Friday, October 11, 2013

Why can't we be friends?

Explore the possible coexistence of Darwin’s theories and those posed by the Biblical creation myth.  In what ways to Creationism and Evolution connect?  Disconnect?  Consider annotations we made regarding Act II, scene 1 of Inherit the Wind.  To what extent are these ideas mutually exclusive?  In other words, to believe one, must one disbelieve the other?  Explain your thinking.  

Be sure to employ good writing skills. Particularly, focus on beginning your paragraph with an effective topic sentence that overviews the argument of your paragraph.  

Remember though that this is not just a writing assignment, but also a written discussion assignment.  Read through the blog comments previous and politely dialogue with your classmates' thinking.

30 comments:

  1. Creationism and Evolution are two very similar things. Creationism was written a long time ago when people didn't know how to understand Evolution. Their religious views, and the Bible were the only things they knew to believe in. Some people who believe in Creationism may believe in the Bible when it says the world was created in 6 days, and God rested on the 7th day, and that is why there are 7 days in a week. Other people who believe in Evolution believe that the world was made over a long period of time, and it took a long time for creatures and objects to evolve to the way they are today, and for creatures to evolve into humans. These two theories are almost the same, because they both believe that the world was formed, they are just told different ways. They have solid reasons about why it could be either of the theories. This is one way these theories relate to each other. One way they disconnect, is because people who believe in Creationism believe the world was created only in 7 days, where as a person who believes in Evolution believe it took much longer than 7 days for everything on this Earth to be created. I don't believe one needs to firmly believe in one theory and not the other. What people believe is up to them. I think it is fine to believe in both Evolution and Creationism. They are both related in a way that makes it easy to believe in both theories. No one knows for sure how the world was created, they are both theories, so one persons beliefs are not better than another persons. There has been a lot of debate about these topics, as seen in this book, "Inherit the Wind." I believe they are both well thought out theories, and that anyone can believe in Evolution, Creationism, or even both.

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  2. creationism and evolution are similar and different in many ways. such as that they are both strongly followed beliefs and are very important to many people around the world. although that many them similar they vary greatly as well because the fact that each one is based on vary greatly like that creationism says that an all powerful being created the world and man in 7 days while the theory of evolution says that we slow evolved from a common ancestor with the apes but while we know little now our knowledge is expanding and we might find out some day.

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  3. Creationism and evolution are not the same, they may have common factors here and there but they are not at all the same. Creationism is the belief that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days and on the 7th he rested, thus why we have 7 days in a week. Evolution, however, denies the existence of any god and states that we are just the result of a cosmic explosion and we and our earth are just a product of chance. Evolution may be true, but on a significantly smaller scale. Humans have, over time, gotten taller, however, that was not a change that took billions of years, it happens everyday. What is interesting about the theory of evolution is that if we are just a product of chance then how can we have all this technology, or, depending on your beliefs, create our own destiny. If we are just a CHANCE then how can we control something as huge as our destiny? But I digress. In America today we have found many ways to avoid choosing just one thing in life, however in this case it is simply you believe one or the other, no middle. You either believe in the existence of God, or deny him completely. Luke 12:8-9 says-

    "I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God."

    There is no middle, you can't be on both sides or on the fence. You are either with God or against him.

    As I said previously, Humans have gotten taller over the years, but we have never had as significant of a change as the one evolutionists say we have. Our knowledge expands as we learn more and more, but we have not had men coming out of forests or cavemen in the forests.

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    2. Hey Abby,(hope you don't mind me calling you Abby). I really find that biblical reference in the beginning of how the seven days in a week interesting, in that it can correlate to the seven days of creation. It's also interesting to see how the creation of the universe and the earth biblically, also correlates with different lunation theories of the seven day week, but what i found was that they all in the end connected with religious beliefs of how the international standard of time came to be (religious and factual data(but the lunation theories were put down because of synchronization issues.))

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  4. I think Creationism and Evolution are very similar to each other in many ways. The reason why I think they are so similar because it both shows two different perspectives on how Earth was made. Both of these theories show not that much different to me because they both showed how earth was made but the difference I see is how both of them were created differently and a different amount of time. Either way I think it is perfectly fine to believe in either Evolution or Creationism and maybe we might find the answer sometime in the future.

