 137 years since, a Pope has only issued a single infallible teaching - elevating the Assumption of Mary to a dogmatic teaching.

infinitemonkey wrote on Jun 20
iamrevmike said such as when an married Anglican priest decides to join the true Church Now now, tut tut. ;-)Though in point of fact there are many who argue that Rome does, in fact, argue that the position on female priests is in fact part of the Sacred Magisterium and thus infallible. It is still a hotly debated issue.I hear Tony Blair is having an audience with the Pope soon. I bet he's negotiating the acceptance of Rome into the Church of England. :-DCheers,Ethelred

btlzu2 wrote on Jun 20hehe--you two are so cute when you disagree about religion and mike acts all 'superior and one true churchy' and you respond by being all 'anglicans rock dood' and i'm all 'whatever--way too complicated for a bunch of myths' and then everyone else is all '*sigh*, they're at it again', and...and...and! ;)can't we all just get along? :D


infinitemonkey wrote on Jun 20, edited on Jun 20Actually, the point of Anglicanism isn't that "Anglicans rock" (my remark was tongue in cheek). The point of Anglicanism is precisely "can't we all just get along". ;-)(EDIT: Read about the Via Media and how Anglicanism developed, and you begin to get the idea.)The notion of Anglicans forcibly taking over much of anything is a bit of an oxymoron. It's almost like Unitarian Jihad. Which is more or less the way I think it should be.Cheers,Ethelred


mercedo wrote on Jun 19According to Genesis description, God created the Earth in six days and the seventh day he took a rest. Here one day for God ia equivalent to one billion year in human standard. In the same manner, it is well explicable if we interpret 6000 years as 6 billion years. Here one year by God is equal to one million year in men. We oughtn't to forget Bible is God's word, not men's. We'd better take a rest for the next 1 billion years.

ignoti wrote on Jun 19
mercedo saidWe oughtn't to forget Bible is God's word, not men's. The Bible purports to be the word of god, but the fact that the Bible as exists is a political by-product of the Nicene council and two-thousand years of manipulation, makes that claim seem unlikely.


mercedo wrote on Jun 19I think many Bible accounts are backed in historical viewpoint, though, we'd better consider part of them like a book of Ruth, Esther, or Job as some story not necessarily backed in the light of accurate history. That said what Bible contributed to humans are enormous, especially when it comes to general education.


ignoti wrote on Jun 19Having a valid historical viewpoint is different from having legitimate historical verification.


infinitemonkey wrote on Jun 19I don't know what political manipulation or by-product you mean. The canon of the Bible was already quite stable by the time Nicaea took place (there were lists of books floating around that were quite consistent already from the earliest days -- Nicaea just codified them), and the canon has remained remarkably stable since (with the exception of Luther tossing out the Apocrypha).Why anyone would believe there would be some sinister political machinations at work on the Bible, I don't know. If you read the Sermon on the Mount and all the anti-authoritarian stuff that remained (you know, tossing out the money-changers, blessed are the meek, rich men having as much chance of getting into Heaven as a camel passing through the eye of a needle and all that) while reading the stuff that didn't make the cut (some pretty amazingly misogynistic stuff -- the Gnostics had some batshit crazy woman-haters among them*) then any charges of "manipulation" start to look pretty farcical."Da Vinci Code" made good theater, but the actual reality of the Bible's history is a lot more mundane. The good stuff really is what made the editor's cut.Cheers,Ethelred* - Classic example from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas: Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females do not deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven." The Gnostics generally viewed the female gender as the counterpart to the evil and insane Demiurge. Yeah, all love and roses, those Gnostics.


ignoti wrote on Jun 19, edited on Jun 19I don't mean overt political machinations, but you cannot deny that the Bible has been changed over the past two thousand years. The first manipulation was the fact that the books of the New Testament weren't written for many decades after the fact. The second manipulation was the conversion by Constantine I, and the subsequent establishment of a rigid "church" from what had been many different competing beliefs. The canon of the Bible may have been stable, but it wasn't the only "canon", nor the only interpretation. The Nicene council codified one interpretation of the Bible at the expense of other less centralized beliefs.

