To Hay
I know you have done your own research, but its not really the job of anyone to do the legwork to show you all the "proof" of evolution. There really is a mountain of evidence, and you could literally spend a lifetime reading it all (there really is that much). But I can quote some people who have done a bit of research themselves:
"some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies – which was neither planned nor sought – constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory."
--Pope John Paul II
"it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution."
--Pope Benedict XVI (current pope)
"Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."
--Fr. George Coyne (Vatican's chief astronomer)
There is so much evidence, that anyone who does the legwork to look at lot of it, cannot ignore it (even the deeply spiritual). The official position of the Catholic church actually accepts the basic premise of evolution (that man evolved from other creatures, and current creatures evolved from others). They also acknowledge Big Bang, by the way.
The problem is the idea of "proof". "Where's the proof!?" you say. Well, we have tons of evidence. That is the very nature of science. We gather all we can to try and understand. There is just a limit to how effectively you can "prove" something that happens over the course of millions of years, when we as humans, live much relatively shorter (with written history only a few thousand years). Even if the already gigantic pile of evidence to evolution were magnified 1000fold, I know that not every man-woman-and-child would be convinced. The only way evolution will be "proven" to them is if an immense godly being physically appeared on the planet, made an earthquake, and then said "yeah, evolution was the idea all along". Actually... I bet a few still wouldn't be convinced (because they were expecting to see someone else).
My main problem with your line of reasoning, Hay, is that you basically say "this seems too complicated for man to understand or prove 100%, therefore it must be creation." But science, by nature, keeps trying to understand. Science, knows we don't always have it 100% for sure. Science is a search. Science doesn't resign to a "because God wanted it this way" explanation, because that explanation doesn't really add to understanding the world around us. If we had resigned to a "God wanted it this way" explanation to everything we didn't fully understand, we would never develop things like medicine "God wanted you to stay sick." Do we understand the human body completely? No. Do we 100% know how every cell and organ works? Of course not.
Please understand, that because something has a "scientific" explanation, does not necessarily make it anti-god. The medicine example is why I think that a benevolent god might want us to understand the world around us better (but that can be just my opinion).
Many deeply spiritual people, as exemplified by the quoted, think of evolution as a far more elegant sort of emergence for mankind. To imagine a god that built a universe from a bang that would result in a planet that could bring life from from primordial ooze, to cells, to humans... over the course of billions of years -- is a far grander thing to some people. They see that degree of foresight and understanding as far grander than
Shazzzzaammmmm! --> Man exists
From this comment I sense that you have made a sincere attempt, to answer this.
The proof of evolution is on the scientists. They are the ones that have come up with this. It is their idea, if they can't support it, or prove it, they have nothing.
You may have missed some of my posts, but I have already mentioned that religious leaders are just as much to blame as science in this. Religion has misrepresented, the creation accounts and their own teachings, of of what is right, for generations of time.
Now there is no proof of evolution or the start to life, as science says. Science has a lot of theories, and ideas, but no actual, evidence that any of this is possible without creation. Science tries to bury you in details, on how this or that, could have happened or this or that is possible. But no real evidence that it could.
By science doing the experiments on the start to life only can show creation by the scientists, doing the experiments. Which is what creation is.
It is not just a reaction to the inability of science to know everything. No one knows everything. I can't explain everything about the creator. But what is known through science and reason , is that creation is the only possibly. One evidence that science totally ignores is that life comes from life, we know of nothing other than that. For science to say life came from non life, they are going to have to prove that. But reason and the evidence says different.
Many deeply spiritual people, as exemplified by the quoted, think of evolution as a far more elegant sort of emergence for mankind. To imagine a god that built a universe from a bang that would result in a planet that could bring life from from primordial ooze, to cells, to humans... over the course of billions of years -- is a far grander thing to some people. They see that degree of foresight and understanding as far grander than
Shazzzzaammmmm! --> Man exists
The trouble with is a number of things. It is still creation and you would what to know who that creator was. The other thing is that , this is not the evolution that science is teaching. The start to life and evolution as science says is that no intelligence was involved. Some scientists are beginning to see that the 'big bang' has more order in it than they once thought. Abiogenesis theory is an idea that is closer to creation, than other theories.
Science expects people to believe that Shazzzzaammmmm!, over billions of years, man and all the other life happened by chance out of the dirt. But science can not show that any of their ideas actually happened or can or are still happening. Humans are human, dogs are dogs, cats are cats. This goes for all the vegetation also. If I plant an apple tree, I get apples.
If you look what science actually says and what they can show to be true and workable, science has no evidence at all.
The other big question is why do scientists, want to show that no creator was involved? It is not because of evidence, they have to go against the evidence that is here?
It is much more interesting to have a creator than not. It doesn't change any of the real science that has been learned, but it does add new possibilities in the future. Also it answers many important questions that affects all of mankind.
Science has not thought this through, that is why they can not prove the start to life just happened and that evolution is even possible.
