More Evolutionary Nonsense

Let me take a different slant on this.

Most science (all science?) builds on what has been discovered before it. Every chemical experiment does not require you to reinvent all the chemistry that has come before you to explain what is happening. You take the work and the discoveries of others and build upon it.

But you would have biologists and paleontologists do something different. Based on what you say, every new fossil should not be studied based on what has been discovered before. There is something wrong with digging up a new fossil and comparing it to what has been dug up before and in light of the accepted scientific theories of the day. You should have a new interpretation for each find based solely on that find. You should not try and tie it to other finds. You should not compare it to data from other fields.

Why would you take this area of science and do it so differently than all others? What is wrong about using the finds of a well supported and widely accepted theory to judge new finds?

 

Would you please stop taking Scripture out of context? It is clear in the context exactly what Paul is talking about. </font>[/QUOTE]so tell me what is paul saying in that verse?? </font>[/QUOTE]I take it that Paul is speaking of those who falsely worship idols of the corruptable world, whether it be worshipping a man or a golden calf, instead of the incorruptable God. Thus making, in their mind, the corruptable creation equal to the incorruptable God. The context gives some idea of the problems that these people then run into. [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]yes, much like those who worship a non biblical god that is made from the false science and imagination of those who suppose that their god lied when death is part of a theory of evilution and their god misled the world

 

In Romans chapter one, Paul is talking about people who find it easier to worship the creature more than the Creator. This could very well apply to people who claim to be Christians and yet believe in evolution. These people hold to what they supposed the fossil evidence, made of of animal bones, shows them instead of what the Word of God plainly says.

It is impossible to believe the Bible and believe in evolution. You may say that you do, but you are only fooling yourself. You might as well call God a lier.

 

Terry some of these guys seem to have a problem with Rom 1:23 but I really think 21 and 22 fits them better:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Romans 1:21-22

In case there is again a question let me attempt to explain my intended application of these verses. 21 says that although these evolutionists recognize that there is a God they do not give Him the credit He deseres as creator of all. They also are not thankful either for His gift of life nor of His word that describes how He created. After rejecting God as the creator that His word claims they went wild with imaginations until their hearts were darkened to the truth. Vs 22 I hope is self explanatory.

Murph

 

So, are we going to get an evolution forum some day soon, or are we just going to post these things in the general forums?

 

God has never made these claims, man has interpreted them to his own limited understanding at the time of the interpretation, then tries with all his might to hold on to these Biblical misinterpretations. Later when it is no longer accepted, he then figures out why he didn't really have to interpret the Bible in such a way and can then accept the new facts.

This argument didn't start with evolution; it has been going on since the beginning. Our forefathers held onto the belief that God had "ordained" slavery, but that too past away.

It is only a matter of time when evolution will be mainstreamed into every Christian faith. It does not change salvation for man. It is just a base for argument blinded by ignorance.

 

Originally posted by post-it:
It is only a matter of time when evolution will be mainstreamed into every Christian faith.
__________________________________________________

NEVER!
Not in my faith, nor in the doctrinal statement of any Church I would attend.

 

Most likely the same cry yelled when science proclaimed that the world was round instead of flat; as was the common interpretation from the Church at the time.


Let me ask you this. If it evolution were accepted as fact today as we do the round earth position, would that really make you a non-believer? Does the flat earth position and the evolution postion negate the Bible or could they both be brought in line with scripture... as I think they do?

 

Originally posted by post-it:
Originally posted by Watchman:
NEVER!
Not in my faith, nor in the doctrinal statement of any Church I would attend.
__________________________________________________
Most likely the same cry yelled when science proclaimed that the world was round instead of flat; as was the common interpretation from the Church at the time.


Let me ask you this. If it evolution were accepted as fact today as we do the round earth position, would that really make you a non-believer? Does the flat earth position and the evolution postion negate the Bible or could they both be brought in line with scripture... as I think they do?
__________________________________________________

As to the first part, there are references in the Bible that indicate that the earth, indeed, is round. It was declared flat by the apostate church at that time. Science, in coming to the conclusion that the world is round, simply caught up with God's word. One needs to be a good Berean and search the scriptures to see if these things (whatever it may be)is so, and not take as truth when someone says, "This is truth, trust me."

