I don't understand your thought process. You are willing to "have faith" that the bible is true and everything was magically created in 6 days, but you can't "have faith" that creatures, including us, may have evolved over millions of years? If you were a gambler, and looked at the evidence for each, and had to bet everything on which was true, you would take the creation theory? Really? It is hard for anyone to look at this objectively when you think you already know the answer. It is always easy to find evidence to back up you theories, especially when you WANT to find evidence. The goofy thing about religion is that you don't really need evidence for any of it, and the "proof" or "evidence" you do point to, really is neither. But on the other hand, you expect rock solid proof of any other theories.
I just don't understand why you need to have 'god' around to explain all the unexplainable things in our lives. Well, I do know why. Humans have a need to feel secure. It makes us feel better thinking something bigger than us is in control. It is very scary and lonely to believe that we are just here because our parents had sex, nothing more, nothing less. And we are going to die, and then it is all over. Believing this doesn't make the thought of death very comforting. Belief that we are going to heaven makes death much more acceptable. Religion is almost like morphine, yes?
Upsman,
Excellent response, thanks for the time you spent. Mine could be long so please hang on.
My "faith" is in response to the truths I have found in the Bible. I used to believe in the ToE as taught in the schools I attended. Common Descent was and is the current thinking. I used to believe and have "Faith" that the things in my text books where infallible due to the "Science" use to back it up. They wouldn't put things in a text book that they know are wrong. Would they? ahhh but they did.
Some of the item that had me believing the ToE was: Peppered Moths in England. As the soot from the industrial plants polluted the area the darker moths were better camouflaged, so there were more likely to escape being eaten. Naturally, there was less of the lighter one so that darker gene was passed on. Come to find out that they had glued a light and a dark one to the trunks of trees to show the obvious light against dark. The lighter ones where easier to see, so they got ate.
Embryology: That as animals form in the womb/egg that they go though all of the earlier forms of life. In the text books I had they showed Chickens, pigs, monkeys and Human all in different stages of development. This gave the impression that as Humans develop that you could see that they looked like all of the lesser animals as they developed. This was used as proof of a common descent.
Fossil Record: Piltdown ???????? Nebraska man. I was shown a progression of ape ancestors to human transition over millions of years. Shown ???????Artist??????? renderings of what they probably looked like. The text books never discussed how many bone fragments where found their location to each other or any other ???????evidence??????? that this was factual.
So Science and the text books continue to publish some of the above and use them for ???????Proof??????? of the ToE. Now for some fun facts.
Those moths never even land on tree trucks so they were captured and placed there. The Embryos had been drawn to look more like each other. Piltdown man - The jaw was really that of an orangutan. It had been filed down and parts that might have suggested its simian origin were broken off. Both of the pieces had been treated to suggest great age. Nebraska Man - It was later found out that Nebraska Man was made up from guess how many bone fragments ???????? One, a tooth, a tooth that was later found out to be a PIGs tooth.
These and many other failed ???????scientific??????? explanations shook my ???????faith??????? in the ToE. So I started reading. Scientist have known for a long time that the above, and others were wrong, but they have allowed them to still make it into Text books that are being taught in schools all over this country. Look in your children????????s junior and senior high books and see if they are still there. The last time I looked was 5 years ago and still found them.
Radiometric dating ???????? We have been able to measure accurately the decay rate of material for the last, what, 60 years. So we have data for 60 years that we can extrapolate to billions of years? Look at a hysterias curve of a DC battery. Say the voltage from 12v to 1v is from one billion years. Now measure the delta of any two points for 60 years and you will get a false understanding of the Batteries capacity.
Stratified layers of earth. I was told that you CANNOT get stratified layering of the earth in less than millions of years of sediment build up. Mount St. Helens eruption proved you could have millions of years of stratified layers put done a couple of days.
Before I became a Christian I believed in the ToE and Naturalism. I didn????????t want to believe in God, nor did I. But when I was confronted with some of the sketchy ???????proof??????? of a naturalist explanation they didn????????t make sense as a whole. I read pro and con to each side and looked at evidence for both sides. Science had lied about some key elements. So what did the Bible say. God exist and he loves us. The Bible cannot be argued with from a moral point. The history in the Bible has been 100% verified by secular and non-secular scholars. Each of the points that a Naturalist position is refuted and there is purpose to our lives. We have a reason to exist, there is an afterlife. The plan is to spend that time with the creator, God, though his son Jesus.
A agree life without God is scary. If you could create a world that would be able to support life, why would it take you millions of years to create it? Think about that a second, science say the big bang started the whole party. Ever seen order come from an explosion? Science has calculated the extraordinary odds of life actually coming into existence at 1 x 10 100,000,000 ( I can look up the quote from the atheist if you would like) Statistical improbability starts at 1 x 10 45. Anything else they call a miracle. So if you had the power to create in the first place, couldn????????t you create something as you wanted it? Think of a genie in the Bottle, you wish for a car, whala - a car. Not a mining operation for steel, smelting plant, marching plant, assembly line, dealership, purchase order, - car.
Your right people need God, he put on our ???????hearts???????? the need for him so we search for the truth. Without God, there is no reason to continue, why ???????? because we only die. And if we only die in the end why go though some of the pain and suffering, the joy and love? God has an explanation for the why. If we are here by accident than what is good, what is bad, why do either.
I didn????????t wake up and say I????????m a Christian, I investigated it, looked at it, found all the reason to not believe it. But the more I read secular and other wish, ???????I??????? only found things pointing to a God that loves us. Yes, religion could be a drug. Christianity is about a relationship with God. You may think that is semantics, but I attest to a huge difference.
Smitty