Difference between "atheistic evolution" and "christian evolution?"

[Gilbert_Keith]

Hubriss

*Then God said, “Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky.” And so it happened: **21 **God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds. God saw how good it was, **22 **and God blessed them, saying, “Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the birds multiply on the earth.” **23 **Evening came, and morning followed–the fifth day. **24 **Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures: cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of all kinds.” And so it happened: **25 **God made all kinds of wild animals, all kinds of cattle, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. God saw how good it was. **26 4 Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.” *
I notice that your quote from Genesis stopped at the 22nd verse. Interesting dodge.

Congratulations for catching me up on a technicality. Cut this old man a little slack for his faulty memory. Even so, my essential point is not ruined entirely.

The evolution of man does not occur directly from the land plants. Rather, if I understand evolution correctly, our very first ancestors were born in the sea, then moved to the land and developed finally into humans.

I don’t think you want to argue that humans originally developed from land plants. Therefore Genesis is in substance correct to put the creation of the fish and the birds before the creation of land animals and finally the creation of man.

True, all of Genesis is at times too poetic to be taken literally. But the metaphors are powerful and suggest a closer grasp of creation and evolution events than any other known account from any other religion … so far as I know.

 

[Montalban]

So is gravity.What part of gravity (or any other scientific theory) is not accounted for in naturalistic ways?
Does religion make claims about gravity?

They’re not ‘competing’ claims, as far as I’m aware.
Orogeny;1550847:

Is the problem here with evolution or all science?

There is a problem with one form of evolutionary theory that directly competes with religious claims.

 

[Nullasalus]

True, all of Genesis is at times too poetic to be taken literally. But the metaphors are powerful and suggest a closer grasp of creation and evolution events than any other known account from any other religion … so far as I know.

One thing I never really thought of, but now realized - Genesis does strongly seem to imply that man came last, and everything that came beforehand was in preparation for ‘our’ arrival.

Even if some order is obviously in question, the essentials seem awfully… on target, for a bunch of tribesmen.

 

[Montalban]

One thing I never really thought of, but now realized - Genesis does strongly seem to imply that man came last, and everything that came beforehand was in preparation for ‘our’ arrival.

Even if some order is obviously in question, the essentials seem awfully… on target, for a bunch of tribesmen.

Genesis events though do differ in the order from that given to us by cosmologists & Darwinists

 

[mich2]

Genesis events though do differ in the order from that given to us by cosmologists & Darwinists

I agree with you Montalban; If God is truly the author of Genesis, everything must match up. Therefore, an option would be for the evolutionary time line in not being accurate.“If” God is truly the author, then, we ought to use science as a tool when
reading the Genesis story…I agree with the comments of Nullasalus and Gilbert that the Genesis story, at first look, seems suprisingly similar to the evolution theory.My personal imterpretation so far would be something like this.

** In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth**. The mentioning of heavens cannot be the atmosphere as this comes only later, on the second Day.Therefore, It must be speaking of the heavenly bodies such as the sun
and stars. Also,since the earth is the focal point, to identify the heavens “before” the earth could at least suggests that they were created before the earth.

Let there be light I speculate it to mean not the visual spectrum of light, but the high energy (frequency) part of the
spectrum,responsible for the begetting of life. If we continue "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
Water, the Spirit of God and light are all associated with
life in scriptures.Light and water and some other unknown element responsible for the informational
characteristic within the DNA(or RNA for the first lifeforms) molecule are also idenitifed as being the
bedrock source of life according to science.

**And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” **The earth in the beginning was saturated with water vapors, the reason being
as to why the visible spectrum of sunlight is unable to reach the earth. As the earth started to cool down, the water condensed, and, as scriptures said, **“Let the waters under the heaven was gathered together unto one place, and the dry land appearred”. **So,now we have a separation of liquid water from the vapor water(clouds).

Now, while  the evolution theory identifies plant life as having been observed to exist around 475 million years ago, about the same time period as the fishes, being not in accordance with scriptures, new information has forced paleonthologist to change such a point of view.

science.psu.edu/alert/Hedges8-2001.htm
**The researchers found that land plants had evolved on Earth by about 700 million years ago and land fungi by about 1,300 million years ago–much earlier than previous estimates of around 480 million years ago, which were based on the earliest fossils of those organisms. **

  **14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.** "In the expanse of the sky", which is the newly formed atmosphere, visible light begins to emerge from the sun and the stars as signs for timekeeping. I personally would enquire

for who’s purpose?

