Evolutionary Propoganda - A True Story

Equivocation alert: after I identified macroevolution as changing genera (like cat to dog), you attempted to introduce evidence supporting macroevolution with speciation (like wolf to dog). Foul!

 

Travelsong,

If you can't believe one point, might as well throw out the whole Bible.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

I believe the Bible in it's entirety. I happen to hold a different interpretation of the Genesis creation account than you. I believe it is not meant to be taken as a literal six days. But regardless you have not answered my question. Many young earth creationists act as though this is a core truth in our faith. Many will doubt your salvation if you don't believe in a young earth. So what I am asking is this: What fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith is contradicted or violated by believing the earth is very, very, very old?

 

The basics of Fundamentalism are:

1. the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture
2. the diety of Christ
3. the substitutinary atonement of Christ's death
4. the literal resurrection of Christ from the dead
5. the literal return of Christ in the Second Advent

No young earth theory here ...

 

I looked, it is. And I didn't just accept it -- I studied biogeography at the Ph.D. level. Thanks to my parents, I started life as a Christian accepting the findings of mainstream science. When I got to college, YEC was all the rage, so I signed on -- became a "true believer" in YEC. After I examined all the evidence I could find, I realized two things: 1) the standard theories of evolution, geology, etc. may not be perfect, but they best explain the current data; and 2) even if evolution is false, YEC is not true. YEC has to all intents and purposes been scientifically falsified. I've returned to an acceptance of standard science.

This is illogical. It's like saying that if one number in a telephone directory is incorrect, the enitre directory is useless. If interpretation is considered, the situation is even worse; it's like saying if I misread a single number in a telephone directory, the enitre directory is useless.

Thanks, Ed. You're right, YEC/non-YEC should never be made a salvation issue. Neither should it be made an issue which divides Christians along grounds of faith or intellect. Some very learned and intelligent people like Kurt Wise choose to believe in YEC through faith, even though they believe the evidence points to evolution. I looked at the evidence and my own faith and chose a different path.

And science is contingent -- it's findings may change tomorrow. But looking "through a glass darkly" as we do now, our faith is also contingent. Someday all our contingent truths will be reconciled with The Truth. Until that day, we have to weigh the evidence of mind and heart and make choices.


-Neil

 

My source is "Evidence That Demands a Verdict, " by Josh McDowell (my copy is lent out, so I don't have the page handy(.

 

Saying that belief in evolution does not affect the primary tenets of the faith is quite disturbing.
How can one believe in evolution and also believe that man needs to be saved? The Death, Burial and Resurection of Jesus Christ were all pointless if evolution is true. Death did not precede man's fall, so how many million years did Adam and Eve live before the Fall? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Evolution and Christianity do not fit. Eventually one or the other will have to go.

 

I'm not sure as to what degree I accept evolution, but that is kind of irrelevant. This notion that the redemptive work of Christ would be rendered pointless if fish, lions and birds died before the fall is the silliest YEC argument of them all. Where in Scripture is there any indication that Christ's death, burial and ressurrection are in any way related to the animal or plant kingdom?

Romans 5:12: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned

Wherever death as a result of sin is addressed in Scripture, it is always in relation to MAN. Jesus didn't die to save pigs and elephants. I encourage you to read all of Romans 5.

 

Equivocation alert: after I identified macroevolution as changing genera (like cat to dog), you attempted to introduce evidence supporting macroevolution with speciation (like wolf to dog). Foul! </font>[/QUOTE]Funny, I doubt you're qualified at all to define macroevolution. Most Creationists have always maintained that species were the things that God created indivudally; I see, now that we have observed speciation, a change in genus is now needed to satisfy you. I suppose, if we ever observe a change in genus (which I doubt, because that wouldn't happen in a lifetime), then a change in family or phylum would be needed.

For the record, evolution is simply defined as the change of allele frequency in a population.

 

Oh, well in that case, since that happens and changes of genera don't, and since God's Word is true, then evolution happens and what ordinary people think of as evolution doesn't. Good. All cleared up. There is no microevolution or macroevolution, just variations in allele frequencies.

 

Actually, that information came from a former Air Force compatriot with a Master of Science in Chemistry from the University of Delaware. He did his B.A. in the 70s and his M.S. in the 80s, and he had a difficult time the first semester of his graduate program, because some of the basic understandings had changed in the ensuing period.

My original contention remains unchallenged; Scientific "facts" change constantly, or at least our understanding of them.

[ October 11, 2003, 04:57 PM: Message edited by: Major B ]

 

Don't put words into my mouth.

Variation in allele frequencies are the smallest "unit" (think of it as you would an atom as part of matter) of evolution.

