which do you believe, creationism or evolution and why?

I agree with 'Laura' wholeheartedly in all of what she wrote, and I'd like to add a few things...

Evolution, in its most basic definition, is decent with modification. I feel hostility from you in areas of science so I will pull and example from your Book: Jacob and the goats. There were very few spotted goats, but as the quality of being spotted is inherited in goats and being plain is recessive, every progressive generation showed a greater number of spots until the herd was entirely taken over. Decent with modification- a very tiny application of evolution.

Need more? breeding new breeds of dogs- even those new "goldendoodles" if mom was a retriever with a fine shaggy coat and dad was a poodle with a coarse, wiry coat and baby has a fine, wiry coat...there you have a microcosm of evolution. Over several generations we can end up with tiny dogs, or monstrous dogs with any of a dazzling variety of temperaments and colors. The same thing happens in the wild as well- fawns born with baby spots live to reproduce while their camouflage-less cousins are hunted and eaten.

I'd also like to add that it seems more likely every day that life could have been 'jump started' on it's own from raw materials. The components for amino acids were present in the Precambrian oceans and several independent laboratories have done experiments which prove that the raw components form amino acids naturally when exposed to electric currents such as lightning. (Look up Stanley Miller) With amino acids come proteins, with proteins come structures, then cells, and the building blocks of life. I'm not about to say that the whole process is completely random, and I won't deny that Deity could have orchestrated the entire process in a incomprehensibly beautiful masterwork symphony of life... I'm rather fond of the idea, really. But it does happen naturally, and I cannot deny that.

At this point I would like to ask you what evolutionary evidence are 'hoaxes'? Visit a National Park some day with your family and ask directions to a fossil bed. There are so many scattered throughout the world it is improbable and generally impossible for any person to have orchestrated the mass melting of rock, planting of objects, re-solidifying, and stratification in every country across the globe. Do research on the mid-ocean ridges and witness the wonder and majesty of the internal materials of our planet forming new surface. I cannot deny things that can be observed, with photos taken.

I admire your conviction, I really do! I just think that denying the existence of light because my eyes are closed defeats the purpose of questioning whether the light may exist. If you want to ask about it, you must be open to both possibilities. And, well, if you wrote this question just to laugh at us poor, misguided souls stuck in the observable world around us...then at best you didn't think before you typed, and at worst you do your own faith a disservice by setting others up for ridicule.

A mind and a parachute have one thing in common: they work best when open.

I am afraid that you and many who dispute evolution are blind to the facts. I have seen the geologic column of rock layers containing many types of fossils in many places on earth, not just one place as you say. Where did you get that information? Do you think the fossils are all made up, especially dinosaurs and other more primitive fossils like Trilobites that don't exist today. I have seen dinosaur bones buried in the earth in Utah, and have been to some great museums of natural history showing many examples of fossils that have changed over millions of years. Have you seen these things? Do you think humans lived at the same time as all these fossils buried deep in the earth? There is all sorts of proof of evolution. You just refuse to see it. I have also read the bible, and find many things in the Old Testament (where creation is found) to be inconsistant. You and someone above said that there is better proof of Creationism. Tell me what it is. The only proof I have seen is in the bible, which is not scientific proof.

It says that you can have several wives, that you cannot eat certain things like pork, that people can be stoned for adultery , that you can have slaves, that you should not trim your beard, and that the sun moves around the earth which is the center of the universe. Galileo and others got in trouble for saying that the earth must move around the sun which was contrary to religeous teaching at the time, even though everyone accepts that now.. Do you follow all these directives? Or do you just believe what you want to believe. All this is not to say that God does not exist. He could exist, and could have a hand in evolution, but there is no reason to think that it took only a week, and that there was no evolution. Animals and plants have changed constantly over the centuries by mutation. Germs change by mutation every year.

Regarding the hoaxes of evolution: There were a couple of well known hoaxes, such as the Piltdown man. A few hoaxes by a few people do not contradict the thousand of other bits of evidence and the thousands of scientists that have backed up Darwins work and proved it to be accurate. I don't know if Darwin had doubts, but if he did, it may be because in his time he was unable to provide absolute proof for his theories, and it did go against prevailing religeous beliefs.