**20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. **
Here, again, the evolution theory disagrees with the birds evolving from the the sea. They are believed to have evolved from dinosaures (land animal), therefore, disagreeing with scriptures. However, again, new evidence may show differently.

icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/40/4/687
**The oldest known feathers are modern even to the level of microscopic detail, and all the basic features of feathers must have been in place before a basic dichotomy into Sauriurae and the Ornithurae occured. This division must be older than Archaeopteryx (late Jurassic) and may be much earlier. The basal Ornithurae radiated into aquatic habitats beginning on the shoreline and extending into swimming and diving. **

Birds may one day be seen to be much more closely related to sea life than land dinosaures.

Andre

 

[mich2]

-Whiggamore

Yeah, I agree with your comments on theistic evolution. But when you say that biblical creation can account for all the scientific evidense? I don’t think so, very few do. It’s only a couple pages long. How does it account for the evidense that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old?

I could use the scriptures to identify a 4.5 billion years old earth…would it be a correct interpretation is another question. In Genesis, there are two different definitions for a Day.
**God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. **
The first definition is the time when light hits upon a place on the earth (God called the light “day,” ). This is the time when God
is actively creating, so we’ll call it a Lord’s Day. However a Genesis Day is twice as long as it involves the night time as well (And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.)

Now,if we take the words of Peter: A Day for the Lord (Lord’s Day) is as a thousand years.

The Jews take this also litterally, and so, I “personally” accept it…

chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=108400

"However, the Talmud states that there is a predestined time when Mashiach
will come. If we are meritorious he may come even before that predestined
time. This “end of time” remains a mystery, yet the Talmud states that it
will be before the Hebrew year 6000. (The Hebrew year at the date of this
publication is 5763.)"

And so 2 Peter 3:8-9 reads:

"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like
a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow
in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness…"

He is speaking to the chrisitans who are impatiently waiting for the coming
of Christ,having been told that they were living in the last Days…Here,
Peter seems to be claiming, the last Days, as meaning the next couple of
thousands of years, being in accordance with the Jewish Talmud. Therefore,
if 1 Day litterally can be 1,000 years, then if we continue his statement
**“and a thousand years are like a day”. **Either he is speaking of
timelessness, which is possible, or, if he takes a Day to be 1,000 years in
the litteral sense, than, 1,000 years equalling a Day could also be meant to
be taken litterally. If so, then he
must be speaking of 2 separate and disntinct type of Days. The first mention
of Day is symbolically equal to 1,000 years. Now, he maybe saying that 1,000
years “of such a Day” is equal to the 2nd definition of Day, and let “this”
be a "Lord’s Day.
So, 1,000 years of a Day equalling 1,000 years =
364,000,000 years; and this would be equal to a Lord’s Day; and 364 million
years x 7 = 2.5 billion years.Now, if the Genesis Day speaks of
a Lord’s Day plus “morning till evening”, then, the 2.5
billion is to be doubled into 5 billion years.That’s close to the 4.6
billions years you mentioned.Even closer would be the belief that we are still within the 7th Day, reducing 5 billion by 364 million years (from evening till morning), which is equal to 4.636 billion years.

Certainly, I am speculating; however, it
matches one interpretation of scriptures.

Andre

 

[Nullasalus]

Genesis events though do differ in the order from that given to us by cosmologists & Darwinists

Some of them do, sure. Others line up right. And personally, I never thought of the order as an essential point to the text besides - any more than the ‘seven days’ part was essential.

 

[Hubriss]

True, all of Genesis is at times too poetic to be taken literally. But the metaphors are powerful and suggest a closer grasp of creation and evolution events than any other known account from any other religion … so far as I know.

-Gilbert Keith

I thought we had already agreed that you can’t take Genesis literally. You were just trying to point out that there was still some “truth” to it. You may see these minor details as definite connections to actual events like, “let there be light,” “OMG that totally is referring to the Big Bang!!” where I see it as insignificant and no apparent relevence at all. If you try hard enough, you can make connections like that with anything.

And another thing I notice with Christian/Catholic theologists. You guys use metaphors that don’t work way to often. You try to define the undefinable, and instead of logic, you use metaphors that insufficiently represent the problem or topic.

