Why do people deny evolution?

Evolution changed drastically several times in my life. From Gradualism to Punctuated Equilibrium for instance. You sound almost like a savage when you refer to it as if it were one definite thing.

Please show us.

The examples you gave are not drastic changes. The basic concept of descent with modification never changes.

hmmm...Leadfoot, I don't know what you mean by circumstantial or indirect evidence for God's existence? Isn't that 'evidence' really just a creator argument? i.e. we create things, so maybe the earth et. al. was created as well?

The evidence for evolution exists on multiple levels, geography, biology, morphology and within each of those fields, there is evidence for shared connections that you would expect from a belief in evolution (such as our shared phylogenetic genesis with echinoderms, a mechanism for change - the gene etc.). It doesn't matter whether or not you believe evolution happened..just that things are found that are consistent with the theory.

So, when you are 'digging' for stuff around the earth, whether biological or inorganic, there is evidence for evolution. But as I see it, with a creator, its a rational assessment only. There is nothing to 'see' in the soil or in biology. You won't find God's underpants or 'his' scat left somewhere. There is only the idea that 'there's no way 'this' could have happened by chance, ergo..

Is that right?

Evolution refutes the Genesis myths, especially the Adam and Eve myth, and so also the original sin notion. Without that, the basis for Christianity is crippled.

As one would expect, this irritates believers and the con artists who make a living perpetuating those myths.

Modern enlightened Christians don't deny evolution, but they do say God's guiding hand is behind it.
Senator John McCain summed it up nicely-
"I believe in evolution, but when I hike the Grand Canyon at sunset, I see the hand of God there also"

God's guiding hand missed facts about planet earth and Homo sapiens.
The Grand Canyon is the result of millions of years of geological formation.

This is the best statement of this principle that i've yet seen. It is a childish and naïve assessment, and one which all of humanity ought to have outgrown long ago. Sadly, it remains pervasive.

Dinosaurs were obviously too big, devouring tons of food, so God said- "Okay they're out", and set about designing smaller environmentally creatures like mice.

God was definitely at work there but you got his intentions not quite right. The dinosaurs and all those millions of years of growing things before them were necessary to create the oil deposits needed later to make gas and lubricants for all my favorite toys.

I have graciously and generously shared this wonderful gift of God with the rest of you.

said- "The dinosaurs and all those millions of years of growing things before them were necessary to create the oil deposits needed later to make gas and lubricants for all my favorite toys"
---------------------------------------------------

Yes, the stuff makes our tanks, ships and warplanes go, otherwise we wouldn't be able to clobber tyrants and heathen regimes around the world..

"Oh, how comely it is and how reviving
To the Spirits of just men long opprest!
When God into the hands of their deliverer
Puts invincible might
To quell the might of the Earth, th' oppressour,
The brute and boist'rous force of violent men..."
- John Milton 1608-74

That is not the primary evidence of God for me but even if that were not there, your summery might be enough.

But I disagree that there is nothing to 'see' in biology. The 'smoking gun' evidence of God in biology is two fold.

First is its gratuitous signs of design. Even if you completely buy every claim of evolution, there is still the fact that we do not have a plausible scenario for abiogenesis.

Second, life is the only exception to the law of entropy. Biological entities go from disorder to order, a flagrant violation of the law observed in every other corner of the universe.

Great poem. I quote it to all the tree huggers who are so opposed to man following God's will for man to have dominion over the earth. They seem to regard man as a cancer on it.

So "Dominion on Earth" means pollute the **** out of everything.

Thanks for the Christian perspective.

You really think it was in line with what you see as god's will that man was supposed to dump **** in the seas and the rivers, clear cut all the forests and leave wasteland behind, and spew gasses into the atmosphere that are changing the earth's temperature and making storms worse, so that what were once classifiesd as once-in-500-years disasters are now more like once-every-five-years disasters. And cause the greatest extinction of animal species since the asteroid struck us 65 million years ago?

You're weird.

And, parenthetically, so is your god.

see? you seem to open and insert whenever you bring up the Christian way of things. PS ."ominion" refers to just governance, not DOMINATION.

Even the Southern Baptists get it.

So why do you and Izzy assume the worst? Bit of bias showing there.

I used the word I meant.

Edit: Add Monteray jack to the list.

http://www.proof-of-evolution.com/abiogenesis.html
Proof of evolution is the basis for our knowledge about abiogenesis.
It's also called spontaneous generation.

From your link...


I would be ashamed to put such rediculous circular logic up as 'proof'. This is science?
I've been pointing this absurdity out since I got here.

Do you have a better scientific evidence?