Everyone is free to believe in whatever they want to believe in.

The issue I have with creationism is not its existence but that people want to teach it in public schools. It's what a couple of religions have to say about how the world began, and we can't very well now go and start teaching religious beliefs in our supposedly secular public schools. If people want their kids to learn about creationism they can send them to private schools or they can teach their kids themselves.

The fact is that evolution is a commonly held scientific theory with loads of factual support. It's part of science, and one of the goals of the public school system is to teach science.

However I must say that it's mainly the Christians that take issue with the theory of evolution and not us Jews, even though we both get creationism from the same book. Basically the way we as Jews reconcile the two theories is that the Torah (a.k.a. the old testament) was written down by humans and humans are falliable creatures. While it was dictated to them by G-d, it needed to be put into terms that humans would understand.

What was written down by those falliable humans as "days" could have been an inordinately long amount of time. A human 4000 years ago or whenever the Torah was actually written had no way of knowing a concept like millions or trillions of years. They couldn't have understood things like dinosaurs, or continental drift, or any of that. Even though our understanding of the Big Bang is still rudimentary, what's to say "Let there be light" doesn't mean exactly the same thing but in terms that biblical-era humans would understand?

Since humans have managed to collect evidence and develop theories such that we can understand these concepts, we as Jews we believe if G-d were to tell the same story to contemporary humans it would of course include all the stuff we now understand. We still don't know for sure how things originally came into being, but since we have a more developed understanding of the universe and are able to conceptualize on a much larger scale, G-d would at least give the story to us on our level. There's no point in clinging to the exact words that falliable humans wrote down thousands of years ago.

 

yeah.. in the original language, "days" really meant a set period of time.

or thats what i was told

 

The Torah still translates to "on the first day G-d did thus and such, on the second day..." etcetera. The word day meant the same thing to humans then as it did now.

The Jewish belief is that G-d used the word "day" so that humans at the time would be able to understand what he meant. It's a simplification. If G-d said "well, let's see, about 40 billion years ago I made your little rock of a planet" the humans at the time would have no clue what he was talking about.

 

Why do people have such issues accepting the fact that the entire concept of life, nature, the universe as we know it (and don't know it nor may not even be able to comprehend it on some vast scale) may not have a beginning nor an ending? It's almost funny how most humans are terrified of the unknown.. and need the control of a higher power of one spectacular being to explain the very exsistance of their life.

 

very very good point..not sure if i agree with it but its always a possiblity..i just think with the physics of things that we know of now we have gotten used to most everything having a casue and effect or at least a reason...

 

My girlfriend and I... (well... mostly I... I just seem to rattle on about this type of stuff ALOT) also contemplate the vast magjority of things. Just think of how miniscule we actually are. The universe.. as far as we know.. is endless. ENDLESS... That absolutly blows my mind, fascinates the **** out of me... and tickles my curiosity to no end. When you think of all the billions of years worth of species that walked this earth... ALONE... just this planet... it's amazing. And to think... at one point in time... even this planet was just a lifeless ball where nothing could survive... but in the sea... the atmosphere.. so dense.. not even a single green little thing could live on land... and to think what has come from all that.... ....
:huh:
I gotta stop.. I'll go on all night.
I just truly find the entire ifea of nature.. and life.. and evolution to be almost discustingly fascinating.. and more often then not.. I think about it until I actually give myself a headache.. but it's a weird sort of pleasure. :dunno:

 

yea if u think too deeply into the fact that it all might be some huge joke or soemthing ,on a huge scale it gives ya major headache

 

If you have a high IQ, you'll realize that each one is just as likely as the other. None are proven, no side has more proof than the other. They are both theory, its not worth arguing about God is just as likely as the "big bang"

And i dont mean human evolution, i mean evolution of the universe, where everything came from, etc. Human evolution from monkeys/primates whatever is a whole different issue

I dont believe in either. And yeah, humans dont have the mindpower to comprehend infinite. Everything humans know has a begining and an end, so its impossible to comprehend the fact that something doesnt have a start nor an end.

Start researching the 4th dimension and you'll really see why theorizing where we came from is stupid. Everything we see is just bent light entering our eyes, its perfectly logical that there could be 11 dimensions and our brain was only built to comprehend, understand, and see through 3.

 

Honestly, they're both just theories that have no proof. But IMO, evolution makes less sense than creationism.

 

There is little or no evidence for creationism whereas there is a substantial amount of evidence that supports evolution.