It's not what I believe, but instead what the evidence strongly points to with regards to evolution. The fossil record, the discovery of DNA and the process of genetic replication, an understanding of radioactive decay, observations of natural selection in the wild and in laboratories, evidence in the genomes of many different organisms (including humans), comparative anatomy, comparative embryology, and molecular evidence all support the theory of evolution.

What I don't believe in is pitting science and religion against each other.

> "any 'evidence' given by evolutionists have either been hoaxes or made no sense at all. " <

Your example, as well as your idea that everything is a hoax, is unfounded. There is plenty of evidence, and it's really up to you to try and understand. Otherwise, misconceptions about evolution will continue to be propogated. There are some good websites that explain evolution in simple but accurate ways. Try PBS as an example.

> "another example is the tansition forms of one animal evolving into another. there have never been any transition forms found on the earth." <

No, there are examples. You could look at the fossil record of whale evolution as one example. It goes like this; Sinonyx, Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus, Basilosaurus, Dorudon. From the most ancestral to the most recent species, these fossils show consistent changes that indicate a series of adaptations from more terrestrial to more aquatic environments.

> "BTW: Charles Darwin, the founder of evolution, said at the end of his life that he was wrong about evolution." <

Again, you are wrong. This is another creationist mistake. Try researching the Lady Hope incident, and you'll see the transparency of the story. It makes anyone using it as an example of Darwin recanting evolution look foolish.

I believe in both theories. I have faith in God and believe he created the heavens and the earth and all living things in between, but I believe life was created to evolve. Evolution has no concrete proof because it takes billions of years for something to drastically change. The definition of evolution means to develop/change by a natural process. By that definition, we evolve. I'm 36 now. I know I'm not the same person I was when I was 3 years old mentally or physically so that's an evolution. The heavens (universe) is not the same as it was millions of years ago and every time there's a black hole or a star dies or is created that's an evolution. The earth is not the same as it was millions of years ago it has evolved into what it is now and every time there's an earthquake or volcano eruption that's an evolution. And if we evolve at that level IE; aging, earthquakes, etc., it makes sense we can evolve at a more larger level from single celled life to the intelligent creatures we all are now. Still created from one God of course.

The biblical version of creation has no support in the physical evidence. The physical evidence shows that the universe is about 14.5 billion years old and the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The physical evidence shows that life started almost 3.8 billion years ago on the earth.

The biblical creation is based on 3000 year old views of the world before science was even invented. Since the invention of the telescope, we know that the universe is vastly bigger than was thought 3000 years ago. Since the invention of the mass spectrometer, we know that the rocks of the earth and the moon are vastly older than biblical genesis says it is.

The problem is that the biblical descriptions do not change when new data is found. The biblical descriptions simply wrong, and there are vast amounts of physical evidence to show that. The biblical descriptions cannot account for the new data.

Evolution is a fact, and it is still happening. The museums of paleontology are full of the evidence. The genomic maps made by the molecular biologists are full of the evidence. The biblical descriptions do not deal with these mountains of evidence.

I have believed that the essentials of evolution are true since about 1959 when I suddenly realised that all the larger land animals I had seen must be related, just on gross anatomical similarities - four limbs, backbone, ribs. two ears, two eyes, all of that. I never learned any biology in school or college. They did not teach it where I went through high school unless you were in the agricultural stream. I eventually qualified as an industrial chemist with a minor in geology, mineralogy etc and went into the mining industry. Until maybe 1997 I just imagined that perhaps creationists had a point but were just innocently wrong about most things. Then I was given a book which was supposed to disprove evolution. By the time I had got to the third page I was thinking that what was in it was not quite right and I checked against a small encyclopedia I had. Not only was the material in the book wrong, I discovered that much of it was direct lies. Since then I have had to learn some biochemistry and molecular biology for my work, which is no longer in mining. Nothing I have seen anywhere has shown me that the creationists are anywhere near correct, what I have seen has shown me that their leaders are deliberate and persistent liars and in my opinion are making a living from fraud. The followers on Y!A and elsewhere merely parrot these lies without any thought at all. EDIT - For example, this direct lie in another answer to your question " The fossil record clearly indicate that different living species did not appear on earth through evolving from one another by fine gradations, but that on the contrary, distinct living species appeared on earth suddenly fully formed and without any preceding ancestors similar to them." So while there may be problems with evolution, they are nowhere near as bad as the problems with creationism, which as far as I can see is entirely false.

