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52%--Roughly equivalent to the percentage of Americans who favor legalizing pot.

You know, I'm guessing.

I believe evolution was God's tool for creating life. One only has to look at hemoglobin and chlorophyll molecules side by side to see God's hand in things. The bible types use the argument that the bible sez the earth was made 6000 years ago, and the bible is God's word, so there! But think about it. Here is God talking to some middle east bumkin back before zero was invented trying to explain Creation:

God: Okay, the earth was made 6 billion years ago.

bumkin: 6 wha?

God: billion

bumkin: huh?

God: look, it was made a real long time ago! Sheesh!

bumkin: oh! you mean 6000!

God: whatever...

I saw this while surfing the site for the polland it was too good to pass up:
Can't We All Just Evolve?

The 25% are the ones who didn't evolve -- I think they speak for themselves.....

And which idiot created the survey with questions like "God had no part?" If you say yes that means you believe in God and if you say no that also means you believe in the existence of God.

And "God created man exactly how the Bible describes it" means man was created in and around 1 A.D.?

'Cause if God was waiting for the Bible to be written then he waited a while since he put the dinosaurs there didn't he? Oh I mean she ...
and why did he bother to put other animals and then introduce man, was he confused about the image?

And I'm sure that the South Dakotans are the direct lineage of God's creation of man, what next ... stone some Eve for eating that apple?
Go South Dakotans, show us how magnificently brilliant you are ...

Great Poll guys, keep up with it. Maybe God will send an angel to thank you.

Ameet Kamath

Wow...

I've always believed in the hand of God directing evolution, and my early impressions were galvanized by no less an authority than the pastor of the Catholic church I attended as a kid. He told us in class more than once that parts of the book of Genesis were more allegorical than literal, a way to illuminate the miracle of God and the universe to a population that was massively uneducated. This old school Irish priest found nothing contradictory about God's creation through evolution. Always made sense to me.

Well, it's quite common in science for there to be a long period of time between the discovery of something and figuring out how it works.

People are going to see this poll and have a hissy fit under the belief that this means that Real Science™ is about to be trampled by religious maniacs.

But really, all this means is that a bunch of people seem to think that the process of evolution involves a level of deterioration somewhat higher than the robed clergy of conventional academia think -- that is, not counting the uneducated hicks who think evolution doesn't happen at all. :P

Evolution, smevolution. What most people fail to realize is that there are TWO kinds of evolution! Macro-evolution and Micro-evolution.

Macro-evolution is the evolving from one species to another. That's part of darwin's theory.

Micro-evolution is the evolving of a species and NOT changing into a new species. Think about the useless appendix, the uselessness of wisdom teeth. Do a few changes within a species count as a new species? NO!

Now onto the "bible in 1 a.d." BS. The bible, as it is known today, was not formed for several hundred years after the death of Christ. Until that time different chapters were in different places. The Roman Catholic Church finally put the bible as it's known today together.

Also the Roman Catholic Church does not discount the possibility of evolution, they just say if it did happen, it was with God's guidance.

As for Genesis. Well the first chapters of Genesis were the LAST TO BE WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE! A way to tell the story of man's first sin: To be his own God. That's why I can't believe how some people can believe that just 2 people populated the entire earth!

Do I have all the answers? No or else i'd be rich and not blogging here! haha. But I know some of the facts that could be part of the answer. Who knows, maybe everyone is wrong about how mankind first came into being.

I don't understand the people that believe in God, but don't trust the Bible. If God is able to create everything out of nothing, then why is it so hard to believe He could preserve the content of His written Word over millenia?

Create everything Ex Nihilo - no problem!

Maintain the plot in a book - can't go there.

The Bible says 6 days (evening and morning). That sounds like literal days to me. But then again, I think the Bible is true. Silly me!

The only thing I like about the THEORY of evolution is that it offers an explanation for laggers like Howard Dean, Al Franken, Al Gore, et al.

I put more stock in the idea of de-evolution (which brings back memories of the Devo concert I attended in 1980, but I digress). Whip it good!

While I second the important distinction made between micro/macro evolution that Algo pointed out, I hate the term micro-evolution. Linguistically it suggests the micro and macro are just different degrees of the same thing.

"Micro-evolution" would be the changes that occur within a "species" (also not really the right technical term, but I digress) due to variability built into the DNA (gene expression) and/or the loss of information due to genome decay (random mutations that lead to loss of information).

