TO ALL THEISTS: EVOLUTIONARY THEORY IN A NUTSHELL YOU CAN UNDERSTAND.

[KichigaiNeko]

I think it was said best by Hypatia (assuming that the quote IS attributable to her)

"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child-mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be, in later-years, relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so; since a superstition is so intangible you can not get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable."
– Hypatia

[Faith No More]

A noble but ultimately futile gesture.

[Poetess]

Theories ARE facts. They are accepted as facts, they have evidence and information gathered via empirical studies and through a lot of research to show that it is fact. I usually use the puzzle analogy: The hypothesis is the empty puzzle board. You have the box of puzzle pieces but you haven't really started to put anything up yet. You've spread the pieces out, now you're looking for the pieces to start with. Then comes the information gathering; you begin putting the pieces together, bit by bit. Ideas that are correct are pieces of the puzzle that fit together. Ideas that are not are the pieces that don't go in properly with the others, so they are set aside to be put up later, to connect to other pieces of data to complete the picture.

Theory is the point at which you now have a very clear picture of the completed puzzle. The puzzle itself is not finished, but looking at the puzzle, you can see the picture. It's not whole, it's not complete, but it's at the point where the picture is visible. When something becomes scientific law, the puzzle is finished, complete, all pieces are put together and the puzzle is finished; there's nothing left to add to it. You can, of course, touch up the puzzle; pieces may have faded and need to be re-inked or colored a bit to properly make the picture look absolutely perfect, which is an analogy to information coming in later that augments or slightly changes the pieces ever so slightly. But ultimately, that picture is done, everything else is just little details there to make it look even nicer.

The theory of evolution is a puzzle about 90% done. Now we're just looking for the puzzle pieces to fit into the remaining gaps, but the picture is there and we can see it.

Creation theory and intelligent design, however, are the equivalent of a guy who has no puzzle pieces up, he hasn't even opened the box. He has just looked at the cover of the box and made up his own conjecture on how he thinks the puzzle pieces, that he has not seen, are going to go. He is uninformed about the puzzle beyond how it's going to look, or at least, how he THINKS it's going to look. And to teach creationism as a valid school of thought in schools is to basically take the two people, one with his nearly finished puzzle and the other with his conjectures and what he "believes" the puzzle should and will be, and put them together and say that the guy who hasn't even bothered to open the box, and instead is just making shit up based on his own unfounded speculation, is just as valid on the subject of putting this puzzle together as the guy who has spent a ton of time actually putting these pieces together is.

Make sense now?

Yes. This makes sense and is quite logical. But they don't use logic or sense. They don't think for themselves. So getting them to think - especially out of the box - is unlikely.

[Nine]

I'm a creationist atheist. I believe that god created the world about 6000 years ago but god doesn't and hasn't ever existed

Evolution is clearly a lie I mean how does a goldfish turn into a cabbage then into a velociraptor!? That is clearly non-sense!

[Faith No More]

Evolution is a lie, because our alien overlords brought us to this planet. People would know this except the governement is convering it up with the freemasons.

[Phil]

[Minimalist]

And right there, Phil, you have nailed the problem.

Stupid theists think that is a lot to read. "Goddidit" works so much better for the lunatic fringe.

[Creed of Heresy]

and Phil provides even more for the theists to read and educate themselves on. Now there is even LESS excuse for the religious.

I operate under the knowledge that there are two types of theists; the ones who grew up being forcefed the creationist bullshit and who have never actually had any education on evolution itself [involuntarily ignorant; can be redeemed with a bit of patience], and the ones who heard of both creationism and evolution, studied both, and decided to go with creationism [the voluntarily ignorant; irredeemable idiots, keep them away from me lest I have a shotgun in my possession].

[jess_essential]

Theories ARE facts. They are accepted as facts, they have evidence and information gathered via empirical studies and through a lot of research to show that it is fact. I usually use the puzzle analogy: The hypothesis is the empty puzzle board. You have the box of puzzle pieces but you haven't really started to put anything up yet. You've spread the pieces out, now you're looking for the pieces to start with. Then comes the information gathering; you begin putting the pieces together, bit by bit. Ideas that are correct are pieces of the puzzle that fit together. Ideas that are not are the pieces that don't go in properly with the others, so they are set aside to be put up later, to connect to other pieces of data to complete the picture.

Theory is the point at which you now have a very clear picture of the completed puzzle. The puzzle itself is not finished, but looking at the puzzle, you can see the picture. It's not whole, it's not complete, but it's at the point where the picture is visible. When something becomes scientific law, the puzzle is finished, complete, all pieces are put together and the puzzle is finished; there's nothing left to add to it. You can, of course, touch up the puzzle; pieces may have faded and need to be re-inked or colored a bit to properly make the picture look absolutely perfect, which is an analogy to information coming in later that augments or slightly changes the pieces ever so slightly. But ultimately, that picture is done, everything else is just little details there to make it look even nicer.

I find it quite funny when christians try to dismiss a theory as a concept, so funny! EVOLUTION IS A THEORY! god is a concept. Get your shit straight.

[mediamogul]

Yes but where is the Crocoduck? Surely if evolution were true there would be some evidence of one species changing into another?

That is a major flaw in your theory.

Another major flaw is thinking that the religious don't have a vested interest in making evolution untrue.

Don't forget the Wedge Strategy and it's first tenet. The bible is true and all scientific truth must be measured against the bible's truth. If it doesn't match then it is not a valid scientific truth and needs to be discarded.