"My presupposition is that God created the world. Your presupposition is that Evolution created it all. You believe that matter created itself out of nothing, or else you believe that matter is eternal and knows no beginning. I say that it makes much more sense to believe in a God who created it all just as He says He did in Genesis."

So where did God get the matter from? And how do you know that Genesis is the word of God? None of that makes any sense to me.

"All things were made by him[God]; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:3)
God spoke, and the world was. He created it out of nothing by speaking.
I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents. Over and over, scientists (even evolutionary ones!) have used the Bible as a base for understanding different archaeological discoveries. Places and cultures that scientists scoffed at in the Bible because there was no evidence for them were uncovered and shown to be just as the Bible said.
I believe the Bible because it was written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies, and they claim to be divine rather than human in origin. The Bible is the ultimate authority: if I judge the Bible by something else (human reason, etc), then it is not the Bible that is the ultimate authority, it is that thing that I judged the Bible by.
Evolutionists must base all of their knowledge by human reason. I look at the same evidence as you do, but I look at it with a different perspective, and we come out with two different interpretations. But only one of them can be right. And I propose that it's much more reasonable to believe in an eternal God who created everything than it is to believe in eternal matter that created everything by sheer mistake.

"For instance, you all abide by traffic signs (at least some of you do). You stop at red lights, etc. Why? Why would you let those people who put up that light impose their worldview on you? After all, the stoplight imposes that human life is of value (Thou shalt not kill), and that we ought not to damage other people's property (thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself). If you reject the Bible, you must reject all the worldview that you hold because of Biblical ethics."

I can testify that Thai people, whose culture is largely based on Buddhism, and Indonesian people, who are mostly Muslims, stop at red lights too. They don't need the Bible to tell them how to behave.
"Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness.." (Romans 2:15a) Everyone knows in their innermost being that it is wrong to kill, even if they don't realize that consciously. The Law of God is imprinted upon the hearts of men, and they can't escape it.

I am an agnostic and I stop at red lights because I believe that it's in society's best interests to obey and abide by commonly agreed laws and rules. I also have empathy for my fellow human beings and do not wish to cause them harm - I don't believe that that empathy comes exclusively from the Bible.
Do you believe in a God?
Clarify for me what an agnostic is.

Let's face it, the Old Testament is packed full of stories of fratricide, genocide and child-sacrifice, hardly a great model of how to behave.
Yes, the Bible has instances of the Israelites exterminating pagan cultures. Sometimes God told them to do that, and He was perfectly holy in doing so. If we as God's creation call Him corrupt for putting to death people who hated Him, then we are the corrupt ones. We all deserve death (both physical and spiritual) because we have sinned against God; we have broken His law (the Ten Commandments).
I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say "the Old Testament is packed full of stories of fratricide.......and child-sacrifice, hardly a great model of how to behave." The Bible says "thou shalt not murder". Murder is the killing of a person with no lawful cause for doing so. (a lawful cause would be either self defense or else punishment for a crime, which the latter can only be administered by a civil magistrate.) Cain killed Abel--fratricide. Murder. Not a model for how we ought to live our lives, and God did not condone what Cain did.
Child-sacrifice--this happened quite a bit in the Bible, but never by a God-fearing people. The Israelites committed it when they turned away from God and began worshiping the idols of other nations. "They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I commanded not, nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind:"(Jeremiah 19:5).


So much for a mere seeker for evidence. He she is a clear liar, and needs reminding that liars go to hell. A mind as tight shut as a nuclear silo. And one would be content to leave it there, were it not for the fact that these Taliban are trying to introduce religious dogma to school curricula in several US states and have made several attempts in the UK and elsewhere.
Paul Burke

What am I lying about? Because I won't believe the theory of Evolution?


But they're still bears, right? They're not turning into seals, or puffins, or lemmings (or cats).

Of course they're not - why would they? A bear turning into a cat would magic, not evolution. As for half-creatures etc, this is a creationist straw an argument. Every living thing is at some evolutionary point, there are not quantifiable fractions.

Methinks you're on a windup here Iona.
ShugafootJack

I'm simply stating that we see no animals, in the fossil record or without, that support the claim that one creature can turn into another. It's perfectly rational to say that one variation of the bear species can turn into another variation of the bear species. But there is no support for the claim that a bear can turn into another species, as Evolution says that they ought.

Iona