... If you're asking this in the science and mathematics section you will obviously be getting answerers with a strong bias towards evolution. That being said, I believe in evolution.

The universe being created in six days... makes sense? How exactly? Just because you read a story about it doesn't mean it makes logical sense. The bible has proof? How exactly? Because the clergy (you know, those people who's sole source of power comes from the supposed validity of this book) says it's true? That’s like asking the snake-oil seller if his wares really cure all ailments, he’s bound to say yes.

The bible that you read today was not handed down from god, it's a collection of stories and writings that have been assembled over the years (sure, say they're divinely inspired if you want) and have been copied and recopied, translated, edited and cobbled together so many times that they're not the same words that they were even 200, much less 2000 years ago.

As for evolution having no proof... I present to you four undeniable facts which prove evolution exists.

1. In nature most organisms produce more offspring than can be supported by the environment.

2. There is variability among individuals. Even siblings will look different.

3. Due to natural variation, individuals have different probabilities of survival. Life is not fair.

4. Variation is heritable. You have traits of your mother and father.

Given that all these are true, then there must be survival of the fittest (and sexual selection, which is a separate but related evolutionary pressure). The offspring with the best traits will be better able to survive and in turn have offspring of their own.

Now there are two separate issues. Whether evolution exists (which I just stated it must), and how life came into being. The fossil record indicates that life began as simple single-cellular organisms and evolved over billions of years to become more and more advanced. Admittedly, we have yet to determine how precisely the first spark of life began, and the ambiguity allows for some speculation on divine intervention.

Now, having seen your addendum, I must say you’re grasp of geologic principles is shaky at best. You are correct, the so called “geologic column” does not exists in its entirety anywhere on earth. It would be the holy grail of all geologic studies to find such a spot. But it does not exist because earth is a dynamic and changing planet. Tectonic plates move across the surface of the planet, crashing into each other. Depending on the type of collision, the plate will either buckle and uplift, causing mountain ranges, or subduct (that is slip beneath) the other plate and melt into the planets mantle.

These activities are going on constantly, but at such a slow speed as to be largely insignificant over the course of a human lifespan. However, go to areas of significant tectonic activity and you’ll be hard pressed to deny it.

When looking at tectonic activity in a geologic scale, that is over the course of billions of years, the planets surface is extremely different. It has been reshaped, reworked and many places “paved over” with new igneous (volcanic) rock. Weathering and erosion have broken down surfaces, everything changes when you look at through the lens of time.

That nice graphic of all the fossils leading from one to another doesn’t exist anywhere in the real world. It is a compilation of countless different rock layers from all around the world. That doesn’t mean it’s not a valid assessment of the overall trends in lifeforms. By comparing rock layers, finding identifying layers and comparing the organisms present, scientists can easily compile a timeline.

Now… you mention a specific example of an upside down rock column, and this is easily explainable. At some point, that body of rock was subjected to extreme and prolonged uplifting, it was angled steeply away from the horizontal bedding, and continued to be uplifted till it was tipped over entirely.

Honestly, if you want to understand these concepts, take an introductory geology course. Heck, if you learn the terminology, then you’re better armed to argue your viewpoint.

Being a theistic evolutionist; I believe that God created the heavens and the Earth, and I accept that evolution is a very accurate, concise - and very well documented - way of describing His creation of life here.

I read my Bible literally. It might surprise you to learn that you can do this and not come to the same conclusions that the YEC crowd does, but then, I actually have some training in Hebrew and Greek - most of those clowns don't......

I'll put it another way to you: why would God lie to us in His creation? The evidence is there for all to see! If His evidence there seems to be contradicted by scripture - isn't it possible that we are not reading scripture correctly?!

Apparently it's easier for some people to believe what others tell them than to bother to get the facts and think for themselves. Evolution is so real and increasingly proven by recent studies with the human genome which very clearly establishes how, where and when man evolved. Check it out -- it's a whole heck of a lot more interesting that the myth of creationism.

I believe this because that's what the Bible says it and because it actually makes sense and has the proof to back it up. Evolution has no proof whatsoever.

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there is absolutely no evidence for creationism as oppsed to evolution, which is one of the most supported theories in science. Of course, you will refute any evidence as "hoax" or "lie"

funny how a perfect god has to rest for one day HAHAHAHAHAH stupid creationists