Evolution & common descent: facts. I'll answer all questions and criticisms
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CREMATOR666 said:I was ONCE a Christian, but now I'm an atheist. Religion is just like rules, in my belief, rules that are constructed since the stone age to keep us tied to someone or something. Although I'm not saying that having no rules is proper, I believe that something that is used to control people and giving them the illusion of freedom is wrong. As for the evolution, I remains neutral, I didnt say it occured or not but I will state that I'm a person of science and will not believe inthe normal Christian beliefs that God created man simply from a piece of bone. (or something like that)
You were never a Christian if you think religion is just rules. That's exactly what Christianity is about: how the grace of God saves us, not our own good works.
The Monkey
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Evolution is proved to be correct. There are no "buts". That is not a theory, it's a fact. That's at least what I've learned.
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taeil234
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Apos said:
Well that's where all land animals came from out of the beach. And I guess that's how I devolved. I really don't recommend it though. It really fried my brain. And I really freaked out after that. Just totally questioned reality itself all together.
Besides it's a beautiful place. You look at this world of ours. And pure science make things SOOOOOOO clinical. They take the romanticism out of it. You know. You can't jerk off to anatomy book as you do a porno. You can't just lose sight of the beauty of this world without appreciating who made it all possible. Science is overtly way too ****ing intellectualized. This world is paradise that God gave us free will to ruin. Sometimes maybe we should have all stayed as tribal societies.
Science is wayyyy to dangerous though. I'm not saying there's nonsense to it. It's just that you know science can be a religion itself. One of the most ardent promoters of evolution and social darwinism are white supremacists and imperialists. I'm talking about Nazi's here. You know the notion of genetic "superiority". Science gave us the atomic bomb. Science gave us hormones in our foods we eat. Science will lead us to another future of bullshit. Thanks alot.
Here's a evolution related issue. Currently many countries in the post development world are now facing a true crisis. It's the weakening of our immune system and genetic disabilities. We as a people are able to become fat asses and go live life normally even if we have serious disabilities. An example would be my own severe near sightedness. If we were still tribal third world societies I would be dead. But there would be any near sighted people anymore cause we don't get to breed and pass it on to our young. You know natural selection.
We have medicine now that are able to cure many diseases. But our own natural immune systems are suffering because of it. Now the scary thing is these diseases have evolved into new strains that are able to resist antibiotics and many other forms of medical procedures. This is a potential medical epidemic.
There's been great things to come out of science and technology. We have computers now and without technology we as a race would not have created art, music, and all those great pleasures in life. Like Half Life 2. However it is a double edged sword.
You know what thanks alot science. We now have overpopulation problem because of you. Science has led us into consuming the Earth's LIMITED amount of resources more than ever and this may cause serious repocusions including the end of the first world lifestyle and even complete human extinction.
Who knows where our future lies, but having faith that technology will be a cure for everything is a ****ing sham and having any real faith that humans will pull through to such adversity is kinda retarded. Again we really don't need this humanity bullshit. Join the Church of Euthanasia today and don't have kids.
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taeil234
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PvtRyan said:
**** this is some freaky shit but the US government were actually able to breed a half human/ half chimp using artificial insemination. I swear to God I saw the shit on the History Channel. No ****ing lie. No ****ing joke. I even saw the thing in old black and white footage. It looked like a baby with down syndrome. The thing was soon exterminated and kept under wraps. Cause you... PLAYING GOD WITH SCIENCE OPENS UP A CAN OF WORMS THAT INVOLVE SERIOUS QUESTION OF MORAL/SOCIAL/POLITICAL/PHILOSOPHIC UNDERSTANDING THAT YOU DON'T SEEM TO GET AND SCIENTISTS EITHER FOR DOING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
P.S. You don't understand anything about speciation do you? Just shut up dude. Okay? An example would be the fact a horse can **** a donkey and make a mule but the mule aren't able to breed since it is a product of two different species. They have the same chromosone count so that that they are able to breed a really weird ass organism.
I mean come on. Tigers can **** lions and they also produce young.
K
Kommie
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the genes of a monkey are too different from a humans for cross reproduction, they die in the womb. Monkeys are missing many required chromosomes. Donkeys and horses on the other hand have signifigantly greater similiarities in their genetics.taeil234 said:
Do lions and tigers breed together for the magic prowess?
