I agree.
Theistic evolution or non-theistic evolution
Discussion in 'Creation vs. Evolution' started by Robert H, Jun 16, 2003.
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Crabtownboy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Gen. 1 shows how the world evolved as God directed the process ... from the simple to the complex.
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Crabtownboy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Crabtownboy, how are you using/defining the word "evolution"? It generally means a process or gradual development of something from simple to complex. You mention the latter process -- but do not explain where Genesis 1 shows the development of simple to complex. If God speaks and it is, for example, then what is is, whether simple or complex. Where is the development?
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When I graduated from college, way back in 1976, with a degree in Biology, I was certain of a number of things, one being that "evolution" (which many use as a general tern for abiogenesis) was a fact just waiting to be proven. I was also an agnostic. [Side note: I taught school for one year, and in a student panel - which probably couldn't happen today - a student asked my religious beliefs. I responded that I was an agnostic, and the football coach, who was also on the panel, asked what that was. The moderator explained that an agnostic was someone who doesn't believe or disbelieve in God. The coach growled, "Why, you're just a wishy-washy atheist!"] After that one year of teaching, I went to work for a huge corporation in a management position, and remained there until I retired, never using my actual degree or remaining current in the field. I was saved in 1983, and baptized (I had been baptized as a young boy, about 12, in the Southern Baptist church, but I really didn't know what it truly meant at the time - it was something to be done.)
Today, I do believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. I believe that God created the universe and everything in it. I am an Old Earth creationist, and I believe that God gave us the Word as a testament to "Why" and not "How" (in other words, it isn't a biology or chemistry - my minor - textbook.) Evolution is a process that can be observed and reproduced (pun intended) in the lab, but it does not demonstrate the origins of life. (Darwin never claimed that it did, and science as far as I know today has not claimed to know the actual means by which life arose on Earth.) I believe that God is the originator and creator of life on Earth, and the creation account isn't specific as to the mechanics of that process in the same way my wife may say "I made a cake" but she doesn't detail all the individual steps and ingredients she used to make that cake.
I don't think God wants us to focus on the details or specific steps of "how." If He had, those details would have been provided. Also, bear in mind, at the time that Genesis was given to man, the general level of knowledge was far inferior than it is today, and it might have been like Hawking explaining string theory to a group of two year olds (or me, for that matter - physics is hard stuff - and two year olds grasp it better than I do!) God may very well have used evolution as a process to direct the formation and development of life in general, in the same way that my wife uses a number of ingredients and steps to make a cake. When it comes to Adam and Eve, however, I trust that the account in Genesis is sufficiently explicit to mean that they were a unique creation, embodied with a soul, that distinguishes them from the rest of God's creation.
Do I have questions? Yes, and I don't begin to think my "understanding" is correct or complete. I just accept by faith that God is the originator of life, and that the how doesn't matter...the why does. I hope there are classes in the subject in Heaven (or the new Earth) but it may well be that at that time it no longer matters as what was is no more. -
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FollowTheWay Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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FollowTheWay Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Gold Dragon Well-Known Member
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated."
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Gold Dragon Well-Known Member
Those two quotes are from the originators of evolution and the Big Bang and they clearly state they did not come from the presupposition of atheism.
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Gold Dragon Well-Known Member
I just realized the link to my Lemaitre quote was from a version of google in another language. Here is the english version.
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FollowTheWay Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
We need to watch the tendency to revert to the days of the Inquisition in which scientists were jailed or put to death because their ideas did not correspond to the Catholic Church's tenets. One good example is Galileo, who was kept under house arrest for the last two years of his life because he accepted Copernicus' theory that the sun not the earth is not the center of our solar system nor is it the center of the universe. Who has been proved to be right, Copernicus and Galileo or the Catholic Church?
Galileo and the Inquisition
Galileo's belief in the Copernican System eventually got him into trouble with the Catholic Church. The Inquisition was a permanent institution in the Catholic Church charged with the eradication of heresies. A committee of consultants declared to the Inquisition that the Copernican proposition that the Sun is the center of the universe was a heresy. Because Galileo supported the Copernican system, he was warned by Cardinal Bellarmine, under order of Pope Paul V, that he should not discuss or defend Copernican theories. In 1624, Galileo was assured by Pope Urban VIII that he could write about Copernican theory as long as he treated it as a mathematical proposition. However, with the printing of Galileo's book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was called to Rome in 1633 to face the Inquisition again. Galileo was found guilty of heresy for his Dialogue, and was sent to his home near Florence where he was to be under house arrest for the remainder of his life. In 1638, the Inquisition allowed Galileo to move to his home in Florence, so that he could be closer to his doctors. By that time he was totally blind. In 1642, Galileo died at his home outside Florence.
The Galileo Project | Biography | Inquisition
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