Would you allow evolutionists to teach Sunday School?

Where is the citation for the archy conference claims that you continue to use even though they have been shown to be false?

"BEcause the evolutionists quoted above SHOW that the sequence was bogus and IN THEIR WORDS "NEVER occurred in NATURE"!!"

How many times do we have to go through this? What "never occurred" was the simple A to B to C progression that was accepted when the known fossils were few. When the complete picture was filed in, a much more complex picture emerged.

"Please show how all the "Bob lied" rhetoric is justified when you have to make embarrassing confessions like the one above?"

Just what embarrassing confession have I made?

You are the one who keeps telling untruths about the archy conference with all your claims that the evils atheists admitted that it was just a "true bird."

You are the one who keeps posting out of context quotes and calling them legitimate.

You are the one who made claims about the geologic column not being found in one place.

"The monochiral structures of all living cells today - not withstandig - eh UTEOTW??"

That's right. You are the one making fully formed cells that have been subject to 4 billion years of evolution the expectation. That is not what a reasonable person would expect.

"Is it NOW your quagmire to argue that an RNA molecule is a living cell UTEOTW? Has it come to that?"

I have argued it for a long time. You have never shown a problem with what I had to say. DO you remember this?

Ricardo, A., Carrigan, M. A., Olcott, A. N., Benner, S. A.. 2004 “Borate Minerals Stabilize Ribose” Science January 9; 303: 196

This shows how simple compounds can be used to form ribose (all right handed as they should be) and the four nucleobases. Add a little phosphate and now the ribose and bases wil make neucleotides., all with the right chiral form. Now, as it turns out, in the presence of clay (specifically montmorillonite) these nucleotides will begin to polymerize and make RNA. This same clay that will catalyze the formation of RNA will also lead to a spontaneous process in which small vesicles are formed with the fatty acid making a wall and trapping water and the RNA molecules inside.

Now, as has been shown you in the past, RNA is able to carry out the same functions as both DNA and proteins even if not as well as either. But once you have simple cells based on RNA, then DNA is free to evolve as a better information carrying molecule. Proteins are also free to evolve to perform cellular function better. Since the RNA is already a pure chiral compound, there is no problem making the proteins in a pure chiral form.

Does any of this sound familiar? Maybe you don't read posts before you reply.

"Having failed to show a well reasoned path for monochiral amino acids to form as needed for the proteins of even one single living cell --"

Nope, look above. That is at least the sixth time I would guess that I have outlined this for you.

"The outlandish examples UTEOTW has ALREADY given INCLUDE amino acid compounds IN OUTER SPACE that have a somewhat "more favorable" distribution that then totally loused up 50/50 that they get in the lab - but the fact remains only the 100/0 distribution (you know - monochiral distribution) works."

Just one of several examples I gave you that lead not to the racemized mixture you claim. Some methods increase the chances of one isomer a bit and some a lot. See the RNA example above.

"You are just to funny my friend."

It is not funny that you have been making this claim for months despite the falseness of the claim being pointed out to you and repeated requests for you to justify your continued use with some sort of citation. This is YE junk at its worst. Repeating known falsehoods.

 

"WOW! You fell right into that one UTEOTW! Thank you very much! I am adding your post to my document as that is such a perfect response for you."

What did I admit to there? I am not sure I am the one that fell into anything.

You quote Simpson as saying that the horse sequence does not exist. I say that you claim is false and he is saying something quite different. SO you turn around and quote him as saying the sequence does exist. Well, all I really have to do here is point out that your two quotes are in conflict. When we look at the first quote more closely, we see that you dishonestly hacked the context away to make it say something other than what the author intended.

So the second quote is the accurate one and it disproves your previous claims and it exposes the dishonesty of your previous quote.

I think you are the one who walked into something.

Now, where is my archy citation?

 

"The first section of my post was the section showing with the "old" discredited view of the horse series was - and how smooth stepwise transition was thought to be "a science fact" when in fact it was nothing but "science fiction".

I show in my post how that view was later discredited - but you seem to have latched on to the discredited view and claimed it as your own."

YOu have two SImpson quotes from the 1950's. I don't imagine that the two opinions are different. In effect, you quoted two things that do not agree, at least when you quote them. When placed in context, they agree and not with the way you think.