There is a problem with one form of evolutionary theory that directly competes with religious claims.

-Montalban

Right, and you only have a problem with it because it competes with your religious views. Not because of the minor “flaws or gaps” in it.

Genesis events though do differ in the order from that given to us by cosmologists & Darwinists

-Montalban

Not only order, but time frame as well. It also leaves out many other details, like how the Earth was extremely hot and had no oxygen, and all the animals that have gone extinct like dinosaurs, etc. But above all, it totally lacks detail. I don’t know why anyone would claim that the writer had great insight.

I agree with the comments of Nullasalus and Gilbert that the Genesis story, at first look, seems suprisingly similar to the evolution theory.

Oh! And that Reminds me!

21And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

It says right here. Right after it says God created the monsters of the sea, but before God creates animals on land, it says God created great whales. This directly contradicts you saying that it is surprisingly similar to evolution because we know whales are mammals, mammals evolved on land, and whales are either descendants or show a common ancestry with hippos. Sorry, try again.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

mich2

Here, again, the evolution theory disagrees with the birds evolving from the the sea. They are believed to have evolved from dinosaures (land animal), therefore, disagreeing with scriptures. However, again, new evidence may show differently.

Well, the dinosaurs evolved from reptiles, who evolved from the sea. So the lineage of birds is from the sea as well as from the land. The main point in Genesis is that the birds come *after *the fish, isn’t it? And the cattle came after the birds, right?

Makes sense to me.

hubriss:

How did Genesis get so many things right, even up to saving man and woman for last? And after all, Genesis does indicate a progression through time. Why didn’t the author just say that everything was created at once? Or why didn’t the author just say that the cattle and the birds were created before the fish, or that the first day’s “Let there be light” (Big Bang) referred to the creation of the Sun and the moon, which clearly it doesn’t because they were created much later (third day?). Some other light is being talked about here. Could it be the light that astronomers believe flooded the universe in its early phase?

There are too many right things in the story for it all to be mere lucky guessing, it seems to me. To be divinely inspired does not necessarily mean to be divinely inspired all of the time. Most of the time would suit me just fine.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

hubriss

*Not only order, but time frame as well. It also leaves out many other details, like how the Earth was extremely hot and had no oxygen, and all the animals that have gone extinct like dinosaurs, etc. But above all, it totally lacks detail. I don’t know why anyone would claim that the writer had great insight.
*
This is a trifle unfair, don’t you think? Would you have wanted the author of Genesis to rob Darwin of his glorious discoveries?

After all, the Jews were nomad tribesmen in search of a home. They were not 20th century astronomers and paleontologists writing for a super educated audience like you and me.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[Hubriss]

Oh, and by the way guys. No King James Versions of the bible. That was altered. That’s cheating. It’s a protestant version I think anyways.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth. The mentioning of heavens cannot be the atmosphere as this comes only later, on the second Day.Therefore, It must be speaking of the heavenly bodies such as the sun
and stars. Also,since the earth is the focal point, to identify the heavens “before” the earth could at least suggests that they were created before the earth.

-mich2

Actually, that’s wrong. The Heavens refers to heaven, the place people can go when they die. We know this because it is later described when the sun, the moon, and the stars were made, but it never tells when the actual earth ground was made. It also describes the dome later, and doesn’t refer to it as the “heavens.” Or I guess if you do want to use the King James version. It says God made Heaven and Earth. In that use, it obviously refers to the place Heaven. And the later verses obviously contradict you as the stars and moon were even created after there was light, and light after the earth.

Let there be light I speculate it to mean not the visual spectrum of light, but the high energy (frequency) part of the
spectrum,responsible for the begetting of life.

-mich2

Okay… but there really is no reason to speculate that.

“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Water, the Spirit of God and light are all associated with
life in scriptures.Light and water and some other unknown element responsible for the informational
characteristic within the DNA(or RNA for the first lifeforms) molecule are also idenitifed as being the
bedrock source of life according to science.

-mich2

Again, no significance here. That situation paints a picture of God sort of walking on the water or something, or his reflection in the water. Haha, “Light, and water and some other unknown element responsible for the informational characteristics within DNA”? Man that is the biggest stretch I’ve ever heard. You don’t even know what DNA is made from. It’s true that water provided an environment for DNA and RNA to form, but it probably wasn’t light that provided the energy as it really isn’t sufficient enough coming directly from the sun.

