@Arthur: Hilarious

Looks at hook dangling in front of him and decides not to bite.

You could just as easily interpret the passage as saying that the universe was created, then a week later humans were, too. In fact, I would say it is easier to interpret it that way.

Just because you believe it doesn't make it right.

We did not. Saying we evolved from apes is about as accurate as saying we evolved from amoebae.

The farthest point to which creationism can go alongside science is the view that God created the laws of nature that allow for evolution to happen, and that in all His wisdom and glory, He foresaw that evolution would at some point produce homo sapiens sapiens.

Personally, however, I think haemorrhoids, cancer, the eye's blind spot, our inability to grasp spatial problems beyond 3 dimensions (and many in 3 dimensions), the spleen, and a few dozen more design flaws in the human body, are pretty sure signs that if we were intelligently and willfully designed by a creator, then he did a rather sloppy job.

Sure. Some orthodox Christians and Jews believe the Earth is some 7000 years old. Many Christians believe dinosaurs and man were both created at the same time. The Bible says (or at least, a lot of self-proclaimed Bible experts say) that homosexuality is unnatural. Unfortunately, my cultural background doesn't give me enough ammunition to list similar clashes for other religious movements, but I'm pretty certain one could easily come up with Muslim, Hindu, or even Buddhist (although Buddhism is not technically a religion) teachings that bear similar flaws. Of course, a Christian belief that does not interpret the Bible literally, and instead tries to dig to the core of what it tries to say, does not have this problem. In fact, it is even possible to be a Christian (as in, a follower of Jesus) while rejecting the Bible as a whole (one would of course still use it as an important source of information about Jesus, but it doesn't have to be the ultimate authority about everything).

Oh yes.

Pascal had it wrong, because he approached the whole thing from a context where belief in God was the norm. I'm coming from the other side, and from where I stand, the story goes more like, let's question everything. Then if someone proposes an arbitrary deity, why would I bet my money on it? What if I have two deities to choose from? What if I have 15? The whole God thing only makes sense if it offers a better explanation for my unanswered questions than my current set of beliefs, which it doesn't. Pascal himself doesn't even provide a useful definition of his god - he presents God as "unknowable", which, by nature, is also undefinable, and thus a useless concept in any rational reasoning. Pascal got away with it because again, in his time, belief in God was the norm and everybody pretty much took the God concept for granted. (On a side note, I think defining God as "the undefinable" is pretty much spot-on, as it's a nice parallel with the core of Gödel's theorem, a statement that says of itself to be false - if God is defined as the undefinable, is He defined or not?)

Another problem is that his premise (everything to win, nothing to lose) is ultimately wrong. Belief in God does not provide "free happiness"; instead, it can be the source of extreme misery. By wagering against God, you win the freedom to choose your own meaning, you win the right to not be bound by religious rules, you win ultimate responsibility for your own actions. By wagering for God, you win the comfort of an intelligent being looking after you, (possibly) the comfort of an afterlife, a ready-made set of rules to structure your life, and answers to your unanswerable questions.

And then the third flaw; you are not obliged to wager. Agnosticism is perfectly valid, nothing wrong with admitting you're not sure either way.

OK, let me rephrase it then: Some orthodox Christian and Jewish religious leaders believe and teach that the Earth is some 7000 years old. Similar for the other arguments.

And I have never heard the Pope admit that homosexuality is a perfectly natural thing, even though all scientific evidence leads to that conclusion.

I also explicitly explained that the Christian religion as a whole does not contradict science, as it is perfectly possible to be a Christian and fully subscribe to scientific methods. There is no such thing as one uniform Christian religion though, and some variations clearly contradict scientific facts in their teachings, while others don't.

Yes.

I didn't want to get into this. What does religion say? Do you actually know? Or are you just interpreting what you've been taught and what you read? Does anyone actually know? I find it hard to believe that anyone actually can know without any doubt what happened over 2000 years ago based on some highly suspect re-translations of documents written much after the fact. Some written by crazy ass cults no less.

We all have the same sources. So I really can't say mine is any better. Some people just like to think their way is better.

I like how you dodged my question though. Seriously, do you KNOW? I don't think you can do any better than interpreting what exists in your own frame of reference. And trying to claim anything more than that is pure hog-wash.

I wasn't really including myself in the current debate, just a part of it that I thought you were being silly on. You seem to claim that you (can) know what religion says with out a doubt, with no interpretation. I refute that.

btw, you dodged again.

Many people believe in a literal creation. What will those people do if science proves something else? That is the question.

You people are funny that you make it into some theoretical debate.

But, to Mr. Egg, you can look to the past for your answers. Things devout religious people have believed have been discredited by science many times. They continue to believe because they change their opinions of what their holy texts say and mean.

Regarding creation itself, well, science will never be able to "prove" anything about it (unlike, say, explaining what lightning is), so there will always be people who happily believe in a literal creation.

Glad I could clear that up for you.

So basically we should take the bible literally, and follow it word for word? I think I'll need to get some stones.

Its a good thing religion is not science, and science is not religion. Of course that's not to say there isn't some faith involved in science. But clearly the two are very unrelated in this day and age. Mainly, I think because the extreme zealots on both sides like to keep it that way.

Based on your faith and your own frame of reference I suppose? Unless you know. But then that's not what religion is about, or so I think you've said before.