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  5. Evolution and creationism are two very similar things. Creationism is when people believe in their religion's ideas of how the world came to be. Although evolution is strictly based on science and facts ( yet creationists could disagree). They disconnect because creationism believes that the world was created in seven days time by God, and evolutionism believe that we are descendants of the apes and it took a lot longer for Earth the evolve. In Act II Scene I of "Inherit the Wind", Drummond says his beliefs of evolution and I made a connection that he sounded very much like Darwin. He did because in many instances Darwin explains that everyone will believe in evolution once he explains to them his ideas ad theories. Also, throughout the whole play the townspeople were raised and are raising their children the way their ancestors did. They have never though differently about their religions or beliefs and never will. While the people of Hillsboro think that their religion is the best way, I think that anyone should be able to have their own religion or beliefs about anything and should not be judged. If anyone wants to believe either creationism or evolution it's fine by me because its their decision to believe in whatever they want.

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    1. Hey Natalie, good post (I like the humour at the beginning), it's interesting to see how towns that are sort of tucked away from others social influences, seem to be stuck in there old ways and don't like to progress, that would be interesting to research, like how rural towns that are away from more advanced towns(socially and economically) react to the social bandwagon effect.

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  7. Evolution and creationism are two very similar things. People who believe in creationism believe that life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being. Darwinism is when people believe the theory of the evolution of species and natural selection. Aren't both of these theories made by mans curiosity i mean sure they are different in many ways but either way they are both theories of mans creation and our wonder of how we got here.

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    1. WOW THAT WAS DEEP!! I REALLY like how you connected the two beliefs with mans curiosity. that really makes sense! Evolution, was studied solely based on mans curiosity, we wanted to know where we derived from. But one problem I have is is with religion. A lot of religion was created by man, but some religions go back to far to even comprehend how they came into existence. But It all really is a very VERY curious topic.

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  8. Evolution and Creationism can be considered two similar theories on how the Earth was formed into our world we know today. To believe in Creationism means that one believes the belief that the universe and the living organisms in it originated from specific acts of creation from God. But, to believe in Evolution means that one believes the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed from earlier forms during the history of the earth. Both theories or beliefs have different ideas on how the earth and the living things on it have come to be. I’m not saying that they both mean the same thing to people, but they both do portray ideas about how the Earth formed just in different ways. I think that it is perfectly fine to believe in both, or in just one or another. I don’t see why and Evolutionist can’t believe in some of the ideas given in Creationism. Vise versa. This is why I disagree with what the townspeople are doing to Cates in our book Inherit The Wind. Just because he believes in something different than Creationism doesn't mean that he a bad or evil man. I believe that all people should be allowed to have their own opinions and beliefs about anything and not be judged by people who believe opposite unlike the situation in Inherit The Wind. (Parts of the definitions found from wikipedia.)

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  9. Creationism and Evolutionism: they are very alike in many ways and complete opposites in many others. If you are a Christian can you believe that dinosaurs once roamed the Earth? Or if you believe that dinosaurs and cavemen existed, can you practice the ways of the bible? I believe that everyone has a little bit of creationism and evolutionism in them. But, the two topics break down to one main idea, Science. With more and more discoveries surfacing from both sides, the question of which one is more realistic becomes more and more talked about. I have heard many stories about Christian families taking their children out of Science classes at school and families never letting their child even step into a church. My only question is why? Every child should have the opportunity to form their own beliefs and opinions and that is just taking away opportunities to learn. Whether you believe in Creationism, Evolutionism, or both, we are all human, no matter how we got to be us, we all should be treated equal and given the same learning opportunities.

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  10. Creationism and Evolutions are both similar and different in many ways. Creationism means "the belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account." Evolution means "the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth." Both of the beliefs are based on how the earth and everything that is on it or have to do with it came in play. But the difference is each therory believes something that the other one doesn't and have a little bit different views on how this world was created. Also they differ because creationists believe that the world was created by god in seven days, and evolutionists believe that we are "Ancestors" of the apes and believe that it took a lot longer than seven days to create the world or the earth. In the book Inherit The Wind, the towns people don't believe in "New Religion" and never even want to consider the idea of it. The towns people have their own opinion about their religion and their ideas about how man was brought. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about the ideas of Creationism and Evolutionism and if they agree or disagree with it. If someone believes in one and the other believes in the other than that is fine. They can believe what ever they want.

