Who, exactly, says you don't have the right to believe in the Bible?

Please don't misunderstand me, it is not what you said or how you said it. I just wanted to read her point of view on the subject. You are always free to express yourself.

I find fault with this, here is why. If you look at the fossil records you find dinosaurs below the KT boundary but none of the animals we see today, above the KT boundary you have the animals we see today but no dinosaurs. This explosion of life began when the old world died. There are no transitional species recorded so that would rule out evolution until you find some. The DNA findings show that we do not evolve as suggested because DNA’s sole purpose is to replicate more like itself. Solar radiation bombardment causes some mutations but few that allowed for replication, I say few because I have not read of any but I am open minded enough to allow for the possibility. Man supposedly came from the great apes yet we have not seen any mutation to support this theory, and the three percent difference in our genetic make up has held firm for as far back as scientists have tested.

The Cambrian explosion as it is called is the only fossil records of their kind and only found in Australia, if I remember correctly, the issue I have with that is the geologic records show that Australia 300 million years ago was where Antarctica is now and as it moved north most of that area was under water and is now inland. The plates moved really fast during that time, as much as a foot a year, there was not enough time for much to evolve in the 30 million years that the height of this explosion of life could have produced. Also there is the problem of the fossils being only of sea life most of which have not been found anywhere else on the planet so far.

Depending on the brakes and the rotation of the Earth most of the Earth has been replaced, for example. Every year California gets smaller because it is sliding into the sea. It used to the North American continent was moving west at one inch a year, in the 70’s it started to speed up or we just got more accurate but now we are sliding at 2.5 inches a year. In 6 years we lose 1.25 feet of the entire west coast. In 100 years we lose 20 feet. Not a lot but if the planet continues to speed up and slow down over a million years that is almost 40 miles of land mass being replaced How much land mass is replaced in 65 million years, or the 580 million years of the Cambrian explosion. Islands rise and fall all the time. In 1964 off the coast of Iceland an island popped up and it was then that scientists realized that Iceland is not as old as they thought it was. Every plate there is either the production of land or the destruction of land. Man has only been around recording history for a few thousand years. We have learned a lot but we still don’t know it all. 600 years ago the smartest people around knew for a fact that the Earth was flat.

Okay now name them alphabetically by geographic location. I don’t doubt what you say, I welcome it. Those that have survived have evolved how? They have not changed in millions of years, so either they are perfect and have no need for change or we still don’t see and evolutionary process at work. More proof that evolution as postulated by Mr. Darwin is incorrect. Even animals in the Cambrian explosion have seen no real change, we have some that are not around anymore and some that are still here. There are some that are close to what we have now but not the same. That is where people who believe in evolution hang their hat as proof of evolution.

Right, just like evolution is hotly debated, as far as only being a few years old, I studied it in school in 1975 it has only been accepted by the community as a valid theory rather than a discredited theory back in the 70’s. You see the theory came from a bug paleontologist not a geologist so no one in the community wanted to accept it. Only after 25 years of being put down and ridiculed did anyone begin to investigate his findings and wow! His theory of the Atlantic conveyer was right! Maybe his theory of Snowball Earth is right too? Then in the 90’s they started to study lake Vostok and found it was possible for the Earth to be covered with ice between 1 and 3 miles thick and not kill off everything on the planet. I don’t think that it is hotly contested or debated anymore.

Once again we run into that time frame issue. If as the scientists are correct that we had this Snowball called Earth it happened 700 million years ago, and lasted for 12 million years. The Cambrian explosion happened 500 million years ago meaning the explosion was happening during the thaw while most of the planet was still covered by ice. We know that there were lush valleys where the Sahara is now 12 thousand years ago so the planet was still in its thaw back then and global warming had not dried out the land tuning it into desert, We believe that there were successive ice ages after the Snowball as evidenced in the geologic records in North America and at that time period New York was sitting just above the equator. With all the cold when did all these species have the billions of years to evolve into what we have today?

Not at all, I think I was not making myself clear. Look at it this way. If you stay within one scientific discipline the focus becomes narrow and over time becomes stale. You know it all because there is nothing new to learn and the rules are fixed and comfortable. Outsiders taking their discipline discover things that have to do with your discipline their findings are ignored because they are not of your ilk. They don’t know what they are talking about. Plate tectonics was first postulated over 100 years ago and did not become the accepted theory until the late 1940’s now it is accepted fact. This discovery was made by a school child pointing out that the land masses seemed to fit together. Does anyone remember the school child? The teacher that said the child was wrong? Nope.