We have observed instances of speciation. We have the fossil record chronicling the evolution of an ape-like ancestor into man. Embryology supports a common ancestor. Anatomical vestiges also support macroevolution. We also have molecular vestiges, such as the inability to syntehsize ascorbic acid - something that our closest ancestors also have.

Tell me, what is your background in biology? Have you even taken biology at the postsecondary level? Or does your steadfast interpretation of Genesis just make you afraid to find the truth?

Major B, I agree with you that scientific knowledge and interpretations of the data often changes. Where I disagree with you is your connotations that this is a bad thing. If science didn't change to fit new data, what possible good could it be? Would you rather it simply refuse to change interpretations, even when a new theory would better fit newly available evidence?

 

1. You need to re-read the series of posts; I wasn't saying that it was good or bad, just that using scientific "facts" to disprove the Bible was unreliable, since scientific "facts" often are disproven by later scientific inquiry.

2. A lot of scientific change is not because of new data, but because of new interpretations and explanation of old data.

3. On the other hand, with the Bible there is no new data, and among the orthodox, changes in interpretation happen only slowly, if at all, and then only in non-essential issues.

[ October 11, 2003, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: Major B ]

 

1. You need to re-read the series of posts; I wasn't saying that it was good or bad, just that using scientific "facts" to disprove the Bible was unreliable, since scientific "facts" often are disproven by later scientific inquiry.

</font>[/QUOTE]As Christians, we know that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God; therefore, science is obviously not going to disprove the bible. What science CAN do is disprove an interpretation of the bible - and evolution, with the mountains of evidence supporting it, has certainly disproved a literal interpretation of Genesis.

 

It is my observation that whenever modernists are shown to be full of baloney they resort to the "you just don't understand" defence.

Mark Osgatharp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To elaborate on my comment a bit more, both the Valence Bond Theory and the Molecular bond theory are still in use. So it is not a matter of one supplanting the other as the poster thought. Of course, Mark with your vast scientific background, maybe you can show me incorrect?

 

Don't put words into my mouth. </font>[/QUOTE]I didn't. You said:

Well, it hasn't changed the peppered moth any...

Speciation doesn't bother me. A wolf can turn into a dog, but a cat can't.

The fossil record chronicles the extinction of a number of hominids.

Embryology? I hope you're not suggesting the long-discredited "ontology recapitulates philology" idea. For example, "gill slits" in an embryo don't develop from or into tissues matching gills.

What "vestiges" do you have in mind?

Yes, that's true--my grandparents and great-great-grandparents couldn't do that, either. Neither can a cavia porcellus. But I don't know anyone who denies that we are primates. Do you?

Three terms of college biology, including one full term of evolution and genetics; a half-year of human physiology; and also a term each of physical anthropology and medical & psychiatric anthropology.

And no, I am not afraid to find the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is truth, taught that Genesis was historically true, as did His apostles Peter and Paul. With the loose rabbinical methods of midrash, He could've taught that it was allegorical, but instead He accepted and taught it as authentic history. If it isn't, then He lied or erred or was ignorant of the creation Paul wrote He had participated in. If it isn't, the Bible has no foundation, Jesus Christ had no foundation, and Christian faith has no foundation. And a god of evolution is decidedly not the God of the NT.

Thank God for Henry Morris, John Whitcomb, Michael Denton, Michael Behe, William Dembski, Duane Gish, and Phillip Johnson, harbingers of the coming paradigm shift!

Tauf, ex-evolutionist

 

The theory of evolution is false. Period.

Man did not die physically, according to the Bible, until after man sinned. Therefore, Adam and Eve had to be as we are today - recognizable as modern man, not some pre-modern-man animal.

The theory of evolution requires death to make it work. Therefore, it is incompatible with the Biblical teaching that no person died until after man sinned.

Anyone who places his faith in the theory of evolution and Christ Jesus at the same time is of two minds, sitting on the fence, and should make up his mind whether he is going to believe man or believe God.

He should choose whom he will serve, man's theories or God the Creator(not God the Facilitator of evolution).

 

Amen!

 

1. If Genesis is not literal, there was no Fall and Jesus was a liar, for He certainly viewed Adam and Eve as a literal first couple. If the first chapters of Genesis are not literal, then man is possibly not made in God's image, we are possibly not God's managers over creation, the basic fabric of human society is possibly not marriage between man and woman, etc.

2. As for "mountains of evidence" for evolution, there is nothing in evolutionary theory which cannot be explained in other ways more consistent with the Bible. Furthermore, there are no scientific advances in biology or medicine that depended upon evolution for their generation.

3. The theory of Macroevolution has one set of purposes: to undermine Biblical truth, to cheapen the human race by making us the accidental result of chance, to reduce us to a blob of cells, to make human life not sacred, and to equate the human race with animals. No wonder that kids fed this swill act like animals, or worse.