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  11. To me Evolution and Creationism to me are more alike than they are different. Although both theories contradict each other I believe there is a middle ground between the two. Even though Creationism states that the world was created in seven days, our world did evolve into what it is today after those seven days. I believe humans evolve over a lifetime. For example a person doesn't stay the same until it ceases to exist, it changes and evolves. This is not just for humans. But in other ways Creationism and Evolution do completely contradict each other. The theory of evolution doesn't support the idea that the earth was created in such a short period by an omnipresent being. In conclusion I believe that the two theories of Evolution and Creationism can coexist. People shouldn't have to firmly believe in one specific theory. And not everyone should believe in the same one because then our world would lose it's religious diversity.

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  12. Creationism and evolution may be based on similar ideas, but they do not have much in common. Those who believe in creationism believe that God created the world and 7 days and that he created us. Belief in evolution means that they believe that we are descendants from other creatures and it took a long process for us to get here. They are similar in the fact that they both are different ideas of who the Earth was created and how we came to be a part of it. I don’t think you can believe in both evolution and creationism because the the beliefs contradict each other. Those who believe in evolution deny that there is a God which disagrees with Christian beliefs. And those who have Christian beliefs disagree with the idea that humans have evolved from the apes. Both beliefs have similarities and differences, but you can only believe one or the other.

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  13. Creationism and evolutionism are similar and different in many ways. First off when you hear the word “creationism” you think of how the world was created in 7 days and by God. When you hear the word “evolutionism you think how the world was created by science, how us humans evolved from apes, and that it took a long time for the world to become a physical being. But the word you hear many times when you hear both theories is create. No matter what theory you think, you always believe that no matter what the world was created one way or another and that were all here now and it shouldn’t matter what we believe in. although there is ways the two theories connect, there is also many ways they disconnect. For example, one theory is based on religious beliefs and evolutionism is based on scientific beliefs but they are both very much the same and different. In my personal opinion I do think you can believe in one theory and believe in the other, as a matter of fact I do! I was raised as a Christian and of course believing in creationism. But, when I left our lady of lords I went to public school and my thoughts on how the world was created changed not dramatically, but enough to put my mind set on evolutionism for a while. Always in the back of my mind, I knew that god created the world but there was science to back it up.

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    1. Hey Mara, Great post! I really find it interesting to see how your changing of schools has influenced you beliefs. Hopefully this topic of religious beliefs, and influences at home and school will come up in class.

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  14. Creationism and evolution have some similar factors, but also have some different factors. Creationism is the belief that God created us and the world in seven days. Evolution is the belief that we descended from monkeys or other creatures. How these two things are kind of similar is that they both show how the earth and humans were made. Most of the people who believe in creationism are mostly people who Christens beliefs which believes in God. Those who believe in Evolution are people who are not believe in Christen beliefs or are people who believe in science. In my honest opinion you can believe either one of them but there is not a middle between these two theories.

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  15. Creationism and the theory of evolution obviously are two different theories, but who says they cant coexist? God could create mankind as primitive cavemen, and then have evolution take over to create what humans are today. While they are two different ideas set up by two very different groups of thinkers, it is entirely possible that the two coexist, as it is entirely possible that it can only be one or the other. It is also entirely possible that God created the first single celled organism and had evolution take us to where we are now, instead of skipping straight to humans. These two ideas to contradict one another though. If god truly did just create the first organism, then why go through the hassle of making it evolve through all the animals the organism came to be, as opposed to simply creating the universe and stars and planets. But i'm sure some evolutionists would say that if there were a god, then why doesn't he just tell us what we came from, and prove how we were created. All the ideas have points the undermine the other, and it is impossible to tell which is true, it is simply a matter of faith versus level thinking.

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  16. I think that there are some connections but mostly disconnections between these theories. I personally know many people who believe in both the theory of evolution and the theory of creationism. This means they believe in God, but also think it is possible humans may have evolved. When it comes down to just the basic theories, I believe that there is no similarities between the theories themselves. They are completely different, and as far as I know, there are no similarities between the theories.