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taeil234
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Hey yeah sorry I wasn't keeping in check who was arguing for or against evolution oooooops. I did take the comment as a joke but also as a creationist argument. (har har har har). oh me. I think I'm gonna put my pre evolutionary tail between my legs and ska daddle.... (i guess that why ur job's being a ref)bliink said:
Anyways for the concept of the "not enough chromosone" thing. Well thing is it happened. It's freaky as hell and should not be possible but it happened. Like people who have down syndrome are misaligned with their chromosome number. But they come out of the oven. And well I DON'T KNOW WHY THE **** they would do something like that but they did.
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taeil234
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Yeah I agree with all above. I got pissed off at PvtRyan with his joke since I had an expereince where this creationist used such an argument. He almost said it word for word minus the "wild crazy sex". Creationists would argue that if we are descended from apes they question why we cannot breed with them now. Of course the answer lies in the basic concepts behind speciation.
Although my comparison of a kid with downs to a half chimp child is way off, that's my only clue in why such a freak of nature thing would happen. Cause you know, myosis occurs with two compatible and very similarly genetic sperm and egg in order to concieve.
Even with science it would be an impossible concept but what if it did happen? Yeah such discussion are much more in line with the way out there conspiracy concepts. But what if it did happen. Maybe the video footage and documents was made up for sensationalism on some tv show on the History Channel. But think about the consequences when something like that would have been blown up all across the world. It will definitely shut the creationists up but it would baffle biologists from what they've learned in textbooks. Then people would also have to question what is "human". There's a also a notion that an actual human has already been cloned. But we don't wanna deal with that do we? Hey, it's a good thing such things are kept under wraps... And don't get me started on those biozeminades...
I mean it's fair to say shit happens that really can't be explained. There's that story of the dude who tried offing himself by jumping off Niagra Falls and surviving without a scratch in his body. He became a freak devout Christian after that, but isn't something like that happening be considered a miracle? It doesn't really follow the laws of probability. Look at life carefully. Look at those around and you'll find many freaks of nature.
Although my comparison of a kid with downs to a half chimp child is way off, that's my only clue in why such a freak of nature thing would happen. Cause you know, myosis occurs with two compatible and very similarly genetic sperm and egg in order to concieve.
Even with science it would be an impossible concept but what if it did happen? Yeah such discussion are much more in line with the way out there conspiracy concepts. But what if it did happen. Maybe the video footage and documents was made up for sensationalism on some tv show on the History Channel. But think about the consequences when something like that would have been blown up all across the world. It will definitely shut the creationists up but it would baffle biologists from what they've learned in textbooks. Then people would also have to question what is "human". There's a also a notion that an actual human has already been cloned. But we don't wanna deal with that do we? Hey, it's a good thing such things are kept under wraps... And don't get me started on those biozeminades...
I mean it's fair to say shit happens that really can't be explained. There's that story of the dude who tried offing himself by jumping off Niagra Falls and surviving without a scratch in his body. He became a freak devout Christian after that, but isn't something like that happening be considered a miracle? It doesn't really follow the laws of probability. Look at life carefully. Look at those around and you'll find many freaks of nature.
Apos
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ANY species? Lions and tigers are different species, and they CAN mate, some with fertile offspring. Species are arbitrarily defined by whether or not they naturally mate in the wild.
That's one type: Allopatric speciation. But there is also Parapatric Speciation, Hybridization (this is what caused wheat), and Sympatric Speciation (which is more controversial).
Apos
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I still find it chuckalicious that BMORIN came in here with such swagger and then apparently never came back to the halflife2 forums... ever again! It's been months now since his last visit. I'm just bitter that he never responded to defend his bold claims.
KoreBolteR
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lol i remember one time a dog mated with a Zebra, resulting in a Shebra. (dont know where the 'sh' came from).
and bliink when someone gets banned, how long are they banned for?
and bliink when someone gets banned, how long are they banned for?
redhollowpoint
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why couldnt god use evolution to make humans, i mean in the bible it never says anything against evolution. I personally god uses natural devices to create things.
Putting my own beliefs to one side, I don't see why you cannot believe in God and evolution at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive. Unless of course you go for a literal interpretation of your Old Testament and say, there are no dinosaurs or whatever. But thats just kind of silly stuff. I know some pretty fundamentalist Catholics (Opus Dei) types who have confided that they believe the whole Garden of Eden story is a simplified version of what happened, and they don't take it literally - other than, God created us, we let god down, things got bad after that.