infinitemonkey wrote on Jun 19, edited on Jun 19What "changes" there have been in the Bible have not been of any particular doctrinal substance. Even though the NT was "written down" some decades after the events described, it does record oral tradition fairly soon after the events by the standards of the day, in some cases within living memory. Thus much of the criticism of the canon of the Bible doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny.What is noticeable about the "rigid" structure of the Church that you criticize is the kinds of people who ended up leaving the Church at the time. The Gnostics are often portrayed as latter-day fun-loving hippies wronged by the big bad church. The quote I mentioned above is just one example of the reality. The Circumcellions and Donatists are another couple of examples. Those "competing beliefs" that the Church cast off were the loony extremists, in some cases the bin Ladens and Jim Jones of their day (I'm not exaggerating).What is truly remarkable about the whole Nicaea process is to see what was left over -- a Church that was decentralized and kept a lot of that remarkable anti-authoritarian love-your-neighbor stuff intact, even while being the state religion of the Emperors. The Papacy we know today didn't exist yet at that point (Rome was just another patriarch, "first among equals") and the Patriarchs competed with one another for dominance. It was a quite different sort of Christianity from the Roman Catholic Church you see today, though Rome of course claims continuity with it (Orthodoxy is probably closer to the original on that score).It is easy to look back at Nicaea today through the prism of what happened 1000 years later, after the Great Schism and the ascendancy of Rome. But Nicaea itself was a totally different ballgame and a truly remarkable event. The Christian Church in those days was indeed rather democratic (bishops and clergy were very often elected -- something Rome eroded over the centuries) and decentralized (multiple patriarchs and exarchs). In fact it's an ideal many of us Christians dearly want to go back to, except that Rome keeps getting in the way. :-PCheers,Ethelred

ignoti wrote on Jun 19
infinitemonkey saidWhat "changes" there have been in the Bible have not been of any particular doctrinal substance. The existence of any changes to the Bible seem to readily prove that the Bible isn't the infallible word of God - to me at least.Of course, I'm not a Christian, so what does my opinion matter?

infinitemonkey wrote on Jun 19If there were substantive changes, you would have a point. But there haven't been. The core of the Bible has been quite consistent, even across the various divergent splinters of the Church that have arisen over the centuries. What has diverged is mainly interpretation of that core, not the actual text itself, and unfortunately experience has shown that most any body of text is, in the right hands, useful for manipulation and propaganda -- even science.The lesson to be learned is not that the Bible or changes to it are to blame for anything wrong with us today. The lesson is that people have to question and challenge authority and received wisdom in all its forms (including conspiracy theories related to the Bible :-P ). Unless and until people do that, we're screwed no matter what Utopian vision people want to peddle.Your opinion matters even as a non-Christian, which is why I'm debating the point with you. ;-)Cheers,Ethelred


mercedo wrote on Jun 20
infinitemonkey saidWhat has diverged is mainly interpretation of that core, not the actual text itself, The oldest text of Old Testament was Aleppo Codex edited in 920 AD till 1947, but parts of them were lost since then. Now the oldest complete one is Leningrad Codex edited in 1008 AD. From　6th AD to 10th AD, Old Testament had been carefully copied by Masoretes, but even decisive findings in 20th century were the famous Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in 1947, those texts were carefully stored in the first century BC by Essenes. All the texts found in these codices, Masoretic texts and Dead Sea Scrolls were strikingly similar except for a few differences in some words. In the case of New Testament, we can find just too many codices. The Bible that we read today is the result of all those countless textual examinations. What kept Bible as what we read today is the power of faith. People all concerned Bible believed Bible is God's word. Therefore they earnestly worked to keep his word as it's originally written. I am certainly not the one who intend to overexaggarate the power of faith, though, that was faith that kept one of the precious historical record of our times.

