Evolution is more likely than Young Earth Creationism

Thanks for accepting. I agree to avodah. Now let's get started: Evolution is an infinitely more likely occurrence than Young Earth Creationism. It is backed by a plethora of scientific evidence as well as the church, and does not deny the existence of a God, whether it be a deistic, Jewish, or Christian interpretation. Let's start with scientific evidence. 1) The Earth is Billions of Years Old Young Earth Creationism takes its interpretation of the word of the Bible as a fact over all of science. Unfortunately for them, the Bible is a document allowing many interpretations. For example, the Bible has been used to justify slavery[1]. Does this mean the Bible condones slavery? No. But it didn't stop confederates. However, there is strong scientific evidence to suggest the world is billions of years old. A) Fossils have been found that existed during the Cambrian period. These fossils have been dated to 500 million years old or more [2]. B) Rocks have been found dating billions of years old. The most significant of these was discovered in Canada in 1999. It was dated at just over 4 billion years old [3]. C) By radiometrically dating asteroids that have impacted earth, and therefore have been unaffected by plate tectonics which make it hard to tell the full age of the earth, scientists have found the earth to be about 4.54 billion years old [3]. Therefore, scientific findings confirm the earth as billions of years old. Due to the Bible's interpretable nature, and due to the fact that the Bible never expressly states the age of the earth, only the lineages of humanity, the Bible is not a valid resource on the earth's age. 2) Evolution is a true process A) Darwin found fossils preserved in layers of sedimentary rock. The lower layers contained old organisms, many of which were unrecognizable to Darwin. As the layers went up, he noticed the fossilized plants and animals became more and more familiar until they were a similar to present life forms. The organisms also tended to become more and more complex [4]. B) Many animals existing today share very similar DNA, behavior, and appearances. However, slight differences appear which provide adaptive advantages. For example, the seagull and the pelican share very similar DNA, but the pelican has a wide bill for scooping up fish, while the seagull has a small bill for picking up insects, small fish and crustaceans, and people's food outside the odd Walmart [5]. These advantages have been proven to be as a result of mutations. Mutations occur, and those that are advantageous cause the organism they occured to to survive [6]. This is what drives the evolutionary process. And "Modern research both mathematically and empirically confirms that rates of mutation occur at around 0.1-1.5 per zygote, which is to say every embryo has between 1/10th and 1.5 mutations on average, depending on species" [7]. C) Ancestors for many animals have been found fossilized. They share similar DNA with the modern versions of these animals (although they are less complex). The most prevalent case of this is the ancestors of humans. A long chain of human ancestors exists, demonstrated in this family tree [8]. All of these ancestors share varying amounts of DNA with us, homo sapiens, and become gradually more similar to us in appearance and bone structure. The Homo heidelbergensis, the closest ancestor to the modern human, astounds me the most. It has quite similar DNA to us, looks almost like a human, and is obviously a human ancestor, yet it is not quite human. Fossils of these and all other steps on the human family tree exist and make it almost impossible to disprove evolution. If scientific evidence alone does not sway you or the voters that evolution is more likely than Young Earth Creationism, there is another argument. We must break down the likelihood of each event. First: YEC. What does it assume? 1. There is a God. For YEC to work, a God must exist. Now, you and I believe there is a God. I do not dispute this fact. But God is unproven. It is possible that a God does not exist. Atheists and their theories are thrown out the window here. Therefore, we alienate something that is maybe not true, but possible. This detracts slightly from the likelihood of YEC. 2. This God is the Abrahamic God of the Bible. YEC rides pretty much only the Bible as its positive sources of information. This detracts from most deist beliefs, again, not what you or I believe, but a possibility. A God of nature, a non-Abrahamic God has the possibility of existing. We cannot prove definitively that God is the exact God of our beliefs. 3. The Bible is to be interpreted literally and it contains all worldly information. This is the fact I dispute, as does the Catholic Church, which I belong to. Pope Benedict spoke for the church when he said: "They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other. This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such" [9]. The Bible has the possibility, the strong possibility, of being at least partially metaphorical, especially Genesis. One thing contested by many Young Earth Creationists is that the Bible says the world was created in 6 days. However, 2 Peter 3:9 says, "A day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day." In other words, God exists outside of time. Then the 6 day creation story, combined with scientific findings, must be considered a metaphor. This seems like a lot of assumptions made by YEC. It excludes a lot of valid theories made by a large chunk of the world. Now what assumptions are made by the theory of evolution? 1. The Bible is not completely literal Well, that's about it. It does not deny atheism, deism, Judaism, or Christianity. It simply denies a literal interpretation of the Bible. Without any proof to deny or promote any of these religions/philosophies, it seems more reasonable that an explanation for the world that does not deny any of these is more likely, especially one supported by substantial scientific proof. Conclusion In conclusion, evolution and the old earth theory are far more likely due to science and logic than YEC. My opponent will not be able to prove otherwise using sound logic. Thank you for your time, and God Bless. Good Luck next round. Sources [1] http://religion.blogs.cnn.com... [2] http://www.agiweb.org... [3] http://www.universetoday.com... [4] http://necsi.edu... [5] http://necsi.edu... [6] http://evolution.berkeley.edu... [7] http://www.talkorigins.org... [8] http://humanorigins.si.edu... [9] http://www.nbcnews.com...