And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” The earth in the beginning was saturated with water vapors, the reason being
as to why the visible spectrum of sunlight is unable to reach the earth. As the earth started to cool down, the water condensed, and, as scriptures said, “Let the waters under the heaven was gathered together unto one place, and the dry land appearred”. So,now we have a separation of liquid water from the vapor water(clouds).

-mich2

Haha, okay, that’s completely wrong, and sorry, retarded. The seperation of water from water is the water on earth seperated by the dome from the water above the dome. Think of the earth. surrounded by the stars, the sun, and moon. There is an invisible dome shield surrounding all of it, which is holding back water. The water it is holding back is used to describe rain, and the source of the enormous amount of water it must have taken to cause the great flood.

Also, here’s mostly why you’re wrong. The early Earth was very hot from all the collisions that it had undergone by smaller masses that eventually built up to create its present size. So as the Earth grew from this process called acretion, it was able to retain gasses in a sort of atmosphere. Yes, most of the H2O was in gas form in this atmosphere. But, as the Earth cooled as the collisions ceased, the gaseous water condensed to liquid form and fell to the Earth. BUT, the water covered much of the earth, it did not cause dry land to appear. And I now just realized this too. It says, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” and then said, “Let there be light.” But there was no water on the surface of the Earth yet as it would have been too hot, and in actuallity, light had already existed before the Earth’s waters had formed.

 

[Hubriss]

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. “In the expanse of the sky”, which is the newly formed atmosphere, visible light begins to emerge from the sun and the stars as signs for timekeeping. I personally would enquire
for who’s purpose?

-mich2

Yeah, it says lights, not light. The lights are the sun, moon, and stars, and were “in the expanse of the sky”, the atmosphere as you put it, or the dome as it is actually implied in the writing. I ask you. Why not say that the sun, moon, and stars were created, then have light appear? Why have light if no one could see it yet, and have it come from no source? And the writer had no clue about the nature of light, its wave lengths and frequency and all that.

I could use the scriptures to identify a 4.5 billion years old earth…would it be a correct interpretation is another question. In Genesis, there are two different definitions for a Day.

-mich2

I’m not going to quote your whole post. But the reason the bible shows man being only 6,000 years old is when people trace the tree of ancstry back to Abraham and Adam and all that. They supposedly have a generations timeline. That’s what I think most fundamentalists believe. Don’t know the exact details of it.

Well, the dinosaurs evolved from reptiles, who evolved from the sea. So the lineage of birds is from the sea as well as from the land. The main point in Genesis is that the birds come after the fish, isn’t it? And the cattle came after the birds, right?

-Gilbert

Except it doesn’t say cattle. It says all the land animals. And what are you talking about? It doesn’t say that birds came from the sea, it says they were created seperately. Don’t try to put words into Genesis’s mouth. Who cares if it’s right about the birds coming after the fish? It’s wrong about the birds coming before land animals.

How did Genesis get so many things right, even up to saving man and woman for last?

-Gilbert

What do you mean so many things? You can count anything Genesis possibly got kind of vaguely right on your fingers!

Why didn’t the author just say that everything was created at once?

-Gilbert

Because that would be boring, people want a story!

or that the first day’s “Let there be light” (Big Bang) referred to the creation of the Sun and the moon, which clearly it doesn’t because they were created much later (third day?). Some other light is being talked about here. Could it be the light that astronomers believe flooded the universe in its early phase?

-Gilbert

Do you really think the writer understood the nature of light? They had no idea how it worked. Light to them was a thing that could be controlled, maybe a seperate entity. So he then put in the things to govern it. You give way too much credit to this guy.

hubriss

Not only order, but time frame as well. It also leaves out many other details, like how the Earth was extremely hot and had no oxygen, and all the animals that have gone extinct like dinosaurs, etc. But above all, it totally lacks detail. I don’t know why anyone would claim that the writer had great insight.

-Me

This is a trifle unfair, don’t you think?

-Gilbert

Nope. You make such a big deal about the little vague things that could be interpretted as correct if they’re stretched. So I’m just pointing out the things it’s not doing. I mean hey, it’s supposed to be truth right?

