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

[Gilbert_Keith]

robozyme and hubriss:

I’d like to hear your take on post # 135.

Are you interested?

 

[Whiggamore]

Nope. Creation is an interpretation of scripture, not science. There is no science to support that viewpoint.

You are incorrect; creation is a Biblical interpretation of science. It is Christian men who says, “Let’s reconcile the scientific evidence with our faith.” as opposed to the atheists who said, “Let’s reconcile the scientific evidence with our lack of faith.” Science does not say evolution or creation; it can not speak! The story of the origins of life is not written in Times New Roman across geological formations or in the cells of new species. Instead we make assumptions based on science, our understandings of the other liberal arts, and the other baggage in our hearts and minds. That is where the modern theories of evolution and of creation come from.

The assertion that there is no science to support creation is as odd as the assertion that there is no science to support evolution. Both are patently false.

Where, in your well-read education, did you read that evolution cannot be proven false?

As I said, “Neither can be proven wrong through science at this time, therefore the debate must become that of other fields and arts.”

If evolution is valid as you say, then how can you say it is invalid in the same paragraph?

Evolution is valid in light of the scientific evidence yet invalid in light of the scientific evidence AND my faith. No matter the effort men make at reonciling their faith with the pagan world they can not avoid the reality of it; it leads men from Christ not to Him.

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? How about how the earth really isn’t actually at the center of the solar system/universe? What about all the evidense for evolution and genetic mutations? Do you just ignore them because it doesn’t fit your “truth?”

Creation refers to the entire, current theories of creation that draw from, but are not limited to, those first few pages of Genesis.

Whoa whoa what? Natural selection doesn’t have anything to do with the creationism. Creationism does in no way point to all the other species of animals that have lived on the Earth but are now extinct. Do you mean that the human right of dominance over the Earth is justified by natural selection? That’s a stretch.

On the contrary, natural selection is an essential part of creation. The bit of natural selection we have seen in action, and observed, from Darwin’s finches to rapidly changing influenza, explains perfectly how we could fit two of every kind (or whatever) on to Noah’s Ark yet still account for the variety of species in our world today. All ‘kinds’ have a common ancestor. All dogs species have a common dog ancestor; same for cats; dinosaurs; gnats. You name it they’ve got it.

The theory is, of course, open to change as new evidence becomes available. I’m tired.

 

[Hubriss]

Tell your dad I think he’s a lot smarter than you are.

Yeah, he is. He’s a doctor. But he basically said that the Jews were flippin idiots, and they had to put it into terms that they liked and would understand.

I think it’s just an excuse. Doesn’t it seem like an excuse?

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?

-Gilbert

No, but a god could have.

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.

Okay, I wouldn’t call Genesis a lucky guess. First of all it’s not “lucky” because it’s totally wrong. Second it’s not even a guess. I don’t think the writer even had the intention of trying to figure out the actual truth of what happened. He just wrote a story that could fit and justify jewish teachings.

And also, the Genesis writer was definitely not the only person who attempted a creation story. Of course there were tons of other scientists and philosophers who took a shot at the creation of the universe, or life before Darwin. Just a couple examples. Democritus sought to find the building block of all matter with his theory of the atom. Louis Pasteur proved that life doesn’t just manifest itself out of thin air, that there wasn’t a sort of life creating force that floated around as many people thought (especially when they saw things like mold or maggots which they didn’t know the source of). People have asked it, and people have answered it. Some failed miserably, some only slightly, and some got pretty damn close or even perfect.

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

-ribozyme

Haha. I seriously made that above last reply to Gilbert before I saw this.

“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

Heh, someone? Of course someone, I’m saying it right now. And there are millions others.

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?

I’d say Democritus. He was inspired to test and research it and actually try to get it right.

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.

-Nullasalus

That’s such a joke. “It got this wrong, this wrong, this wrong, and this wrong too. Oh! But it got this right! Therefore, we should consider it. Interesting, don’t you think?” Of course land and water would come before life… where would life be if it wasn’t on land or in the water?

 

[Hubriss]

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?

-Gilbert

No. You’re missing one crutial thing. Genesis in no way what where how when points to evolution.

Cattle (mammals) come after fish. Man (mammal) comes after the cattle (lower mammals).

