Evolution

[Gabu]

Last time I checked, basic atomic theory has pretty much been proven - stuff is made of atoms. How else would we know what substances are elements, or atomic structure of non-elements, ect?

Well, in science, a "fact" is defined as "something that is likely enough to be true that there is no practical reason to argue otherwise", not "something that is true."  It's impossible to conclusively prove that something is true beyond any and all doubts that anyone could possibly formulate, so technically, everything is a theory.  It's just the case that some are just a lot more likely to be true than others.

[Gabu]

I don't believe in it and I don't think a theory should be taught in schools. Creationism should also not be taught in schools, so don't get me wrong there.

Saying this shows a fundmental misunderstanding of the principles of science. Take, for instance, atomic theory. It is a theory that everything is made of atoms. However, we have as much evidence for this theory as we do that planes fly.

Excuse me? You went to public school I take it.

Last time I checked, basic atomic theory has pretty much been proven - stuff is made of atoms. How else would we know what substances are elements, or atomic structure of non-elements, ect?

Recently graduated college with a double major in math and physics, actually.

In science a theory is a convenient organizing scheme that explains experiemental observations. A theory cannot by proven. As another example, take Einstein's theory of relativity. That is another example of a theory that we have more evidence for than we have that planes fly.

Theories can't be proven? Uh...what? I'm pretty sure they can be proven, perhaps not at the current time, due to lack of conditions or technology needed, but I'm sure they could be proven at some point in time, and become law rather than theory. Theories could be disproven as well. Of course, maybe you're a perfectionist - remember your calculus, eventually you get to a point where you can say 'close enough.

Any scientist 100 years ago would have proclaimed Newton's Laws as fact. Today we know that they are wrong.

Don't see what calculus has to do with being close enough.

Hey, like I said, theories can be disproven too. 'The world is flat' was a theory, disproven, and 'the world is round' was a theory, proven.

When graphing calculus equations, eventually a curve can come close enough to the axis to consider it to be touching the axis, even though it is a never actually does touch the axis - it just keeps getting closer and closer, indistinguishable to the human eye. If you calculated area while considering a 'close enough' approach, it would be a finite area, but area could technically be infinite if you considered that the curve never actully touches the axis - kind of like pi has no end to it, just infinite decimal places, so for general purposes we consider pi=3.16. Sorry if that's a sucky explanation, I'm good at math just not good at explaining it.

His point about Newton's laws was basically to illustrate that what we may think is "proven" today may in fact be false, and that it only appears to be fact.  As I said before, it's absolutely impossible to prove something to be true beyond any possible formulatable doubt.  It's only possible to give enough evidence that appears to indicate its truth that there is no practical reason for why someone would question its validity.

As a complete random aside, curves that never touch the x-axis can actually have a finite area beneath them even though they have an infinite arc length, bizarrely enough.  The area beneath the curve y = 1/x^2, take from 1 to infinity, is exactly 1 unit.

[Gabu]

As for the actual question at hand, I see no contradiction between creationism and either the big bang theory or evolution.  I believe that the universe was created by a supernatural being (we had to have been created by something, after all), and that this being set it into motion.  Then, after having done so, this being relinquished control and let it run its course through evolution.

Of course, this raises questions regarding where this being came from, and where its creator came from, and so on, questions that ultimately are neverending.

[Gabu]

To me, religion is essentially an attempt to answer questions that currently are unanswerable.  If you knew everything, there wouldn't be anything that would need answering, so religion would be nonexistant.

Of course, then comes the philosophical debate over whether it's possible to know everything, to which I have no real answer.

[Gabu]

Plus, set theory says that there are an infinite number of infinities, all larger than the last, which may have some relation to this subject (or maybe not).  And you get questions like, "If you know everything, how do you know there isn't more?"  Et cetera.

[Gabu]

Can it be proven scientifically that God exists?  I maintain that it cannot.  The scientific method makes use of observations that are perceivable by the use of the five senses.  God is spirit (that's in John chapter somethingorother) and can't be perceived directly by the five senses.  Science is inadequate for studying God.  Knowing him requires understanding our own spiritual make-up.

That depends.  The theory can't be disproven that there is perhaps a way to construct something that allows us to perceive "spirit" with one of the five senses (or that allows us to do so with an additional latent sense that we didn't know about), so it can't be conclusively said that it's impossible to scientifically prove that God exists.

Of course, it may be.  I'm not saying that it is possible, either.