This is a pretty mature battle guys...I love this forum. On other forums [Arachno-*cough cough*] much more harsh words would be exchanged as one side overpowers the other by a long shot and eventually the thread is closed and infractions are handed out (trust me, been there). Anyway sorry to have revived this but it was around before I got here and I am fighting back whether I should put in my two cents or not. So...The yes two cents won
Ok so here's my thoughts.
First of all, by reading my profile, signature, etc...you can tell right away where this is going!!!
I grew up in a Christian family. VERY Christian. God made man God made monkeys. God made dinosaurs God made birds. And that's that. It was only recently that my innocence and oblivion was confronted by the other beliefs of this world. Now that I am much more of an apologetic believer I can
sort of speak from both sides. As I grow up and am further forced to fight for what I believe, I will become more persuasive but until then this is all that I've got. One thing has not changed and that is my faith in God and faith in creation. Instead of getting immediately defensive when I met evolutionists, I would instead look as deep into their arguments as I could to find the loopholes.
One of the first things I noticed was how some evolutionary scientists firmly believe that dinosaurs evolved into aves over a period of millions of years. They would compare the bone structures and theorize that dinosaurs are in fact their ancestors. Well, what I noticed was that if it took millions of years for dinosaurs to evolve into birds, why do we lack a single fossil that proves any sort of morphological evolution between the two? We have fossils of dinosaurs and we have birds. Nothing inbetween. First fallicy that hardly persuaded my beliefs the other way.
Next, the whole idea that the Earth is a bajillion years old proven by carbon-dating seemed to always be something the "church" did not agree with as it was not "biblical". I was always taught otherwise and that it was not that old at all. Well for you Christians out there that do not believe that the world is in fact that old, you sort of need to open your mind a little. The Bible does not say exactly how old the earth is. It does not say how long Adam was in the garden. Therefore, we already cannot tell how old it is. Next, think about how God created Adam, how He created the animals, how He created everything. Did He create the chicken or the egg first? If you think about it, God didn't say "and let there be saplings" instead of trees "and let there be sperm and embryo floating in the air = Adam" instead of adult Adam. He basically created everything "mature". With this in mind, I find it very logical that He created the Earth already "mature", therefore, carbon dating would effectively measure the age of the earth.
Now although I voted 100% creationist on this poll, I do believe in a lot of evolution. [Creationists saying :blink: ] The church has for reasons I do not know taken that "word" and categorized it with the worst of words imaginable. The church tends to categorize it with the extremes, that monkey=man, dinosaurs=birds, mud=bacteria=aquatic invertabrate=land reptile=mammal=man or whatever it is I don't know, and that is evolution. We need to calm down because the first definition of evolution is:
"The change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next."
Now if the church really thought about that then it is point blank obvious and dead apparent that evolution happens all the time and happens everywhere! If evolution is just a change between generations (and then the "changes" that are selected for in the environment and reproduce more, etc) then I am a product of evolution by my parents. We all are, as not a single human life form on this planet has an identical genotype to another (now now, lets not get into cloning threads!) It is obvious we are getting smarter, taller, etc. That is evolution, it is right there in the flesh, it is not unbiblical to believe in evolution. It is unbiblical to believe in things contradictory to God's word and those are not. There is nothing in the Bible that I do not believe in. I believe 100% of it is true, and unlike a lot of Christians these days I spend my time believing the entire thing instead of picking out the things I like.
Evolution also basically means adaption. It is very obvious that organisms adapt whether right away or over a long period of time. Ever since I started keeping Ts in my room and bought a heater to keep the room at a constant 80F, I hardly EVER sweat unless things outside get extremely hot. (Ok so that's not exactly evolution but my point is that the church would probably deny that if it was in fact considered "evolution"). The church needs to remove some of that narrow-mindedness from its often heavily biased teachings and instead of labeling the word "evolution" as the devil, teach what parts of it are obvious and do happen, and teach about what parts to watch out for that are contradictory to the Holy Bible.
Something else I would like people to keep in mind; I find it simply too hard to believe that the Earth happened by chance. I mean when you think about the amazing things out there, how we have a zoo of organisms and cells that live in us to carry out our every day functions. How the sun comes up and the flowers bloom and the rains come and the birds fly and how each animal is unique in its own way. How some animals defend themselves, how some breed, and how some just simply behave. How we have incredible mountains, canyons, oceans, night skies, etc. I don't believe that it came out of mud or crashing meteors or a big anomatopoeia. That's like saying a beatiful painting drew itself over time. I believe that a God with all of the knowledge there is, with humor, creativity, authority, passion, and skill, He created the Earth as a beautiful place perfect in design, and put us here to enjoy it while we can because of His love for us.
By looking at the incredible diversity and immaculate complexity of our natural world, which belief would require more faith: beating the odds against a number unimaginable, that everything evolved from nothing and formed the earth by CHANCE alone, or, was it all simply composed by a very creative and almighty God who knew exactly what He was doing?
Regardless, I like to know I was created by a loving God who cares about me above all things, that I have a purpose here, and am given a promise. Therefore, believing I came from a pile of dirt is simply unmatched...
I could really go on forever, and ever, and as I read my Bible and pray I could go on + another forever. But I won't. Thanks for reading this far guys

That's really all I would like to say and would prefer not to get attacked on anything as that is when the playing with fire ignites. We all have our own stubborn beliefs and as Peter said, life is full of mysteries and one day some day they will be solved.
~Cody