As for the second part, I'm not quite following you. The round earth, as I stated, is compatable with the Bible. Evolution is not.
God declared through the inspired writer in John chapter 1:
"All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made."
The only way for the evolutionist position to be valid is that you must say, "No, He did not."

 

Murph

You ask a good question. I do not know how much of my other posts on this subject you have seen. I cannot ever recall you getting involved in one of these discussions before, but on the other hand I would expect that as a moderator you follow number of things rather closely even if you stay out of it.

Two things before I get to your question. First, the reason I asked the question. There seems to be a population here suddenly stirred up that their might be some evoltionists in their midst. That's fine and expected here. But what is unusual to me is that there seems to be a pride in knowing absolutely nothing about evolution but still fiercely opposing it. In this case Mark is strongly dismissing the data that whales evolved and I do not think he has ever even examined any of the evidence. I do not know how you can be so sure that the data is bad if you refuse to even look at what is being said. I am just pointing out to the lurkers that he will assert a lot but that he hasn't really looked at the topics nor will he actually look into things. Second, as has been posted in the last couple of hours by others, is there any chance that the dedicated CvE forum will be coming back anytime soon? I feel somewhat uncomfortable debating this here, but I am stirred up as well. Some of these topics need to be broken up into seperate threads but I, personally, have to refuse to start it in these general forums but I will join in if someone else starts one. It might be less disruptive to segregate this back off so that only the interested parties are wading through. I am not trying to tell anyone how to run their board, I just thought that as a moderator you might have some influence.

Now, on with the show.

How much have I looked into it? Well quite a bit. Now I grew up YEC. I made it through college and into adulthood as YEC and with a pretty strong distrust of the "evilution" as someone above put it. But I have always been one to be really interested in science among other things. When I would go to my grandmother's as a child (the one that played the organ in our rural Southern Baptist church, the one that was way out spoken and conservative, the one that was instrumental in leading me to Christ, the one I probably spent more time with in the first 16 years of my life than maybe even my parents [at least close]) had a Nation Geographic subscription for me to read while I was there because it was the kind of thing I was interested in. I can remember reading the big issue about the Space Shuttle Columbia before its first launch. The launch was in 1981 so the issue must have been in 1980 or 81. I was born in 1973 so I was interested in and reading that kind of material since I was no older than 7 or 8. It is in my nature. I grew up to work in a physical chemistry research lab from my freshman year of college and work in clean coal research as an adult. It is part of my personality. I'm a geek.

So though these things interested me, I believed in a young earth so I just had to find a way to feed my curiosity while dismissing all those parts that conflicted with that worldview I had. Well, one day a few years ago, it really hit me that I was simply dismissing a lot of information because it did not fit with what I believed but that I had never actually looked at the scientific evidence for a young earth. It must be there I thought. So I go looking. I cannot describe how disappointed and angered I was with what I found. I'd read these supposed proofs of a young earth and I would be climbing up the walls (ooh, can I use metaphor ) by the end because of how obviously wrong all the material was. Such a misunderstanding of basic science and of even how science works. Misquoting scientists. Making claims that were either purposefully deceitful or that indicated that the person speaking had so little knowledge of the subject that he was misrepresenting himself to be acting as an authority on it. The one that pushed me over the edge, as an engineer, was the whole Second Law of Thermodynamics and entropy thing. My blood boiled over at what these people were doing in the name of God. God certainly does not need people to lie for him, Martin Luther's staement on that issue not withstanding.

So I started to examine both sides. Pick a topic, see what both sides had to say, decide who made sense, and move on to a new topic. I soon became of the opinion that only the evolutionist (let's go ahead and group astronomy and geology in there as well) were making good arguments and putting forth good data. The creationists did a lot of asserting, a lot of quote mining (almost always out of context. Deceitful and dishonest), a lot of personal attacks, a lot of willfull misunderstanding, a lot of mischaracterization, but rarely any real evidence or well reasoned arguments. And relunctantly, I began to see that the scientific evidence for an old universe, an old earth, and for common descent were overwhelming and with little doubt. Even for someone like me who had always believed otherwise and who came to the table inclined to doubt what they had to say. Maybe I was a little more likely to be open because of my natural scientific curiosity. (The curiosity extends beyond science to almost every aspect of my life. Yeah, I am one of those people who have to touch everything they see, pick it up and play with it. Who will read voraciously on any subject that finds my fancy.)