"How many times do I have to point out that my post - SHOWS the flaws in that - it SHOWS that the "feet come with the animal" as do the teeth. When you claim that the FEET of A are not the ancestor to the FEET of B - then you are admitting that A is not the ancestor of B - and when you admit that this did not even OCCUR IN NATURE - then not only are the FEET wrong - but the ANIMALS are WRONG! "

You'll have to explain to me what you mean there. Just what are you asserting. And to save time, what is your citation?

"You know - where you youself ADMIT that the ANCESTORS PRESENTED as fact in the horse series ARE NOT in fact the ancestoral sequence FOUND in the fossil record."

All I say is that the earliest sequence was incomplete, thugh accurate for what was known. It presented an incomplete picture. That picture was later filled in quite richly. Even by the 1950's the rich history was know. See your quote above from Simpson on this very subject.

All those nice quotes in your newer post still say the horse sequence is good. Your last two are about (1) punctuated equilibrium and (2) how the incomplete horse sequence had to be filled in as new specimens were found. No problems there. At least for my opinion.

 

BobRyan wrote:

No. Science is science and religion is religion. Attempts to mix the two together make both of them appear to be nonsense.

I do not believe that a true scientist, speaking or writing as a scientist, would allow himself to confuse the issue by introducing something as irrelevant to science as the Bible.

Yes, I have “researched” the credentials of those people and found them to have none. A Ph.D. in chemistry does not qualify anyone to argue biology, and the same is true of a Ph.D. in Physics. The husband of a friend of mine was required to complete a Ph.D. in biochemistry, a Ph.D. physics, and a Ph.D. biology to get a desired research position with his company, and he still was not qualified to argue for or against evolutionary biology. Only evolutionary biologists have the credentials to argue for or against the theories of evolutionary biology. Can you imagine a botanist specializing in the flora of northwest Afghanistan walking into a hospital operating room and doing a heart-lung transplant???

I have known many evolutionists, but none of them, as far as I know, were atheists. One them, who was recognized all over the world for his expertise in a very specialized branch of evolutionary biology, was a Christian, but at the time I was not a Christian and religion seldom came up. When it did, it was not spoken against. The conflict between evolutionary biology and the Christian faith is a myth invented by Christians who understood neither science nor the Christian faith.

There is no such thing as “atheist evolutionist theories” and if you had any knowledge at all of evolutionary biology, you would know that. It is also painfully obvious that you have not studied literature, because if you had, you would know what fairytales are. And if you had studied even a small sampling of the literature on the Book of Genesis, you would know that Genesis does not concern itself with science of any kind, pro, con, or whatever.

No. I am not talking about that subject because it is irrelevant.

A “lie” is a DELIBERATE false misrepresentation of the truth. None of the theories of evolution are DELIBERATE false misrepresentations of the truth. But one thing that is certain is that you have past judgment on evolutionary biology without first becoming an evolutionary biologist and working in the both the laboratory and the field, and therefore you have ZERO basis upon which to base any of the hateful, hurtful, and malicious claims in your posts. Therefore you are not bringing a reproach upon evolutionary biology, but you are bringing a reproach upon the Christian faith, and I find such conduct to be absolutely disgraceful. The Church today has enough problems without such an abysmal reproach being brought upon it.

Evolutionary biologists are being shown first hand what ignorant and foolish bigots Evangelical Christians can be. Just 100 years ago, the very large majority of evolutionary biologists were Christians. But that is not the case today, and it is not the case today because “Evangelical Christians” have made a mockery of the gospel and made our savior an icon of ignorance and gross stupidity.

This is absolutely ignorant nonsense of the most abysmal kind. Evolutionary theory is not a religion and poses absolutely NO threat to the Christian faith, but the assault upon evolutionary theory by “Evangelical Christians” is doing immeasurable and irreparable harm to the Christian faith by portraying the Christian faith as the antithesis of Christian values.

The Evangelical Church has lost its focus. Evolution in nature is not the problem—sin in the church is the problem! Only if the Church will repent of its own sins can it even begin to make the Evangelical Christian Faith appear to the evolutionary biologist to be anything better than a reproach upon our Savior.

Should an evolutionist be allowed to teach Sunday school in churches today? Absolutely yes. Should an anti-evolutionist bigot be allowed to teach Sunday school in churches today? Absolutely not! It is the job of a Sunday school teacher—through his or her own personal life, conduct, and witness—to teach others the spiritual values found in the Bible that together constitute the Christian faith, and to nurture these values. The theories of evolutionary biology are 100% irrelevant to this job, and personal bigotry has no place in the Sunday school classroom.