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  18. Creationism and Evolution are two very different, but then again surprisingly similar things. The first idea that separates these two, is that if you believe in one, you mainly have to believe in the other. For example if you believe in Creationism, you believe that god created the world. That he created it in six days and rested on the seventh. But if you are an Evolutionist, you believe that over such a long period of the time the world was created by scientific ideas; The Big Bang, star dust, elemental bonds, etc. In that example, you may think that these two theories are nothing but different... But remember, these two ideas are both old, these two ideas were very long ago, these two ideas were both thought of by individual people. In many ways, Creationists and Evolutionists are very very alike. And during the reading of Inherit the Wind, it is sort of hard to pick a side for someone like me, who believes in god, but isn't religious, so I feel as if I have the best perspective of the story. I can listen to both Creationists and Evolutionist and decide which one I would actually believe in. As you might remember in our reading so far in "Inherit The Wind", You see so many more Creationists than Evolutionists, and you see that the Creationists look up to Brady like their god, but you also might notice that the Evolutionists do not look up to anyone either, they don't think that Drummond is a god, they just think he is a good person, and lawyer. Just many more things that are alike and un-alike in the book, and the world. But if you had to put it into a closing, I believe that Creationism and Evolutionism are more different than alike.

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    1. Hey I’d just like to commend you for your scientific knowledge of the Big Bang and elemental bonds. Very impressive!

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  19. Aren't we all Animals. I like to believe that humans creation of an advanced civilization, one where we have given ourselves cultural, societal, and individual values has created a condition where we can use "survival of the fittest" to get to the top of the food chain by imperialism, reproduction rates, survival rates, and the longevity of a species. But the complex human brain has given itself a individual value, one which is more advanced than say a dog, which struggles to overpower the harsh battle for the top of the food chain, so where one progresses the other shuts it down. For example, vegans, they find humans eating animals disgusting. But that is how we are going to survive, so in my opinion it's ignorant mainly because I have the belief of evolution. But when the human minds thinking of what is right and wrong directly effects our natural imperialistic goals, that in my mind is what will be the fall of our civilization (I know this is getting complicated and off track but bear with me). This is all MY belief, I DO NOT expect anyone to believe any of this but this is basically what the some of the views of a evolutionist are. These are COMPLETELY different from religious believes in that one side evolution, believes in the growth TO humanity, but overall religion, believes in the creation of the universe by a higher power.

    In the first paragraph I listed many opinions and facts about evolutionism and how it is different from creationism (I did it this way because of my strong knowledge of evolution.) But what I've neglected to do and will do know is write about how they are related. Evolution and Creationism both run off rules, for example Evolution runs off of the survival of the fittest, and fertile. But Religion runs off of the rules and specifics of how the earth was created, it gives us humans rules and it is basically told as a story that is passed down from generation to generation. A really good example of how they are related are that these "rules" are practised by people who are in a way "influenced" to believe so (or did so by free will.) By maybe a family member or friend (Hence parents sending children to church school). People's religious beliefs and how they look at the universe both correlate most with how they effect the way we live our lives, but most importantly it effects the way we look at life itself.

    To conclude I’d like to say that all types of religion or beliefs of how we live are all based off of mans curiosity, this spurs fear in some people of course. Mainly because the natural response for humans is to be afraid of the unknown. This in my opinion is definitely why there is so much heat between the two sides mainly because there is more factual data that supports evolution, but neither side can actually be proven correct so it really has created a great tension between the two and until one can be proven correct there will still be the question "well, what created THAT?"

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    1. I wont be at school tomorrow because I injured my arm typing this. (Damn anatomy!)

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  20. Evolution and Creationism are similar in some ways but they are mostly different. The theory of evolution is that the earth is billions of years old and that all life came from a single celled organisms. Creationism is the belief that we were made by a divine being, this two are very different, but both agree that we did not come to be without the help of something else.

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  21. Evolution and Creationism are in some ways similar. Evolutions theory is the earth's age and it was written for those who didn't understand Creationism. People who believe in Evolution think that the world was made billions of years ago, and animals over time evolve into people and different things. While people who believe in Creationism believe everything was made separately.

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  22. Evolution and Creation are the same in some way. Evolutions is the theory that we started as monkeys and we evolved in to man. Creationism is the theory that God created the world in seven days. I think that they both can exist together.

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