"Macro-evolution" is the theory that some how, some way, random mutations in a genome can actually lead to increasing information describing increasingly complex functional structures that take an organism up the species ladder, molecules to man style.

Lots of examples of the former. I'm personally very skeptical that there are any valid examples of the latter.

*sigh* and there go the little humans, thinking they can understand God's mind and works with their little sciences.

Just because we now know that the earth ain't flat and a human landed on the moon doesn't mean we're ready (if such a time will ever come) to understand the actions or mindset of God.

Or, to put it in a caps-heavy way, WHAT PART OF 'GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS' DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND???

My first point: if God created a religion where belief and mystery were cornerstones, and then 'hid' the proof of His existance in PLAIN SIGHT (which, according to creationism, is the case) then God's an idiot.

I don't think so, bub.

My second point: if you can't reconcile science and belief, welcome to the struggle of humanity. Good luck with those single-bullet theories, too. *snicker*

My third point: backing creationism is going to hurt Republicans in the long run. Back off ASAP. If only to watch liberals find a way to say that evolutionism is wrong - because the Repukes back it!

>the THEORY of evolution

SCIENTIFIC theory, thank you, and in laymen's terms that's a term better known as 'fact'. Let's at least keep the basic data accurate... FFS you don't want to devolve into liberals, don't you? :-p

My opinion, even as I become more fundamentalist Christian, is still that anytime you just say, "Well, God did it," is a copout. You have to find the best scientific theory based on the evidence, and nothing beats evolution as a theory for how man came about on that grounds. You could show that random mutations would be extremely statiscally unlikely to produce higher beings, but that still doesn't disprove evolution.

Also, as a Christian, I think God guides everything, but don't group me in with the Intelligent Design people.

I know there's a God; I don't need no stink'n scentific evidence of Him.

Algo,
If the first chapters of Genesis were written last, then how come other parts of the Bible reference them?

With Earth being 4.8 billion years (more or less) old, one day for an infinite beig would be roughly 800 million years.
The good news is that while he is resting for today (800,000,000) we should have another 780,000,000 tofinally reach him when he decides to judge us tomorrow.
We are merely a work in progress with a long way to go...

Luckily science is not a consensus-based system. If you have specific questions on evolution I'm dating a geneticist with multiple degrees in biology and chemistry, however much of the really serious evidence is very technical, so be warned.

I agree that "God did it" is a cop-out and when I still considered myself a Christian I felt very strongly about that. I see no reason that a truly all-powerful God could not create, in a single instant, an entire universe knowing exactly how everything will eventually turn out, including the evolution of mankind on this rock. I very much like the idea of God, however when/if we meet I have some serious questions.

Don't get me started on the idiocies inherent in the phrase "Intelligent Design".

Those who read that I'm a former Christian and who are tempted to "lead me back" are hereby warned that this endeavor is not without risk. I am not uneducated in the teachings of the faith (indeed I believe The Christ's example, if indeed Jesus was the savior of the Jews, is an important one to follow. Sadly so few Christians do.)

Of course GOD did IT! At least some of it anyway. Otherwise, how did we end up with brains big enough to have these pointless debates? That shows forsight. Or would you rather spend your days foraging for fruit and fleeing large predators?

For the Pro-Creation side of this argument, I would suggest going to www.answersingenesis.org

Or, anything written by Michael Behe, Philip Johnson, or Ken Ham. You will see that it's not quite a stretch to take the Genesis account literally.

The universe doesn't care what men believe.

Madhun, can you give us chapter and verse that states God giving the age of the earth at 6000 or are you just regurgitating hearsay?

Wow, you guys sure know a lot. From a purely Agnostic perspective, however, I must admit that the 'religious' among the lot sound like sitting in my brothers' group session, rationalizing... Hope none of you hold public office, or or cops or anything. No I am not a Lib. Right as they come!
Put me in the 'I dont' know' category. I'm ok with that. Are you?

"SCIENTIFIC theory, thank you, and in laymen's terms that's a term better known as 'fact'."

