Is God an imaginary friend?
I have no doubt of it. I've tried plenty of times over the years to get God to answer my prayers. Nothing ever came of it. Not once. Nor have I seen any evidence that God answers other peoples' prayers. Sure, plenty of people claim that he does, but I doubt that even 5% of the prayers offered receive anything that could even remotely be construed as an answer, and those "answers" are always indistinguishable from normal events, even if they stretch our idea of coincidence.
Vanilla, your comments reflect more a lack of knowledge of science than anything else. Let me explain.
First, did you consider fundyderek's question about how you could have trouble believing that a "simple" cell could come about on its own, yet have no trouble believing that an infinitely more complex God could come about on its own? I have yet to see a believer give an answer, although plenty of excuses are offered.
: hmm, ok, this is what really gets me. if, and it is an if the size of mount everest for me, we and the world are all here thru evolution, how come you dont see monkeys turning into humans as we speak,
Here's a good example of your lack of knowledge of science. Just what do you think the theory of evolution says about the evolution of apelike creatures to humanlike creatures?
Evolution occurs so slowly that you can't possibly see it happening in your lifetime. Further, any particular living creature will always be "complete" as is. You couldn't possibly tell by just looking at it in isolation what its ancestors looked like, or what its descendants will be.
It is the fossil record that indicates that species evolved over time. That record contains many examples of small changes to species occurring over fairly long periods of time. Take a slice of life at one point in the geological record and compare it with a slice, say, ten million years later, and they will have significant differences. Some life forms will be similar or even the same, others will have disappeared, new ones will have appeared. That is evolution in the general sense. The question of how this evolution occurred is another question entirely, and Darwin's theory, as well as newer ones, are attempts to explain it.
: and that there are no fosils of a species turning into another species?
Sure there are. Obviously you can't look at a particular fossil and say, "See! This fossil is just sitting here and not turning into anything!" You have to examine many fossils, look at where they occur in the stream of time, and note how a particular species changes over time. When you do that, you get a sort of stop-action picture of evolution in action. I can refer you to a number of descriptions of specific examples.
: it will only mutate,
Which is one source of evolutionary variation.
: which i think is gods way of keeping species within their own. even the most simple animal like a moth is a miracle in its build and design, you are saying that all these things evolved from nothing but tiny atoms?
Why not? They're comprised of "nothing by tiny atoms", are they not?
: i just dont see how,
You probably can't see how cellular telephones work either, but that doesn't mean that they haven't evolved technologically.
: they cant do that now,
How do you know that?
: how could it happen then?
Scientists certainly are far from having all the answers. But the fossil record proves that massive changes in life have occurred over hundreds of millions of years. The best non-miraculous explanation we have is "evolution". Of course, this record of change could also be explained by the actions of a Creator, but this raises massively difficult questions for the believer in the Christian God.
: how come nobody has ever created anything if scientists are so clever?
What are you talking about? People create things all the time. I'm an engineer and it's my job to create things.
: they have only been on earth for a spec of time, yet aparantly they can say exactly how we got here,
Not exactly, just in general. But this is a lot more substantial than ignoring specifics and just saying, "God did it."
: i just dont see it, really i dont.
Then you ought to educate yourself. Get hold of some reading material on evolution -- and don't just read the caricatures you'll find in creationist literature. Once you understand what scientists themselves are saying, and know the reasons they say it, compare it with creationist literature. Only when you've educated yourself thoroughly will you be able to make a studied judgment. If after educating yourself, you still stick with creationist beliefs, then fine. But at least you'll be arguing from knowledge, not ignorance.
AlanF