But - as I say - thats not what I necessarily believe.
As for evolution not being observable - its very easily observable, even over a few hundred years. 4.5 billion years of evolution you can do all sorts of weird and wonderful things. And could a divine being made it all? Who knows. But it is at least possible.
I have read that the reason we are as smart as we are, is because, of competition for mates. That is, you do not need much smarts to get food, water, sleep.... but you do need to be smart, to outsmart the other males and get a female. Thats in a nutshell, the reasoning behind us being way smarter than nature would ever need us to be. I have heard other theories that the different forms of humans like Neanderthal and Cromagnon man interbred with homo sapiens, rather than became extinct.
With people of such small lifespan (100 years if lucky) it is hard to conceive of massive change happening over billions of years. But even the subtle adaptation occurring through those less resistant to air pollution dying before they can reproduce is skewing humans to be more resistant to air pollution over time....and thats only like a 200 year or so thing. Evolution is very subtle too. Its a bit like saying, hey I poured water on this rock, and it did nothing, so how can u say that running water erodes rocks....it doesn't! Well it does, it just takes a very, very long time.
But - as I say - thats not what I necessarily believe.
As for evolution not being observable - its very easily observable, even over a few hundred years. 4.5 billion years of evolution you can do all sorts of weird and wonderful things. And could a divine being made it all? Who knows. But it is at least possible.
I have read that the reason we are as smart as we are, is because, of competition for mates. That is, you do not need much smarts to get food, water, sleep.... but you do need to be smart, to outsmart the other males and get a female. Thats in a nutshell, the reasoning behind us being way smarter than nature would ever need us to be. I have heard other theories that the different forms of humans like Neanderthal and Cromagnon man interbred with homo sapiens, rather than became extinct.
With people of such small lifespan (100 years if lucky) it is hard to conceive of massive change happening over billions of years. But even the subtle adaptation occurring through those less resistant to air pollution dying before they can reproduce is skewing humans to be more resistant to air pollution over time....and thats only like a 200 year or so thing. Evolution is very subtle too. Its a bit like saying, hey I poured water on this rock, and it did nothing, so how can u say that running water erodes rocks....it doesn't! Well it does, it just takes a very, very long time.
Raziaar
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Having not read any posts at all in this huge topic, I want to ask this.
Is it impossible to rule out that when god created the earth and the universe, that he could have created it with the appearance of age? Is that so hard to believe? An aged world would be far more beautiful and diverse than a new one, on most accounts. Aged items are far more appealing in many aspects of life. Aged cheese, aged wine, aged oak.
Just not aged women. :burp:
Is it impossible to rule out that when god created the earth and the universe, that he could have created it with the appearance of age? Is that so hard to believe? An aged world would be far more beautiful and diverse than a new one, on most accounts. Aged items are far more appealing in many aspects of life. Aged cheese, aged wine, aged oak.
Just not aged women. :burp:
I kind of thought it was funny that the fundamentalist Christian dude got temporarily banned.
Im expecting my ban soon - I saw one of the mods is a kumbyah my lord. Aetheism does not make logical sense to believe it, but it makes no less logical sense than believing in a divine being.
ie the aetheist says 'I know there is no God'
and the Christian, Budhist, Taoist, Jew says 'I know there is a God, and he is like x'
The Agnostic says 'I neither believe nor do not believe in God. I do not know.' or as one of my religious teachers said 'Might be god. Might not be. Who gives a f_ck'
And the Agnostic makes the most sense. From a logical perspective. Because, to what extent have we toured the Universe to search for a divine being? I think most of us have never left this planet, even if some of us through missing our Risperodone on occassion may think we have. How do we not know, that there are not divine beings of all descriptions, holed away making plans throughout the universe? In addition, is it possible, that they exist outside of our universe - a place I can guarantee we cannot check.
So for my own head - I came to the conclusion that - there may be a God, or Gods, or people that would impress me sufficiently such as I perhaps would consider them Godlike, somewhere in the universe, or maybe somewhere external to it. But I do not know, and will never know, if this is the case or not. If I was to bet on it, my inkling would be, that there are not likely to be Gods or gods, leastways not ones that operate some form of caretaker role over the planet earth.
But religion operates on many levels - gives people peace of mind - when the though of dying forever and being wormfood might be too much to bear. Doesn't worry me personally, but others it may. In addition, the states co-opt religious precepts, and as a form of social control when the state is not around - ie, the police may not catch you, but God sees what you are doing. And if people need this sort of thing to either keep from breaking the law, or feel better about the fact they are gonna die, who am I to take this from them.