-Gilbert

Where are you getting cattle from? My Bible doesn’t say cattle at all. That the KJV? I thought the KJV was a protestant version. Is it or not?​

Okay, I see. It says cattle in the KJV. But it also says in the same line creeping things and beasts. Cattle aren’t the only land animals created, creeping things and beasts include all the rest of the animals as well. And cattle probably also includes things like sheep and chickens.

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?

-Gilbert

Because they weren’t making up a story.

I’d like to hear your take on post # 135.

Are you interested?

-Gilbert

I posted before that, yes, I do think Genesis is highly inadequate. Think of it this way. We need light to see. Light allows us to visualize and react to our environments. Without light, no thinking animals would be able to survive because they wouldn’t be able to see food and obstacles, and would surely die. Wouldn’t you think that the early people could realize this and light’s importance to their survival? The Jewish people highly sought to make God personal, to relate God to their lives, so far to even say that we were created in his image (that is important as it makes it clearly evident that the early people related God to themselves). They even went so far as to break one of their own commandments: “Thou shall not make any graven image (of a God or deity).”

So they put the creation of light second (or third) on their list, as if God needed to see in order to do his work. Light is so important to animals (and all life but they didn’t know that) that the writer undoubtedly thought he should include it for his readers. Light and darkness is included in every creation story of every other religion that has one(or almost every other), so I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that the Genesis writer had some great insight. And like I said, it is just another way the Jews tried to personify god.

 

[Hubriss]

You are incorrect; creation is a Biblical interpretation of science. It is Christian men who says, “Let’s reconcile the scientific evidence with our faith.” as opposed to the atheists who said, “Let’s reconcile the scientific evidence with our lack of faith.”

-Whiggamore

Actually, the Christian men say something more like, “Lets try to reconcile our faith with scientific evidense.” And the atheist, “lets reconcile our lack of faith with scientific evidense.”

The assertion that there is no science to support creation is as odd as the assertion that there is no science to support evolution. Both are patently false.

-Whiggamore

Sigh. You’re just like Montalban. Why not present us with some science that supports creation?

As I said, “Neither can be proven wrong through science at this time, therefore the debate must become that of other fields and arts.”

-Whiggamore

I think he means it’s not likely for evolution to be disproven at this point. But we still don’t know why he thinks creation can’t be disproven. He hasn’t said anything emperical. Just bland, empty statements.

On the contrary, natural selection is an essential part of creation. The bit of natural selection we have seen in action, and observed, from Darwin’s finches to rapidly changing influenza, explains perfectly how we could fit two of every kind (or whatever) on to Noah’s Ark yet still account for the variety of species in our world today. All ‘kinds’ have a common ancestor. All dogs species have a common dog ancestor; same for cats; dinosaurs; gnats. You name it they’ve got it.

-Whiggamore

Wait a minute… but that’s still evolution. We could only have our variety of species if there was evolution, even if Noah did only have 2 of every species in his ark. It’s not just natural selection that created the variety, it’s evolution.

Okay, you seem to think that mutations can only produce small varieties in species. So you agree that DNA can change and cause animals to be bigger, smaller, different collers, larger claws, teath, beaks, etc. So here’s an example. Imagine that one of the groups of finches on an island grew larger bodies, beacks, claws, a rough pointing tongue, different colored feathers, different feather patterns, sharper claws, different voice box (or whatever birds have). Over time this group accumulates many small changes so much that eventually, the species doesn’t look at all like what it did before. In fact, now with all the changes, it looks more like a parrot, but not quite. It has changed so much that it has actually gained a couple more strands of DNA, and can no longer mate with any existing individuals that stayed more or less the same as this new species once was. Wouldn’t this be considered a seperate species, and therefore evolved? If you can agree that there can be minute changes that occur over time in the make-up of a species, why wouldn’t you agree that they can eventually change so much as to evolve and become a brand new species? They accumulate change over and over again, generation after generation. Don’t you think that the changes would eventually build up and cause it to be something new?

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Hubriss

Where are you getting cattle from? My Bible doesn’t say cattle at all. That the KJV? I thought the KJV was a protestant version. Is it or not?

