2012-09-08, 02:06 PM
Well, I won't go into great details right now since I have a limited time, but I will try to answer a few of your points as best as I can.
Your final point that if everyone knew about both evolution and creationism at the time that they have formed cohesive reasoning skills that there would be very few creationists I find is a bit over-simplistic, but probably not for the reasons that you think. There are many astrologers (I know one from my University) that after many years of believing in evolution actually "found God" by looking into deep space. I don't mean this in the literal sense that he found God in a physical form, but came to believing that there was a God by looking at the sheer magnificance of the universe.
Now, going away from first-hand accounts since they represent only a few opinions, one would teach their child about their faith at an early age for a few reasons: one of them is that if you teach a child to be good and show them the right path (even if another may not agree with it), they are not likely to stray from it. It isn't purely for God, but also showing them what is morally right since most of the teachings that you find in faiths related to creationism talk about doing no harm, and other favourable qualities like that. If you were to talk from a stand point of taking God completely out of it, showing your children a way of life that will actually help society should be more socially acceptable than people are making it out to be.
I know that I don't know everything, but I do strive as an Engineer to learn as much as I can about my world. Through my personal experiences, I know that there is evolution, but the scale of it I am sceptical of. I am not a fundamental Christian (please don't think of myself like that), and I know that there is more for humans in general to learn, but I also think that if creationism or faith was taken out of our culture completely, our society would be worse off. I am not a master of predicting the behaviours of people, but I do know that if humans in general think that death itself is the final punishment, and that there isn't any sort of reward or punishment at "the end of the game," people would start to do whatever they wanted to a greater degree. Like I said, I don't know fully, but I would rather "hold on" to the idea that there is something past the unknown. You could think of it this way for the two opinions being wrong:
1) Either you have faith in a God and die, but there isn't one. The consequence? Nothing for you.
2) You believe there is no God and die, but you realize too late that there is one.
I would like to end this with a comment about you, @Satellite. I originally had the impression that you were a hard-lined evolutionist that did not stand any sort of reason against your arguments, but reading through your latest post tells me a bit more about you. You do sincerely believe what you preach, in a sense, and I do respect that. You have a logical approach to a debate, and try to prove to the other person (not through calling them a flaming idiot, but it almost came close to that) that your thoughts are the more correct ones. The only dispute I have is that you may not be doing what you tell others in the sense that you should check WHY the other guy believes what they do. No, it isn't because they are stupid. No, it most likely isn't just because they were taught that as a child. There is a possibility, however slight it may seem to you, that they managed to find the truth in some form of media, one that they just want to tell others about.
I personally found my truth, and I try to refine it every day, though I may not be the best at telling others what I know.
Your final point that if everyone knew about both evolution and creationism at the time that they have formed cohesive reasoning skills that there would be very few creationists I find is a bit over-simplistic, but probably not for the reasons that you think. There are many astrologers (I know one from my University) that after many years of believing in evolution actually "found God" by looking into deep space. I don't mean this in the literal sense that he found God in a physical form, but came to believing that there was a God by looking at the sheer magnificance of the universe.
Now, going away from first-hand accounts since they represent only a few opinions, one would teach their child about their faith at an early age for a few reasons: one of them is that if you teach a child to be good and show them the right path (even if another may not agree with it), they are not likely to stray from it. It isn't purely for God, but also showing them what is morally right since most of the teachings that you find in faiths related to creationism talk about doing no harm, and other favourable qualities like that. If you were to talk from a stand point of taking God completely out of it, showing your children a way of life that will actually help society should be more socially acceptable than people are making it out to be.
I know that I don't know everything, but I do strive as an Engineer to learn as much as I can about my world. Through my personal experiences, I know that there is evolution, but the scale of it I am sceptical of. I am not a fundamental Christian (please don't think of myself like that), and I know that there is more for humans in general to learn, but I also think that if creationism or faith was taken out of our culture completely, our society would be worse off. I am not a master of predicting the behaviours of people, but I do know that if humans in general think that death itself is the final punishment, and that there isn't any sort of reward or punishment at "the end of the game," people would start to do whatever they wanted to a greater degree. Like I said, I don't know fully, but I would rather "hold on" to the idea that there is something past the unknown. You could think of it this way for the two opinions being wrong:
1) Either you have faith in a God and die, but there isn't one. The consequence? Nothing for you.
2) You believe there is no God and die, but you realize too late that there is one.
I would like to end this with a comment about you, @Satellite. I originally had the impression that you were a hard-lined evolutionist that did not stand any sort of reason against your arguments, but reading through your latest post tells me a bit more about you. You do sincerely believe what you preach, in a sense, and I do respect that. You have a logical approach to a debate, and try to prove to the other person (not through calling them a flaming idiot, but it almost came close to that) that your thoughts are the more correct ones. The only dispute I have is that you may not be doing what you tell others in the sense that you should check WHY the other guy believes what they do. No, it isn't because they are stupid. No, it most likely isn't just because they were taught that as a child. There is a possibility, however slight it may seem to you, that they managed to find the truth in some form of media, one that they just want to tell others about.
I personally found my truth, and I try to refine it every day, though I may not be the best at telling others what I know.