Doesn't maker much sense from a logical perspective though. The Agnositic is the most logical position to adopt.
Im expecting my ban soon - I saw one of the mods is a kumbyah my lord. Aetheism does not make logical sense to believe it, but it makes no less logical sense than believing in a divine being.
ie the aetheist says 'I know there is no God'
and the Christian, Budhist, Taoist, Jew says 'I know there is a God, and he is like x'
The Agnostic says 'I neither believe nor do not believe in God. I do not know.' or as one of my religious teachers said 'Might be god. Might not be. Who gives a f_ck'
And the Agnostic makes the most sense. From a logical perspective. Because, to what extent have we toured the Universe to search for a divine being? I think most of us have never left this planet, even if some of us through missing our Risperodone on occassion may think we have. How do we not know, that there are not divine beings of all descriptions, holed away making plans throughout the universe? In addition, is it possible, that they exist outside of our universe - a place I can guarantee we cannot check.
So for my own head - I came to the conclusion that - there may be a God, or Gods, or people that would impress me sufficiently such as I perhaps would consider them Godlike, somewhere in the universe, or maybe somewhere external to it. But I do not know, and will never know, if this is the case or not. If I was to bet on it, my inkling would be, that there are not likely to be Gods or gods, leastways not ones that operate some form of caretaker role over the planet earth.
But religion operates on many levels - gives people peace of mind - when the though of dying forever and being wormfood might be too much to bear. Doesn't worry me personally, but others it may. In addition, the states co-opt religious precepts, and as a form of social control when the state is not around - ie, the police may not catch you, but God sees what you are doing. And if people need this sort of thing to either keep from breaking the law, or feel better about the fact they are gonna die, who am I to take this from them.
Doesn't maker much sense from a logical perspective though. The Agnositic is the most logical position to adopt.
GhostFox
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Of course that could be possible, but from a logical standpoint you usually create something from the ground up.
I'm not religious, but I think that "god" could have created that first speck of life knowing that in billions of years it would evolve into humanity.
Why does god have to have created the flower? Couldn't he have just planted the seed?
Something I do think is funny is that the fundamentalist or Hassidic Jews claim that the Earth is only 5000 or so years old. When some Kosher milk had dinosaur stickers on them for kids in Israel, the Rabbis threatened to remove the kosher milks status as kosher, because, they said, of course we know that the Earth is only 5,500 or so years old (they get very specific and give an exact number) so there cannot have been dinosaurs and this is religious heresey!
Things are getting a bit silly when you have to ban children's dinosaur stickers to support your religious framework.
And as for only God creating life, while that may be a belief you hold, there is no factual basis for holding it. Does not mean its not correct. Just that there is nothing tangible to support that it is.
Things are getting a bit silly when you have to ban children's dinosaur stickers to support your religious framework.
And as for only God creating life, while that may be a belief you hold, there is no factual basis for holding it. Does not mean its not correct. Just that there is nothing tangible to support that it is.
Raziaar
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GhostFox said:
Thats another very plausible thing I believe could be true too. And besides... who the hell thinks when the bible talks about the god created earth thing, that the 'days' is actual 24 hours. It could be far more abstract and be represented in eons. Who knows. Oh well.
Apos
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Raziaar said:
Anything is _possible_ such as the belief that God created the world yesterday with the appearance of age. The real problem with such beliefs is that they are totally untestable, and they basically make any discussion of anything pointless. "Oh, well, I didn't kill that guy, it's all an illusion that god created of me doing it on that video" isn't going to convince many people in the real world.
I would really think the "appearance of age" thing would be more troubling to believers than to scientists (there is overlap between those groups, but still). That's because it basically makes god our to be a big charlatan: a trickster who creates a world full of lies about what it appears to be.
For instance, light from distant stars can take billions of years to reach us. If god merely created this light "in transit" as some creationists allege, that means that virtually everything we see in the night sky is a fake. Anything it purports to tell us about what happened to distants stars millions/billions of years ago is a lie. I don't really see that to be very beautiful.
Perhaps, but you can have all these effects without carefully crafting them to imply falsehoods about the world (for instance, that all these things imply the SAME ages about the Earhh and the universe. For instance, rings on a tree show the age of the tree. But let's say that we have a 500 year old tree, and that God actually created the world only 400 years ago. That means that up to ring 399, the tree is really telling us something about it's age, but the 400th ring is a fabrication. That's pretty low!