I am using the New American Bible, not the KJV. It says cattle and creeping things, etc.

usccb.org/nab/bible/

Light and darkness is included in every creation story of every other religion that has one(or almost every other), so I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that the Genesis writer had some great insight.

But there are two kinds of light depicted in Genesis. Light is created early on, commensurate with the light from the Big Bang. Whereas the other light you are talking about, the light imagery that is shared by other religions (as for the Greeks and the Egyptians) comes from the Sun and the Moon created later on the (third? fourth?) day. How do we account for these two separate periods and kinds of light described?

so I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that the Genesis writer had some great insight

Ah, but Democritus did?

Genesis in no way what where how when points to evolution.

Read, if you dare, a book titled The Science of God, by Gerald Schroeder. Schroeder is a lot farther advanced in life and knowledge than you are. The corresponding points of Genesis and Evolution are rather interestingly analyzed by him. If, when you finish the book, you still think Genesis and Evolution have nothing to do with each other, send me your hat.

I’ll eat it.

 

[Nullasalus]

That’s such a joke. “It got this wrong, this wrong, this wrong, and this wrong too. Oh! But it got this right! Therefore, we should consider it. Interesting, don’t you think?” Of course land and water would come before life… where would life be if it wasn’t on land or in the water?

In the air.

Such a reaction, just because I said it was interesting? That’s about as neutral as you can get.

Yes, I find ‘let there be light’, the assertion that there was a moment of creation, that the world was formless and void before this moment, to be… interesting. I also find the general pattern of the story - that, yes, they did clearly get some things wrong, but also clearly got some things right, to be… interesting.

I didn’t say ‘Proof of God’, or ‘Undeniable evidence of divine inspiration’. I do think the haste to declare any accurate part of Genesis as a lucky guess and any inaccurate part of it as clear evidence that they were just guesses, says more about the motivation of the person commenting than Genesis itself.

For my part, what most amazes me about Genesis is the fact that it’s a story told without dragons, giant turtles, and other such things. Of all the creation stories I’ve ever read about, Genesis is the most ‘realistic’. Even the claim that the israelites ripped off the sumerians doesn’t really address why they dropped the dragon and other such things, or at least didn’t replace them with equally fanciful actors and agents, other than a very vague God.

 

[ribozyme]

In the air.

For my part, what most amazes me about Genesis is the fact that it’s a story told without dragons, giant turtles, and other such things. Of all the creation stories I’ve ever read about, Genesis is the most ‘realistic’. Even the claim that the israelites ripped off the sumerians doesn’t really address why they dropped the dragon and other such things, or at least didn’t replace them with equally fanciful actors and agents, other than a very vague God.

Well, the Bible did mention dragons in Job…

 

[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.

Actually the hebrew word shamayim can mean the abode of God, the firmament or the cosmos.

csinfo.org/Was_1st_Day_Beginning.htm

**One of the words in this Hebrew figure of speech is the plural noun shamayim, which signifies the ‘upper regions’ and may be rendered ‘heaven’ or ‘heavens’, depending on the context.8 The essential meaning is everything in creation apart from the Earth. The word translated ‘the earth’ is erets, and here refers to the planet on which we now live.

The opening sentence of the Bible (‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’) is thus a summary statement (the details follow) that God made everything in the universe**.

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.

.The Spirit of God is the essence of life, in scriptures;water and spirit are associated with birth, or the begetting of life. Light, scriptures identify as being the “Life of God”, whether it be in terms of Truth, or Being(consciousness) . Therefore, why would I be so way off course in interpretating the statement “let there be light” and associate it with the begetting of life on earth?I am not claiming any of my thoughts as truths, but simply am putting forwards some possibilities of scriptures being in accordance scientific theories, which themselves might be erronious… In other words, we’re just playing games here, aren’t we?..

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.

… Think of the fact that the scriptures were written about the same time period, as well as about the same geographical regions as those who built the Great Pyramid of Cheop…and you are teaching me that such people believed that the rain did not come from clouds but came from beyond the regions of the sun and stars???Yeah, right…

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. …

First, mostly of what you have written is just what I have said myself;the water covered the whole earth until eventually dry land began to appear.