So now I get to your question. Here I am, with my worldview not only challenged, but turned upside down. I find real quickly that when I try and discuss it with my Christian friends that the immediate response is either a very bored I don't know and I don't care about that or the volcanic reponse of people like Mark and Terry. So I have learned to keep it kind of quiet at church and around most people in general. It is not worth the trouble. The other side of the coin is that this lead to a lot of Bible study and prayer in the relevant Scriptures trying to figure things out. And the more I read the Bible, the more I prayed and the more I looked at the positions of both sides, the more secure I became that the means God used to create what we have was largely natural. So to answer the question, I have looked at it quite a bit.

Now, about the Bible. IMHO, the Bible is meant to be a revelation of God to us. To use it as a scientific text is outside the scope of how it was intended. It was written by the people of the day in a way in which they could understand and use what was being said. As an example, somewhere in the last week I have posted a few verses that I think support the idea that the writers of the Bible reflected the view of the day of a flat, round earth surrounded by the deep and with a vault covering the earth. It doesn't make the Bible wrong for it to reflect how the people of the day saw things. Any attempt to try and pull scientific truths from the Bible is counter to its purpose and of little value. The Bible is not used to try and help with modern chemistry or physics. You would be at a loss to try and learn anything about the planets of the solar system or about their orbital mechanics using the Bible. It says nothing about heredity or sunspots. You cannot use it for fusion research or to help find oil and gas. The Bible reflects the science of the day and can have no possible bearing on what is being discovered scientifically today. Some will occasionally try and stretch some verse to pretend that it predicted some modern scientific discovery. But you never hear of people actually interpreting the verse that way before the actual discovery and there is usually a clear meaning to the text different than what is being proposed. (See the recent thread where someone tried to say that the book of Job tells that the earth is in a circular orbit about the sun. Puh-lease.) These people are a bit like those that read their horoscope or Nostradamis supporters. They can read any interpretation they want into it after the fact. But not before.

Taking the creation account as metaphor or allegory or myth does nothing to change the truth of what is being communicated. The important truths are that God is the creator. That man has been given a soul in the image of God. This gives man a special relationship with God. But man is sinful and rebellious and will decay into a vile state if left to his own desires. Man is in need of the saving grace of Jesus. Only the death of Jesus, perfect and God incarnate, can cover our sins. These are the truths. These are the things we try and convince people of. We do not win converts by pointing to Genesis and pointing out what was created on the third day or the fifth day. We point out that all have fallen short of the glory of God, that all have sinned, the the price of sin is eternal seperation from God and eternal punishment, that God sent His Son to be killed to cover our sins, that He rose on the third day and has gone to prepare a place for us, that we must repent of our sins and call on Jesus to save us. None of this is affected by whether the creation conveys a spiritural truth or a literal truth. In fact, I think you take away from the spiritural truth by being so hung up on the literal part. You cannot see the forest for the trees.

And I agree with Post-It that eventually this too will be accepted by the church. I do not expect to see it in my lifetime, but it will happen. The parallels to the revolution of Galileo and Copernicus are amazing. But eventually most came to see that a non-geocentric system was not really at odds with the Bible, despite all the howling and jailings and insistence of how a literal reading of the Scriptures proved an unmoving earth. Eventually people will see that accepting the findings of astronomy and geology and biology is not really a threat to their faith and that there is something more significant to what the Bible is trying to tell us than what the literalists are insisting on. They will see that it is hard to convince people that you have the TRUTH when you insist on a requirement to reject essentially all of modern science to get the truth. And just as we have a few people around here today that still insist on a universe that revolves around the earth, there will be some who just cannot bring themselves to accept reality.