Anyway, if God wanted to create neat things, the real question is why he just wasn't a lot more creative than he was. A lot of his natural repitoire, even for all its beauty, seems bizarrely constrained and repetative: i.e. more like what we would expect from the interplat of a few natural laws than we would expect from a creator that could litterally create anything.
Apos
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Calanen said:
Well, you can define words how you want, but to me, atheist merely means "I don't believe in god." Certainly, saying that is enough to get you called an athiest in most parts.
But that's incoherent. It's one thing to say that you don't know something (either you know it or you don't), which is what most people mean these days by "agnostic." But it's a bit daft to say that you neither believe NOR don't believe. The bottom line is: either you believe something, or else you don't. Just as either you have an apple in your left hand right now, or you don't. It's patently illogical (called the rule of the excluded middle) to declare anything of the form "not A, and not not A either."
Incitatus
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Not up too chance? lol
there's only two ways it can go, there's chance and design nothing in between. By definition is something doesn't happen by chance it happens by design and vica versa. Even if usefull mutations, and this concept is totally illogical, are replicated the next mutation is still pure chance.
A 'good' mutation is like having 3 cards from a deck in a specific order. Then blowing against this deck and expecting the 3 cards to land on top of each other in inverted order.
((And a mutation HAS to lead to something working otherwise it is not replicated. This means entire genetic functions appearing at once.))
also I'd like to see a rebuttal of the second law of thermo dynamics, I'd be very interested if you can provide that.
there's only two ways it can go, there's chance and design nothing in between. By definition is something doesn't happen by chance it happens by design and vica versa. Even if usefull mutations, and this concept is totally illogical, are replicated the next mutation is still pure chance.
A 'good' mutation is like having 3 cards from a deck in a specific order. Then blowing against this deck and expecting the 3 cards to land on top of each other in inverted order.
((And a mutation HAS to lead to something working otherwise it is not replicated. This means entire genetic functions appearing at once.))
also I'd like to see a rebuttal of the second law of thermo dynamics, I'd be very interested if you can provide that.
K e r b e r o s
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I believe in Evolution, I just think they'res more to it then science can handle. It wants things to be testable -- well what was, is'int always whats going to be there.
I believe science should be more open, but many feel if science did that, they would be legitimizing the existence of a God. You dont have to do that -- but it would make matters great if we could explore all options; at least, eventually.
I believe science should be more open, but many feel if science did that, they would be legitimizing the existence of a God. You dont have to do that -- but it would make matters great if we could explore all options; at least, eventually.
Apos
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Maybe I can help raise some important questions here: how does design itself work? That is, it has to function in some WAY: there has to be an underlying means for designers to think and reason. So is it all chance? Or is there more to it than that?
You forgot that things can happen because of natural law/regularity/order. And, more importantly, that chance and law can interoperate in some very complex ways: which is exactly what evolution is. Chance is what provides the variation that natural regularity then non-randomly selects from.
How is it illogical? Anything a mutation can undo, it can also do. The vast majority of mutations are neutral in character: that is, they don't do anything. But of those that do, it's not exactly true that they are objectively "good" or "bad." Many mutations duplicate genes, and then the extra gene, because it's no longer linked to the original, changes in ways that create new features. These changes often take the shape of trait differences. But whether these differences are good or bad relies mostly on the environment. Lots of hair is good in cold environments, but a bad idea in warm aquatic environments.
Most mutations are, indeed, random. But that is precisely why they can't all be bad: they have no preference for doing "bad" things in particular. But then, on top of that, natural selection and DNA-error checking quickly weed out the truly bad mutations before they even get expressed, which skews things towards a range of at least somewhat still functional changes.
Well no, not really. Most of the multi-part genetic functions, where all pieces are needed to perform some function at some level, actually evolved from simpler systems, sometimes even systems that served completely different functions. Proteins and that entire level of interaction are actually pretty strange. Many of them can, with only small changes, end up adding new functions without entirely losing the old ones either.
Why would anyone need to rebut it? It's a statistical law of energy, not a bar to evolution. Thinking that evolution violates the 2nd law is like thinking that hot air balloons violate gravity. If you think evolution violates the 2nd law, you need to explain what you mean.