**And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” **

Here, is where the statement of waters condensing on earth

**“Let the waters under the heaven was gathered together unto one place, and the dry land appearred”. **

…and here is where the dry land eventually appeared…no different to what you wrote.

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.

The scriptures speaks of the waters above(clouds, steam) and the waters below (liquid)…life started in the waters, right?

Andre

 

[mich2]

-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.

On the other hand, it reads “lights” not sun and stars. The "lights of the sun and stars appear in the newly formed atmosphere.When I look in the heavens I do not actually see the sun nor the moon or stars, but an image thereof, produced by the light coming from the sources.However, I certainly can “claim” to see the sun or the moon as the image is as good as the true thing.The same concept is found in God (who cannot be seen) and the Word, which is the perfect representative of God availlable to reveal to humanity the image of God. While both can be said to be equally God, they are seen as separate entities. So ,while we could say the sun is in the firmament, the “image” of the sun is what is truly observed, while the sun itself is located beyond the firmament.

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.

Your right; however, the timeline goes to Adam at the time of the fall of humanity.
The day Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens

5 no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung; Yahweh God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground.
6 but streams arose from the earth and watered the entire surface of the ground.
7 And Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

In the story of the creation of Adam, it doesn’t seem to me that he was created on the 6th Genesis Day.

Andre

 

[Nullasalus]

Well, the Bible did mention dragons in Job…

I’m not as familiar with Job, other than to say ‘Completely different type of book than Genesis’. There’s also Jonah and the whale, but talking about the realism of that brings up some problems, obviously.

I think the interesting (love that word) facets of Genesis still stand, though. The correct parts could be coincidental, sure - but it’s one heck of a coincidence.

 

[Orogeny]

Orogeny;1550847:

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.

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

I don’t see any scientific theory to be in competition with religion. I don’t look to science for my faith and I don’t look to my faith for science.

Peace

Tim

 

[Whiggamore]

Actually, the Christian men say something more like, “Lets try to reconcile our faith with scientific evidense.” And the atheist, “lets reconcile our lack of faith with scientific evidense.”

There are Christian men who say, “Let’s reconcile our faith with the scientific evidence.” but that is not creation, that is theistic evolution. Creation is still Christian men who say, “Let’s reconcile the scientific evidence with our faith.” as opposed to those early ‘fathers of evolution’, if you will, who said, “Let’s reconcile the scientific evidence with our lack of faith.”

Why not present us with some science that supports creation?

All science. You read the same texts I do, don’t you? It is a matter of interpretation, and if you want to understand that interpretation, then read a creation science journal, a good one. TJ or something. You may disagree with their radical interpretation, but you can not say, “It is invalid because of science.” anymore than I can say, “Evolution is invalid because of science.” The origins of life can not be left to science! It must be an assumption, a concept, a theory, made on a foundation of science and all the other liberal arts. Nobody can look at a geological formation and say, “This means the world is x years old.” without having some previous ideas to pass that evidence through.

Give me your evidence and I will make it mine.

Wait a minute… but that’s still evolution. We could only have our variety of species if there was evolution, even if Noah did only have 2 of every species in his ark. It’s not just natural selection that created the variety, it’s evolution.

Okay, you seem to think that mutations can only produce small varieties in species. So you agree that DNA can change and cause animals to be bigger, smaller, different collers, larger claws, teath, beaks, etc. So here’s an example. Imagine that one of the groups of finches on an island grew larger bodies, beacks, claws, a rough pointing tongue, different colored feathers, different feather patterns, sharper claws, different voice box (or whatever birds have). Over time this group accumulates many small changes so much that eventually, the species doesn’t look at all like what it did before. In fact, now with all the changes, it looks more like a parrot, but not quite. It has changed so much that it has actually gained a couple more strands of DNA, and can no longer mate with any existing individuals that stayed more or less the same as this new species once was. Wouldn’t this be considered a seperate species, and therefore evolved? If you can agree that there can be minute changes that occur over time in the make-up of a species, why wouldn’t you agree that they can eventually change so much as to evolve and become a brand new species? They accumulate change over and over again, generation after generation. Don’t you think that the changes would eventually build up and cause it to be something new?