To briefly respond to your comments on Romans. I certainly do glorify and priase God and recognize Him as Creator, even if I do not do it in your way. I am quite thankful about what has been done and given. And I do not like the insinuation that to look at the world around you and accept what you find is the same as those who in their foolishness reject God. God certainly is the creator, I just happen to disagree with you on the details. Even though I think that your opinion is as wrong as you think my opinion is, I do not think of you as a fool nor as unwise. I do not think that the other side affords me the same respect. Go ahead and keep insisting that I do not think of God as the creator. Go ahead and say I do not believe the Bible. Go ahead and call me a heretic and wicked and an infidel and what ever other slanders you can think of. It is not true, but that will not get in any of your ways. And neither will any of you look at the actual evidence before hurling your spears. Who knows, you might just change your mind if you would allow yourself to look. Maybe that's why you cannot allow that. Too challenging to your worldview to think you might be wrong. It was hard on me.

I apologize for being so long with this. There was a lot that needed to be said. I hope that you read it all before coming after me.

 

Post-It
To follow up on what I said, that a round earth is indeed biblical:
Pro.8:27 "...when he set a compass upon the face of the earth.
Isa.40:22 "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth..."
I know, you never said that these passages were not in the Bible, that's not the point. My point is that these passages have always been there and that all that the people had to do to know the earth was round back then was to read the Bible.
UTEOTW
First, let me apologize to you and Murphy here for the intrusion into your conversation.
I read your post and where you are coming from seems to be two-fold.
1. The compelling evidenence for evolution.
2. Considering that, could not that be how God created?
1. Surely you know also that there are a number of very learned people that are starting to see the same evidence, and are coming to the conclusion that this must be by intellegient design.
2. The trouble with this view is that all through Genesis 1 it says, "And God said..." As well as other passages that plainly state that everything that was made, was made by Him. Please see that many of do have a great deal of trouble making evolution capatable with the Bible.
With Love,
Charles

 

No need to apologize. I could have made it a PM if I wanted it private. Some have a great deal of hostility towards those who think like me. I am trying very hard to be completely honest with what I think and how I came to think this way.

You seem to have the gift of succinctness, something I seem to lack.

Yeah. I am not quite as familiar with ID as I should be, but I think I understand the basics and then some. Two things with intelligent design. One, I do not see where it is that different from theistic evolution. I know I have read where Behe, the father of "irreducibly complex," accepts common descent. You have theistic evolution where God created the initial conditions and then let nature take its course to where He had intended. ID seems to add that He may have had to intervene a few times in areas where nature could not do it by itself. A very subtle difference when theistic evolution is already starting with God being in control. Two, ID does nothing to address the points made by those who hold a literal interpretation.

On second thought, maybe both of those were really just one objection.

Which is sort of why I have come to the position that I have to take it as a metaphor, allegory, whatever. If you say that the purpose was to communicate spiritural truths and the 6 day creation was putting those truths into a form that the people of the day could comprehend, then these types of objections melt away. Since you read the above, I think you should be able to tell that this is a point I have struggled with. But I think that I have come to the correct conclusion. And I really do think that there is something being missed when you focus so hard on the literal reading. There are powerful truths in there about God, man and creation if you look at the message. It sets the basis for everything else. I just seem to hold a minority view that it does not have to be literal to tell that message. Many of you do. I just want those that hold that position to have at least examined enough of the data to know what is out there and be able to make an informed decision to reject it.

 

Before I go to sleep I just noticed something. The banner ad at the top of the BaptistBoard was for a website called Answers in Creation. I clicked the ad and it took me to the home page. Quoting from the main page.

http://www.answersincreation.org/

 

1Cr 1:20 Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

1Cr 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

please people do not buy into this theory of evolution the scientific tools that predict age of substance has already been tested to be very unreliable. if you mix that with Gods word you will see by faith that God didn't mislead us in His word. death and decay has come due to the fall of man in sin, it is not part of a creation cycle. i do believe it is spiritually dangerous to buy into the liberal evolution and metaphor theorys. becareful you just might buy into believing in a non biblical god.