What is amazing to me is nobody, and I mean absolutely NOBODY, can answer my question. Evolution supporters, please, please, PLEASE, help your argument.
Question: What was the very first "thing" ever? And how did it get there?
FKA, are you serious? You are actually
amazed that no one on BP can answer what was existant eons and eons ago?
C'mon, one guys says "why, the 'big bang' was first, of course...see, the universe is constantly expanding, so by my estimation,
x billion years ago, all known matter was in the very same point, thus is all blew up", while the other says "But wait, it says here in my book that God created this beautiful planet in just seven days! And if I follow the lineage in my book, I determine that God created it..oh, about
y years ago."
Now, the first guy made some observations with his telescope, or whatever, and theorized what happened. The second, however, holds a milleniums-old book that has been handed down (and translated dozens if not hundereds of times) and simply takes what is written there as fact.
The problem with taking to task someone who subscribes to the scientific method by constantly saying 'but why?' or 'but what came before that' is, that, qiute simply, they
don't know, and won't say 'because God made it that way'. Based on my experience, a scientist such as Darwin, made observations of the world around him and tried to formulate a plausible explaination for those observations. So future generations of scientists have this plausible explaination to test through their own observations. If some can find instances which completely contradict the previously plausible explaination, then it is thrown out or modified. Hence theories are constantly tested, revised, pared down and honed.
Now, try taking a fundamentalist Christian to task about his beliefs. What came first? Answer 'God'. Prove it. Answer: 'I have faith that is unshakable, and the way I see it, God was and will always be'. 'Arguing' with a fundamentalist is waste of time, in my experience. If someone has unshakable faith, then the final answer of
any discussion is 'God' or 'God made it that way'. While that may satisfy the fundamentalist, the 'pure' scientist may not find this explaination satisfactory.
While I do have faith in a higher power (though I don't think he's a giant white-bearded european-looking fellow on a throne), I am not satisfied with the 'God made it that way' explaination.
So, we've got this debate about Evolution vs. Creationism. I tend to walk the line that the bible's creation story is metaphor, and both can coexist. I mean, can you actually believe that two enormous hands reached out of the sky and molded man out of clay?
As far as the resulution of this debate, let's look back to the time of Galileo. He (edit: or was it Copernicus?) made rudimentary observations of the celestial mechanics of our solar system and realized 'Why, the earth really
isn't the center of the universe after all, we're actually orbiting the sun!' Now, as you know, the church branded him a heretic and threw him in jail! What he said condradicted their 'unshakable' beliefs. Fortunately, others made observations and backed up his claims. And now, we all know the truth, that the earth is just a small planet, orbiting a medium sized star. So, a bit of the 'universal mystery' of our place in the universe was revealed and a bit of the churches hold on 'the Truth' was chipped away.
Where will this 'chipping away' of the churches hold on 'the Truth' end? Well, we've got as good a chance of guessing that as we do answering your question, FKA.