It's about time?

While I understand your joy about the belief creationism not being able to be discarded in the classroom, to want to penalize the other side for expressing their belief is hypocritical.

The proverbial pendulum needs to be kept in the middle, with both sides being able to express their opinions without fear of legal (or otherwise) retribution. (If that means offering both sides up as THEORIES in a classroom, so be it.) To express happiness over someone else being penalized for this should mean that you should be happy when someone of your own beliefs is penalized as well, as that is equality.

I think you missed the point. Americans have been told for decades that if a teacher mentions God in any way that is favorable, that teacher has been fired, sued, and smeared by the secularists. The reason for this was the teacher is a representative of the government and can't promote any religion. Now that law is being used against the secularists and it is now unfair and hypocritical to do what has been done to believing teachers since I was in grade school. As a government representative the teacher was prohibiting the child from the belief and worship of his chosen religion. Gee it might not have been such a good idea to persecute teachers that believe in God for 40 years, the pendulum is swinging back at them and it seems they can't complain about it.

What I found shocking was that it happened in California, the most liberal judges in the nation are there and even with that the secularist lost so he had to have gone way across the line for that to happen.

Did you even read my entire post?

I say this now (when it's the secularist being punished) because I would say it if it were the non-securalists being punished as well.

I don't care what side you are on... it's wrong to be penalized for your beliefs in America. 

To be glad that "the other side" of this OR ANY argument is being penalized for their beliefs just because you feel as though you have been treated unfairly is petty and vengeful (both very un-Christian, for all the Christians that are happy about this), and will eventually result in the right being taken away from everyone. (Imagine two children constantly fighting over a toy.  Eventually the parent gets fed up because the children can't share, and takes it away completely.)

The proper reaction to this would be: "This is another example of how our rights to express our beliefs (no matter the subject) are being taken away.  Let's put our differences aside, and fight to ensure that we have the right to debate about our beliefs in the future."  

But perhaps that is too hard for people...?

Okay... so just say that the scientific theory of evolution is an option of belief, however, the philosophy of creationism is something else that is also an option.  Most school classes are intertwined in several different ways, so it isn't illogical to mention the philosophy, even if you don't go into detail about it.

You would have to ask the Idahoans... I bet they think they are very scientific, but by the way they drive... I don't know if I agree.

(Honestly, I do not know what you are referring to with "ID")

Exactly! If it's not okay to push your religion on someone then pushing your "lack of religion" on someone isn't okay either.

You postulated two events that were supposed to make evolution impossible both of witch are incorrect.

1) There were extinction level events so great that evolution would have had to start over again this is false.

Many species survived the KT event and no I'm not going to list them alphabetically with their geographic location the information is readily available do your own homework. Insects such as the cockroach, dragonfly and centipede and many small insectivore mammals, the largest air breathing animal being the crocodile. There has been no known event so great that evolution would have had to start over again in over a billion years.

The reason many of these animals have remained relatively unchanged is not because they are perfect, just good enough not to have to adapt. The more hardy an organism is the slower it will evolve.   

2) That geological and climatological instability would have somehow hindered the evolutionary process.

In fact these instabilities are necessary part of the evolutionary process and the more instability to a point the faster the process occurs. Geological instability separates populations and climatological instability forces adaptation.

Another important thing to note is that one species does not slowly morph into another one. Populations are separated and sometimes the original population is hardy enough or is not subject to enough pressure to have to adapt and can remain relatively unchanged for a very long time such as the crocodile and the shark. The other population may be subjected to a different environment with different available food and will have to adapt. Population are separated again and again until you could have dozens of new species arise while the original population could still remain relatively unchanged.

It's surprising how many people don't get this and ask questions like "if man evolved from apes why do we still have apes". And evolution is absolutely not "hotly debated among biologist. There's lively debate over the various possible mechanisms on how it occurred but not if it occurred. It is considered the unifying theory in biolog.

Even ID proponents like Michael Behe whom came up with the "irreducible complexity" argument do not argue against common decent only that it couldn't have happened without a designer.

ID = Intelligent Design. (Btw, touche!)

Yeah, what he said! Good point.

Oh she knows.