Serious question to the creationists

nota bene said:

My faith is founded on what I know from my own experiences to be a reasonable belief, and not that anything I could say would matter to you, but I am well satisfied with the evidence that I myself have seen and experienced.

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So it is well known that what we think we know and observe is much different then what we actually know and observe. There are lots of illusions out there that demonstrate this fact. Some or visual, others are more social.

All I'm saying is if what I just wrote is a factt, and it is, then question everything, especially what you believe is true based on your personal experience. If the only evidence that you can come up with can't be falsified or tested then those ideas should be questioned and scrutinized.

Having said that, believing in something that cannot be demonstrated to be true isn't always bad. If you ask me if I believe that aliens exist I'd say that I think the chances that they do exist are much greater than they don't. Where is the harm in that belief? How does my believing that aliens probably exist affect anyone in any meaningful way?

My criticisms of religion and a belief in god have to do with how those beliefs affect social and cultural norms. If religion was only about finding comfort in times of suffering, or hope when there is little reason for it, that would be one thing, but when religion tells people they can't use contraception, or are bad because they love a member of the same sex or that killing other people in the name of your god is "good", that's where I take issue. There are real tangible consequences in the real world based on ideas that cannot be falsified.

For those who are quick to point out that their religion or belief doesn't do these things, I would simply remind you that when someone believes something (something with real and tangible consequences in the real world) that is "good" without evidence, someone else can believe something "bad" without evidence and then look at you and ask who you are to criticize them.

I know what you're thinking.....I believe in aliens without evidence, isn't that the same?

Not exactly...I would simply point out that all of my beliefs are ideas that I can evaluate independent of how I feel about them. The idea that aliens exist isn't a doctrine, nothing in my life changes if I'm wrong and I wouldn't feel like any less of a person if it weren't true. It really doesn't matter to me if they are real or not AND, and most significantly, the consequence of my holding that belief doesn't effect anyone else and when it does, I can simply re-evaluate that belief.

CanadaJohn said:

I respect people of faith - but it's not for me. There are lots of things in this world and our lives that aren't explainable at this point in time and may never be. Who's to say those of faith aren't right? Not me.

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I can say that their statements are not "right" and the reason is that their statements lack actual empirical evidence. In other words, their statements stand on weak premises.

Tim the plumber said:

No, but I have evidence that did happen. I have seen other babies and know what they do. I must have come from somewhere and there is nothing to suggest that the normal process did not happen to me.

I have no evidence that I or anybody else has a soul. There is a lot of evidence that lots of people want to have that soul thing.

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Yes, you and I must have come from somewhere.

Or, maybe not. Maybe we're nothing more than a set of chemicals and electrical impulses.
And maybe it's just a coincidence that each person has a unique personality that manifests itself at a very early age. Some people may be born with just the right set of chemicals and electrical impulses to play classical piano at the age of 5.

Maybe.

If we are, then you'll never know. If we do have souls, I'll be able to look you up and say, "see? I told you so." I'm looking forward to it.

countryboy said:

This is a perfect example of just one of many wild assumptions the theory must make to arrive at the conclusions it does. You assume that because a mutation can decrease complexity, it therefore must be able to increase complexity. You do this based on assumption and wild speculation alone. Then, without missing a beat, move on to explain that since it must be able to increase complexity..... Sorry, that is not an explanation of why it must be able to increase complexity. How is that any less faithful than the belief in a Creator?

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Uh, learn some science? Any mutation that happens is time-independent - that is, every mutation type can be undone (with the exception of the very large-scale deletions, though even those have possible reversals over several generations). It doesn't matter that you have still completely failed to define 'complexity' - if a reversible mutation can be described as 'decreasing complexity' then it's reversal must increase 'complexity'.

FYI, the types of mutation that can happen are insertion (reversible by an identical and opposite insertion), translocation (reversible by an identical and opposite translocation), inversion (reversible by a second inversion of the same DNA segment), duplication (reversible by deletion of the duplicated DNA segment) and deletion (reversible by duplication of specific DNA segments, for small enough sections).

With a couple of exceptions, mutations are reversible. The only assumption I'm making is the one you have introduced in the first place - that there is some mythical measurement called 'complexity'.