mercedo wrote on Jun 20
infinitemonkey saidEven though the NT was "written down" some decades after the events described, it does record oral tradition fairly soon after the events by the standards of the day, in some cases within living memory. Four gospels were written decades after the crucification. People later days often wonder why his record didn't start being written soon after the event. The answer might be that it always takes sometime for the people to realise the importance of someone's teachings. In the case of Jesus, people didn't realise it soon after his death. But even 20 years or 30 years after his death, his influence was far from dying away but had kept on spreading in Levant, so people who knew his teachings directly started to feel the necessity of keeping the record of his novel idea."the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk" - HegelAny man would vanish in a labyrinth of oblivion unless his deeds and words were written down. People were about to forget his deed and word after some decades, then people decided to keep the record at this very moment.

mercedo wrote on Jun 20
infinitemonkey said But Nicaea itself was a totally different ballgame and a truly remarkable event. My understanding about Nicaea council in 325 AD is thatMonotheism was originally started by Moses in 1300 BC, but since it experienced the wave of Babylonian captivity in 597 BC and Greek rule 323 BC-166 BC, and finally Roman rule 63 BC, monotheistic tradition Moses firmly established was shivering at the time Jesus was born. Christianity was originated from Judaism basically adopting other traditions, making a unique shape. How to deal with Arianism was the main topic in Nicaea, because unitarianism Arius taught was basically in line with monotheistic tradition, but in fact Constantine had to deal with many other aspects Christianity at that time inevitably held in itself like what is the position Jesus occupies in Christianity, how about many angels like Michael, Gabriel, etc. Constantine needed to settle the matter and chose to adopt Athanasius doctrine, that is trinity. Trinity was convenient to explain many aspects in early Christianity. Arian unitarianism as well as Gnosticism kept on surviving till today beside the main stream of Christian denominations.


samthebutcher wrote on Jun 18Well reasoned.:)

mercedo wrote on Jun 19I met you in Slashdot street for the first time. I encountered you in devianArt, next in last Fm. Now I stumbled upon you in camp. We both were to be a refuge anyway.


lpetrazickis wrote on Jun 19http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossilThe idea of a missing link went out with muttonchops. Hopefully, my muttonchops are not bringing it back.:P


mercedo wrote on Jun 19Although other animals chose to cohabit with animals kin to themselves, current human species chose to eliminate primates whose domains and kingdoms are closer to humans for fear that those closer species might start attacking the current humans. That's my assumption as to why the link is missing. Civilisation means massacre and annihilation rather than construction and cohabitation. Missing link is the proof of men's cruelty.


mercedo wrote on Jun 19Although other animals chose to cohabit with animals kin to themselves, current human species chose to eliminate primates whose domains and kingdoms are closer to humans for fear that those closer species might start attacking the current humans. That's my assumption as to why the link is missing. Civilisation means massacre and annihilation rather than construction and cohabitation. Missing link is the proof of men's cruelty.

crashpryor wrote on Jun 19
mercedo saidOur species were originated from a common human ancestor that appeared in some part of Africa 200,000 years ago. The number of our ancestors was considerably fewer than now. ...I've been reading about this sort of thing since I was old enough to get a library card (the digs/ findings around the Olduvai Gorge; La Cava de Juesos in Spain; those crypts with fossilized flowers in them found near Mesopatamia) tell me that the evidence is there...I've read at one point in time Homo Sapiens were an "endangered species" at one point with a population close to that of the Silverback Gorilla (!)...I've always held that our virus-like spread all over the globe was a product of evolution and everytime I hear that canard about "Noah having dinosaurs on his Ark" I want to laugh...when I got that first library card, I stopped reading fairy tales too..


btlzu2 wrote on Jun 19oh man, you don't think this happened??? :)

mercedo wrote on Jun 20I agree that homo sapiens was an endangered species. He must have needed to start using his intelligence to survive. I don't think Noah collected one pair of dinosaurs in his ark. If he did so, we would keep on being an endangered species as we used to be. He was wise enough not to.