After all, the Jews were nomad tribesmen in search of a home. They were not 20th century astronomers and paleontologists writing for a super educated audience like you and me.

-Gilbert

Yeah, my dad pointed that out to me before too. That is possibly a good point. But still, it gives too much credit to the writer, but also assumes he did know what he was talking about, and not talking about

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

hubriss

Yeah, my dad pointed that out to me before too. That is possibly a good point. But still, it gives too much credit to the writer, but also assumes he did know what he was talking about, and not talking about.

Tell your dad I think he’s a lot smarter than you are*.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon7.gif*

You make such a big deal about the little vague things that could be interpretted as correct if they’re stretched. So I’m just pointing out the things it’s not doing. I mean hey, it’s supposed to be truth right?

Yes Yes, it is the truth … slanted to be sure, but more or less on the mark. In the three thousand years since Genesis, has any scientist ever imagined that the universe began with a burst of light? Has any scientist before Darwin ever guessed that life began in the sea? Has any scientist ever guessed that man was the last thing to be created?

I suppose you would call these lucky guesses. But it’s interesting that no scientist before Darwin was guessing along these lines. You would think that a brilliant scientist or two over three thousand years before Darwin would have been at least as good a guesser as the author of Genesis who, presumably, was not groomed to be a scientist at all.

 

[ribozyme]

I suppose you would call these lucky guesses. But it’s interesting that no scientist before Darwin was guessing along these lines. You would think that a brilliant scientist or two over three thousand years before Darwin would have been at least as good a guesser as the author of Genesis who, presumably, was not groomed to be a scientist at all.

Well, Democritus got it right on the mark regarding atomic theory, and he lived about 2 millenia before John Dalton.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Genesis, 1000 B.C. : “Let there be light.”

Carl Sagan in *Cosmos, *1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”

I suppose someone could say Genesis was sadly inadequate in getting at the details.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

ribozyme

Well, Democritus got it right on the mark regarding atomic theory, and he lived about 2 millenia before John Dalton.

First, I don’t think he got it right on the mark. Compare Democritus and Dalton carefully. But he was close. He was also a trained scientific thinker.

Which is the more inspired guess:

That of a nomad Jew that the early universe was flooded with light, that life began in the sea, that man was created last?

That of a trained scientist that there exists something so small you cannot see it?

 

[Montalban]

Genesis doesn’t ‘match-up’ known events; the key thing, I think, is that the creation time was not like now. There’s no need to suppose that the ‘laws of the universe’ were in operation until the completion of creation.

 

[ribozyme]

ribozyme

Well, Democritus got it right on the mark regarding atomic theory, and he lived about 2 millenia before John Dalton.

First, I don’t think he got it right on the mark. Compare Democritus and Dalton carefully. But he was close. He was also a trained scientific thinker.

Which is the more inspired guess:

That of a nomad Jew that the early universe was flooded with light, that life began in the sea, that man was created last?

That of a trained scientist that there exists something so small you cannot see it?

Nope, land plants were created before life on the sea. Did you read Genesis?

 

[Nullasalus]

genesis.net.au/~bible/kjv/genesis/ - I believe this is KJV Genesis, for anyone who’s interested.

Yes, plants are mentioned before life in the sea. And also stars and such come after life begins as well, apparently.

On the other hand, beast life comes after aquatic life. Man comes last. Land and water come before any of them. Also, stars apparently come after plant life.

I’m sure people will find this interesting.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

ribozyme

Nope, land plants were created before life on the sea. Did you read Genesis?

Yes.

I thought we were talking about the direct line of evolution toward man. Naturally, vegetation would come first … on land and in the sea as well … something for the fish to lunch on? Genesis has that right. But surely man did not descend directly from land vegetables, did he? Isn’t the direct line of evolution from animals in the sea to animals on earth and finally man? Does Genesis get that more or less right? Cattle (mammals) come after fish. Man (mammal) comes after the cattle (lower mammals).

Right?

Do we see this order of progressive creation suggested by any of the ancient thinkers who were interested in science? Does Democritus do it? Does Aristotle? Do we find it anywhere else other than Genesis?

Again, if these are just lucky guesses, why weren’t the ancient scientists luckier than the poet in Genesis?

Why didn’t Democritus or Aristotle see the universe start with a burst of light?