[Xujhan]

Originally Posted by onion

Can you look at science religiously and still believe in evolution?

Either way you take this argument, no matter what you believe is based on faith.

There are evidences of both science and religion are true. Whichever one you believe you are putting faith in.

Actually, to be more accurate; there is evidence to indicate that science is generally correct, and there is a lack of evidence to indicate that religion is incorrect. There's an important distinction between the two. As it is generally impossible to prove or find evidence that anything doesn't exist, the onus is on the side of proof and/or evidence.

Originally Posted by onion

You can say we see evolution today, no we aren't. Have you ever seen a monkey turn into a human, and who's to say humans are the end product? Why aren't human's evolving? I understand it's a "slow process". But I've never seen a animal live a life span of a million years to evolve. Have you? Do you know anyone who's been around since the beginning of the earth and actually witnessed all of this evolving happen? No. You haven't. You believe what a book and a teacher tell you based off other peoples studies, who neither have witnessed these events. Take the giraffe, if the giraffe was made by evolution, what is stopping the giraffes head from exploding when he lowers his neck? Are you telling me this is mere coincidence? Through evolution he just accidentally grew a neck, and automatically had a blood flow that prevented this? The only real plausible explanation I can think of is God. I believe in the God of the Bible, and whether you believe in something else, well that's up to you and God will hold you responsible; but that is a different discussion.

Have either of us personally witnessed that the world is a sphere? Or that it takes light approximately eight minutes to travel from the sun to the earth? Or that water is fundamentally composed of two hydrogen and one oxygen molecules? Or that there used to be a roman empire? Yes, I believe what a teacher and a textbook tell me, but if I don't I'm more than free to go and look up the research myself. If I'm not satisfied with that, I can repeat the experiments or view the evidence first hand until I'm satisfied. Sadly, a human lifetime isn't enough to personally question every scientific fact. But just because you or I haven't personally seen the evidence doesn't mean it's not there if we want it.

As for the giraffe, you picked an easy example. Its long neck allows it to reach vegetation that most other animals can't, which reduces competition for food. Over the course of evolution, the giraffes with longer necks and stronger circulatory systems were more likely to survive to reproduce, so those traits became exaggerated and cemented as defining traits of the animal. There; a perfectly plausible explanation. And if you're not satisfied with it, you're perfectly able to read the research or go digging for fossils in the Savannah.

Originally Posted by onion

There are evidences of God that science cannot explain; that the Bible explain. There are things that science explains that the Bible does not explain.

Religion offers explanations for things that science can't explain, but doesn't offer evidence to support the explanation. Science does support its claims.

Originally Posted by onion

I am not saying that taking the Bible scientifically that you can't disprove it. But I am also not saying that you can take science biblically and disprove it.

In the end the Bible is the word's of God; or inspired which means in greek "breathed". Science is an invention of man, though good to study God's creation, science has been changed and altered its core many times. The Holy Bible has never been changed or altered it's core meaning. Yes there are different versions of the Bible, but the CORE MEANING of all the verses stay the same.

And the "core meaning" of science hasn't changed either. Science is still all about learning the truth about the universe through investigation and experimentation. Science's claims change as we learn more and better evidence becomes available. Religion's claims change as well, notably as science disproves more of them. Personally, that doesn't inspire much confidence in religion.

Originally Posted by onion

I'm not here to argue your point because in life, everything you believe comes down to faith. Just like in science you have faith in what your books and teacher tells you, Christians have faith in what the Bible tells us and our teacher tells us. The difference is one is from man, the other is written by man from God.

I would say instead that everything you believe - or at least everything I believe - comes down to knowledge. Yes, I'll put faith in my physics teacher to know what he's talking about, but only because I know that the knowledge is there for me to learn myself if he doesn't. If you want to double check what a preacher says, you can't exactly go and ask god about whether there's a hell or not. It's two different kinds of faith. Trusting faith versus blind faith.

Originally Posted by onion

Let me ask you: Say the Bible is wrong. So atheists, they're right. In the end we just die. There is nothing after death. Now reverse this... what if the Bible is right? Do you want to go to hell? I'm not trying to scare you, I just think it's ridiculous people try to argue with the Bible, for truthfully no good cause. It's like me arguing with evolution. Giving you fact after fact after fact, biblically, that evolution isn't real. Well, there's no credible source for me to prove this too you because you don't believe in God, you have faith in man made theories instead. OR if you try to put evolution into my mind, and quote scientist after scientist after scientist says this about evolution, well to me, a man isn't as credible of a source as God, so therefore you have no credible sources. It's a never ended argument that will be proven when we die, it's just the fact that I know what happens after I die. And you do too, you just want to disprove it.

Ah, Pascal's Wager. I love this one. Here's my version: if you don't believe in god, and god is good, he will forgive you for being wrong, and no harm done. If you don't believe in god, and god doesn't exist, no harm done and you haven't wasted a whole bunch of Sunday mornings. If you don't believe in god and go to hell, then god is evil - or at least cruel - and it's better to fight a tyrant than obey him. Any of the three possibilities - good god, no god, evil god - atheism is either equal with or morally superior to religion.

There's plenty of good cause to argue. Atheists believe that this life is all we have, and religion causes no end of problems in it. Everything from war down to intolerant parents, religion has a fairly major hand in. I'm not claiming that the world would be a perfect place without religion, but it would certainly be a less divided one.