 

Just 100 years ago, the very large majority of evolutionary biologists were Christians. But that is not the case today, and it is not the case today because “Evangelical Christians” have made a mockery of the gospel and made our savior an icon of ignorance and gross stupidity.

You are right. It was the Christians who ran Keil and Delitzsch out of town because they taught creation and the Christians believed evolution. It was later that the Christians in the same country also supported Hitler too.


The Evangelical Church has lost its focus. Evolution in nature is not the problem—sin in the church is the problem!

The Church is not very evangelical nor is it very well studied. But I would have to disagree with your statement about evolution. Evolution has tripped up many and caused them to stumble around and too many to leave the faith. It mostly because the church has not answers for their faith. It is too much of a God said it, I believe it, that settles it attitude. Too much ignorance gives one nothing to share. I have never seen a believer who knows the Bible well not share their faith.

 

Moving back to the original question, I wouldn't allow someone who I knew to affirm macro-evolution to teach a SS class at my church. The reason is quite simple: Plain exegesis will not allow someone to affirm evolution while also affirming the historical truthfulness of Gen. 1-3. Most liberals and moderates have seen that such is the case, so instead of giving up their macro-evolutionary positions, they have insisted on arguing that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are allegorical, figurative, apocolyptic, etc. There are many problems with such a view, but one of them is glaring.

As part of my doctoral work, I have just recently read "He Is There and He Is Not Silent" by Francis Schaeffer, and he points to this glaring problem with such explanations of Gen. 1-11. His starting point in the book is basically that there is a personal, infinite God who created all that is ("He is There"). He then goes on to talk about man's moral dilemma. He says there are two possibilities: Either man now exists as he always has (and thus he is not responsible for the horribly wicked things that happen in our world today because God created him that way), or there was a time when man chose to rebel against God and become abnormal (obviously, this is the Fall of man).

Here's how all this relates to the evolution issue. If someone tries to argue around a creation that transpired in six literal 24-hour days by saying that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are figurative as opposed to historically accurate, then how can we as Christians possibly argue that there was a literal fall of man into sin? If the creation account of Gen. 1-2 can't be taken literally, then how can the Fall of man in Gen. 3? It seems that if macro-evolutionists are going to be consistent, then they would have to say that the biblical account of man's Fall is also to be understood figuratively, and if so, then it wasn't an actual historical event that ushered sin and death into the human race.

Therefore, by allowing a SS teacher to teach that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are figurative, it seems that a Pastor would be allowing the formation of more problems rather than providing solutions for existing ones. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Macro-evolution can not stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2. Therefore, all attempts at making macro-evolution jive with Scripture (theistic evolution, gap theories, day-age theories, etc.) are nothing more than attempts to place God as a bookend upon a theory that was forged in the fires of post-Renaissance atheism and humanism.

Someone please correct my misunderstanding if I am wrong.

 

EXACTLY!

The qualifications for a Sunday school teacher should be that they are a Christian who upholds the doctrines of the local Church and know the Bible well enough that they can teach what the Bible itself says. Mixing in a lot of half-baked pseudo-science and calling it “Biblical” is an extreme disservice to God, the Bible and objective science.

 

The subject of macroevolution belongs to the realm of science; Gen. 1-2 belongs to the realm of religion. Therefore macroevolution does not need to stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2; all it needs to do is to stand up to good science, and it does admirably.

As I have already posted elsewhere on this message board, I am a creationist. I believe that God supernaturally created Adam without any links, missing or otherwise, but since the Bible gives us no details as to how He went about creating Adam, I have no religious convictions as to how He went about it. However, the Bible does give us a few details about how sin entered into the world in which we are now living, and it gives us very many details about the solution to the resultant sin problem.

I find very many “Evangelical Christians” are living in the most dreadful of sins and are at the same time wildly attacking the theory of evolution as though attacking science is more important than facing their own personal sinfulness and looking to God and His Holy Scriptures to find the solution to their own personal sin problem. They relish in the absurdly false and silly notion that they are righteous in God’s sight and yet living in sin and pointing a finger of hate and judgment at others.

As an evolutionary biologist, I learned first hand that the theories of macroevolution face unresolved difficulties, and there are today tens of thousands of biologists working to resolve those difficulties.

As the senior pastor of a church I learned first hand that the theories of soteriology face no fewer unresolved difficulties, and there are today tens of thousands of theologians working to resolve those difficulties. But it seems to me that the scientists are working a whole lot harder, and a whole lot more honestly, to resolve the difficulties of their theories than the theologians are working to eliminate sin from the Christian community.