Apos
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K e r b e r o s said:
The problem with trying to go outside of testability is that it would no longer be science in any meaningful sense: it would just be speculation or philosophy. Which is fine and all, but not very useful if what we are interested in is THE truth, as opposed to just what ever individual person might believe.
If science tossed out the criterion of testability, it would be legitimizing a whole lot more than God: it would mean that any unsupportable belief, whether religious or not, would have a seat at the table, so to speak. This includes invisible giant teapots orbiting Jupiter just as easily as it would a God.
But you can already do that simply by speculating or talking to people that share your particular beliefs. The difference is that you wouldn't have the assurity that a particular idea was true as opposed to another. The reason that science can deliver that sort of common agreement for a particular range of subjects is _precisely_ because it limits itself to subjects that can be tested and verified. All other matters are left for individual people to figure out as they wish.
Raziaar
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Thats not where I was going. And that his HIGHLY impossible anyways. God himself said he would not bend the will of mankind, and if he forced their hands in their history while they themselves were not able to act or anything, it would be doing just that.
Simply put, thats something god would not do, at least in part, due to what is written in the bible.
Seems like Apos is an agnostic, not an aetheist.
But is saying, 'I do not believe there is a God' the same thing as saying 'I know there is not one' or 'There is no God'.
Its perfectly consistent to say I neither believe nor disbelieve in God I do not know. You are saying, because one does not know, one should not believe. To your standard of proof perhaps, but not to anothers. Im in the same camp. There may be a God. There may not be. I don't have enough information to know other than to say, I don't know.
You are accused of theft. Someone asks me what I think. I know none of the facts about it. And I say, i neither believe nor disbelieve the claims that Apos is a thief, I do not know. But you will say to me, you must choose - that is an 'incoherent' opinion! No it is not. It is saying, I do not have the facts to either believe or disbelieve this statement. I do not know. It seems more 'incoherent' to believe either premise without further information.
But is saying, 'I do not believe there is a God' the same thing as saying 'I know there is not one' or 'There is no God'.
Its perfectly consistent to say I neither believe nor disbelieve in God I do not know. You are saying, because one does not know, one should not believe. To your standard of proof perhaps, but not to anothers. Im in the same camp. There may be a God. There may not be. I don't have enough information to know other than to say, I don't know.
You are accused of theft. Someone asks me what I think. I know none of the facts about it. And I say, i neither believe nor disbelieve the claims that Apos is a thief, I do not know. But you will say to me, you must choose - that is an 'incoherent' opinion! No it is not. It is saying, I do not have the facts to either believe or disbelieve this statement. I do not know. It seems more 'incoherent' to believe either premise without further information.
Raziaar said:
If this God you're speaking of is deceptive and deliberately set out to plant evidence that the universe was not as it seemed, sure. It's hypothetically possible. Just like it's hypothetically possible my friend's pet cat (who happens to have some impressive powers of his own) created the universe last Thursday with the appearance of age, complete with false memories for all it's inhabitants because it amused him.
I of course have no more reason to believe the first scenario is actually the case than I have reason to believe the second.
Frankly, yes. At least from where I'm standing.
Edcrab
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Heh, I suppose you can't rule anything out these days... I blame spiritual enlightenment, open-minded scientists and chaos theory. And cats. Stupid stuck up felines.
While it's true that an entity- for the sake of argument let's call it "God"- created everything with an apperance of age, I'd agree that it's definitely the least likely scenario proposed thus far. Well, within reason- gcomeau's Creationist Cat Hypothesis beats it fair and square, but I'm sure you're all aware of what I mean.
The entity, you see, could not be God- because it would be a deception that violated all his self-proposed laws. Either God is a hypocrite, a non-existent fantasy, or a being that put evolution and continental drift - and nature and reality as a whole- in motion.
Of course it's always possible that the universe was formed by an all-powerful being who wasn't a god identified in any of our religious texts...
While it's true that an entity- for the sake of argument let's call it "God"- created everything with an apperance of age, I'd agree that it's definitely the least likely scenario proposed thus far. Well, within reason- gcomeau's Creationist Cat Hypothesis beats it fair and square, but I'm sure you're all aware of what I mean.
The entity, you see, could not be God- because it would be a deception that violated all his self-proposed laws. Either God is a hypocrite, a non-existent fantasy, or a being that put evolution and continental drift - and nature and reality as a whole- in motion.
Of course it's always possible that the universe was formed by an all-powerful being who wasn't a god identified in any of our religious texts...