"There sure are a lot of one-day-old duck turds in this field."

"That means there were a lot of ducks in this field yesterday."

"I didn't observe it, so if I now believe that there were ducks here, it is faith."

No! It is inductive reasoning. The turds are *proof* of the ducks without you ever seeing the ducks.

Juju, I know you made a reference to this earlier in the thread, but remember...there is no proof in science.

A friend of mine who was pre-med for 3 years has reverted to creationistic tendencies. He was telling me how a lot of what the creationists say makes sense. Of course, he didn't tell me what these creationists are saying, and quite frankly, I think he's somewhat nuts, but...

I've looked at both sides of the coin. While there are some issues with evolution, as a whole, there's strong scientific support for it. I think part of the problem that some folks have with evolution is that they don't want to believe that they might have come from monkeys.

I always did like Oparin's Theory...that used to fascinate the shit out of me...still does.

So elaborate on Oparin's Theory. Don't make us lazy-assed bastards google it ...

That's _deductive_ reasoning, though the principles involved are unstated.

      Here ya go Wolf. From this site: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...955/origin.htm

Thanks, Sycamore. :) I'm going on about 3 hours sleep now, so I was a little out of it when I wrote that.

It should also be clarified that <i>no</i> scientist believes humans evolved from monkeys or apes. They instead believe that we had a common ancestor.

geraldo?

Inductive reasoning would tell us that this is the type of field ducks like to frequent.

That is so true, it's not funny. It's actually quite lamentable. Pittsburgh, where I've spent most of my time, is the most Protestant city north of the Mason-Dixon line, and the mentality of the Catholic churches, mostly that of the parishoners, reflect this - especially in the suburbs. The church I attended for quite awhile was like amateur Catholicism. The people in the crowd just treated the faith like a quirky offshoot of the other churches around, so much so that it made me sick. I would watch movies and read accounts of what the Catholic church was like in Europe, go to my church on Sunday, and sit there staring at the patterns in the carpet asking myself "What the hell happened?"

My stance is as follows - there IS a God, He does have some kind of blueprint for this Marx Brothers meets Three Stooges extravaganza we call existence, but it does not hurt to question it. If you're sitting there having trouble seeing how the pieces fit, ask Him to show you the front of the box, see how it's supposed to work. People that fall into the "You can't dare question the Almighty" column are people too insecure in THEIR faith, so much so that they don't want to know if they can sustain the boat getting tossed around a little. They know what's expected of them, they play their role in the community, and that's that, end of discussion. Forget them. Christians that go off at the mouth about how they're the elect, they're the saved, they can do no wrong are as representative of the faith as are people who drive a bomb into a building in the name of Allah, they just do their damage with words. Loud, frequent, obnoxious words.

Look, man, I'm no prophet or missionary. I didn't feel called here to "save you" or anything like that. I saw an interesting thread and just wanted to throw my spare change into the pool. Should you change your mind from where you were at the beginning of this thread, okay. And if not, okay too. Essentially, before this became creationism vs. evolution, I saw a lot of good folk like myself being painted with the same brush as people like Falwell and Robertson, and felt I needed to step up. Don't debunk the whole faith because of a few fried-chicken-chompin' nitwits.

~Mike

PS: I'd chime in on the evolution thing, but what I believe pisses both sides off equally, so I'll just stay in the stands. Fight on, all.