No theory of evolution poses even the very slightest threat to a healthy Christian community, but when the Christian community is sick, the members of it are bound to look for answers from outside the community, and the answers that they find may prove to be devastating to that community.

An Evangelical Christian church is not going to be any healthier than its Sunday school teachers, and excellent health for a Sunday school teacher begins with an awareness of the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and God’s solution found in the atonement of Christ made personally efficacious by grace through faith. Whether the Sunday school teacher is a plumber, an electrician, a biologist, or a homemaker is irrelevant. What is relevant is their love for their Savior and their love for others as manifested by their personal holiness and their sacrificial giving of themselves.

 

Most of the theories of macroevolution are in conflict with some of the most common interpretations of Genesis 1-11 put forth by Evangelical Christians. But that is not the case of all theories of macroevolution. For example, the following theory:

The earth is three to four billion years old. About three billion years ago, when the earth was still in a prebiotic state, a primordial ooze which included pantoyl lactone, beta-alanine, and cysteamine was baking in the sun, and the heat from the sun (about 105 degrees Fahrenheit) caused the formation of pantetheine which is related to coenzyme A, which in turn made possible the formation of simple amino acids which in turn gave rise to the formation of biomolecules and eventually the very simplest forms of life.

From these very simple forms of life evolved, through natural selection, more complex forms of life which, over a period of millions of years, gave rise to the complex forms of life of which we have today billions upon billions of fossils. These complex forms of life included the dinosaurs which became extinct do to a huge meteor striking what is now the Yucatan Peninsula and throwing up into the atmosphere a very thick cloud of dust and other debris. Other forms of life which were less sensitive to the adverse effects of the cloud survived and evolved. One or more of these lines of evolution produced human-like creatures which subsequently became extinct for reasons at present unknown to us.

*******

If such a theory is a true, then according to some very conservative interpretations of Genesis 1 – 11 another catastrophe occurred which caused the earth to be, in the words on Genesis 1, “without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

“God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” as the new catastrophic cloud causing the darkness gave way to the rays of the sun.

Gen. 1:4. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
5. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

And Genesis 1 continues to describe the dawning of a new earth.

(All scriptures are from the NASB, 1995)

 

EXACTLY!

The qualifications for a Sunday school teacher should be that they are a Christian who upholds the doctrines of the local Church and know the Bible well enough that they can teach what the Bible itself says. Mixing in a lot of half-baked pseudo-science and calling it “Biblical” is an extreme disservice to God, the Bible and objective science. </font>[/QUOTE]Amen! Thank you for your contribution to this thread!

 

quote:
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I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Macro-evolution can not stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2.

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The subject of macroevolution belongs to the realm of science; Gen. 1-2 belongs to the realm of religion. Therefore macroevolution does not need to stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2; all it needs to do is to stand up to good science, and it does admirably.


Well, it's nice to see that at least there is one macroevolutionary proponent here who is willing to concede that macroevolutionary theories of creation can't be grounded in the faithful exegesis of God's Word. Thanks for being honest Craig. Consider this then:

1. The Word of God can't possibly be inerrant if the author of the book of Genesis simply chose to borrow a creation account, a flood account, etc. from other cultures. Either the words of Gen. 1-11 are the very Word of God and free from all error, or they are simply the compilation of stories borrowed from other cultures. You can't have it both ways. I'll choose to believe what the Word of God says about itself - "All Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16).

2. Who gives us the right to say that the Bible is a book of religion and has nothing at all to say about matters of science? If that is true, then how can we accept what the Bible says about the historicity of ancient civilizations? How can we accept what the Bible says about the existence of supernatural occurences such as miracles? For that matter, how can we accept wha the Bible has to say about soteriological matters if we can't accept what it has to say about matters of science?

Thanks for helping to make my point Craig.

 

You missed the point.

Genesis does not stray into the scientific details. It is enough for us to know that God is the Creator. The details are left out. All Craig has admitted is that you cannot make the account of Creation in Genesis specifically say God used on old earth method. But it is not ruled out either. This was not an admission that Genesis is incompatible with an old earth. Genesis even sayd that the land and the waters brought forth life. Sounds like He could have used long processes to me.

I believe that Craig's views are also much more complicated than you imagine.

Finally, we can trust God's own general revelation in the Creation itself to fill in the details of how He created. And it was through billions of years.

 

And precisely what is the point that you have made? All that I see in your post is rambling nonsense.