Like the "fact" that electrons orbit an atomic nucleus in a fixed orbit (originally proposed by Niels Bohr)? Because we now know that to be wrong (which is no insult to Bohr). What about the "fact" that Homo Erectus was the first walking homonid?
I'm not saying evolution is false, because I honestly wouldn't know, and don't care, but to say something is an indisbutable fact because the scientific community is championing it, is naive. The sciences are all constantly undergoing change and renewal - evolving, if you will.

Different person!
"Micro-evolution is the evolving of a species and NOT changing into a new species."
No, it actually does create a new species, when it works. The types of changes you're talking about are not micro-evolution. The best example of micro evolution is the Galapagos Iguana, which can spend ridiculous amounts of time underwater...it's a new species of Iguana, nothing more, nothing less. Now if that Iguana were to, over millions of years and all kinds of intermediate forms, to turn into a lizard-man, that would be macro-evolution.

"Also the Roman Catholic Church does not discount the possibility of evolution, they just say if it did happen, it was with God's guidance."
....and? See..I'm not Catholic, so I don't care what the Catholic church says. This is markedly different from people who don't believe literally in the Genesis account, and apparently take it upon themselves to make everyone agree with them. (I mean, does evolution depend upon people believing in it? If so, how did it manage to happen before beliefs developed?)

"...Well the first chapters of Genesis were the LAST TO BE WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE!"
No, they were actually in the Talmud thousands of years before Christ was even born. (I think you might be thinking of a book in the Apocrypha-I can't recall the name - it went back over the Genesis account and tried to tie it in more closely with Christianity, and went into detail about stuff that was sort of brushed over int Genesis, but was left out of the Bible because it didn't really fit anywhere - as a Christian text it should go in the New Testament, but as the creation story it shoudl go at the beginning, plus its "authenticity" was in question.)

"That's why I can't believe how some people can believe that just 2 people populated the entire earth!"
Well, even if they evolved from apes, 2 Homosapiens Sapiens (possibly something like 4)still had to be the source of all future generations.

Here's the deal folks: assuming that God, an uncreated, self-existing being, who can create a universe with as much intricacy and beauty as we have here, has to explain it all to us in small words and short sentences is whack. Are we supposed to know it all? Nope. And does God have to use a goofy mechanism like evolution to do the work when He can simply speak and POOF--there it is?

And another thing: there's no tangible, scientific, observable proof of a working mechanism of evolution. Heck, it doesn't even warrent theory status by the scientific method--it's a freakin' hypothesis! Plus, it not only breaks current, proveable scientific Law (see 2nd thermodynamics), it is so statistically improbable (do the math) that anything even remotely showing those kind of numbers would be laughed out of a scientific convention. And it would have had to have happened over and over and over and over...

Well, I'd better not keep going on, but suffice it to say, that if you're gonna believe that God is God, don't go halfway and ruin your own consistency of belief. Either Jesus is who He said He is, or He's the biggest liar in the universe. Deal with it.

Frank J.:

As for the first few chapters of Genesis to be written last, it may be just the old testament. My wife's father would know alot more about this than I, so i'll make sure to ask him when he gets to his house in a few days (he travels alot for his work). I think those being written last is that they were originally stories told from generation to generations among the Jewish people and eventually were written.

I'll get back to you on that!

As for the micro v.s. macro evolution, i'd like to see actual info from anyone that disagrees with me on that, as all the info I found seemed to be to the contrary.

Thers a interesting marker in the DNA of man that is passed from generation to the next by the mother, some prof. with more money and time than he knew what to do with...traced this marker around the world....concluded that yes there was a orginal mother (one)Forget the name of show but it aired on PBS some time ago.
Me, have no problems with the Bible, I KNOW that GOD exists and that his Son, Jesus Christ saved my sorry butt! nuff said!

WK

When dinosaur remains were discovered in the American West, around the turn of the 20th century, a museum sent folks out there to gather up a complete skeleton and bring it on back, which they did. After putting said dinosaur back together and then having it on display for 40 or so years, it
was discovered that they had the wrong head on their dinosaur.

My point. Science is important but not without mistakes. Evolution is scientific theory, not scientific fact. For thousands of years the smallest unit of matter was the Atom, now we know there are smaller units still. Were scientists wrong about the atom, or had they just not studied it enough. Are they wrong about evolution, or have they not studied it enough.

Some people need to believe that man is the ultimate power. They reject the very idea that there may be something more powerful, and thus in control of things.

Power and control- things man has been fighting over since Adam (or Ape-man if you prefer).