The term ‘evolution’ seems to be used in a broad sense here for a variety of secular theories relating to the origins of life; even then it would be inadequate to call natural selection evolution because it is a small part of that process.

‘Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with unfavorable traits.’ It doesn’t say our plethora of species came from a common ancestor but that they came from common ancestors. The creation theory is that all species of a ‘kind’, whatever that may be, came from that kind. For example, all cat species came from one cat species, or two, or three, but not many. This is what we have scientific evidence of, this is fact, beyond this we can only assume that because of certain common traits perhaps all cat species came from the same ancestor as all dog species. Unfortunately for those who make such assumptions there is a mass of missing links throughout their suggested ‘family trees’.

Now, I’d love to imagine your finch turning into a parrot… but where’s the evidence? Now if you told me about a lion and a tiger mating, making a liger or a tigon, then maybe a ti-liger or a li-liger, and then it ate some vegetables and grass, well, I’d believe you. They’re two of a kind. Now show me a lion come out of a fish… a fishon or a lish?

 

[Hubriss]

First, mostly of what you have written is just what I have said myself;the water covered the whole earth until eventually dry land began to appear.

And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.”

Here, is where the statement of waters condensing on earth

“Let the waters under the heaven was gathered together unto one place, and the dry land appearred”.

…and here is where the dry land eventually appeared…no different to what you wrote.

No, dude, that’s not what I’m saying and that’s nothing like what I wrote. In the early time of the Earth all the water was in gas form floating around and being held in the atmosphere. There was no water on the surface of the Earth. It was all dry land. Then once the Earth cooled, and the water fell, much of the earth disappeared, not appeared.

The scriptures speaks of the waters above(clouds, steam) and the waters below (liquid)…life started in the waters, right?

-mich2

Yeah, but it’s not talking about life there (during the let there be light part, and god’s face on the water).

On the other hand, it reads “lights” not sun and stars. The "lights of the sun and stars appear in the newly formed atmosphere.When I look in the heavens I do not actually see the sun nor the moon or stars, but an image thereof, produced by the light coming from the sources.However, I certainly can “claim” to see the sun or the moon as the image is as good as the true thing.The same concept is found in God (who cannot be seen) and the Word, which is the perfect representative of God availlable to reveal to humanity the image of God. While both can be said to be equally God, they are seen as separate entities. So ,while we could say the sun is in the firmament, the “image” of the sun is what is truly observed, while the sun itself is located beyond the firmament.

-Mich2

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth,

1. It says “let there be lights in the firmament (space of the sky or heavens)… and let them be signs for seasons and for days and years.” Okay, the lights are referred to as signs. Signs are usually objects that people can see that give them direction.
2. “and let them be lights… to give light upon the earth.” Here it is completely obvious that it is not just referring to the actual light being emanated from the sun, moon, and stars as they give off light, and is not just the light hitting the earth. The lights are the actual objects, sun, moon, and stars.

16 “And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.” The two great lights are obviously the sun and moon.

 

[Whiggamore]

Hubriss, you are owed some congratulations for revealing the absurdity of theistic evolution.

 

[mich2]

No, dude, that’s not what I’m saying and that’s nothing like what I wrote. In the early time of the Earth all the water was in gas form floating around and being held in the atmosphere. There was no water on the surface of the Earth. It was all dry land. Then once the Earth cooled, and the water fell, much of the earth disappeared, not appeared.

O.k.; but it’s a matter of different interpretation. The whole earth was saturated with water (still in the steam state) until it condensed and covered the whole earth ( leaving the land still very wet) until the water was gathered into one place(due to gravity), giving the chance for the land to dry for the first time.The verse which reads " “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water” speaks of the two states of water
liquid and gas as co-existing together until an atmosphere was created to separate the two.
Your personal theory of the earth being dry during when the waters were in a the state of steam, I just don’t buy, since the land was saturated with steam.

Yeah, but it’s not talking about life there (during the let there be light part, and god’s face on the water).

I agree; it’s total speculation on my part. However, I believe there is enough information in scriptures identying God’s Spirit with water as being the begetting of life .
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:3-6)
Light is also identified as the life of God; "John 1:4, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
The first Day of Genesis reads “God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Since all of the elements for life exists in that particular verse, I personally interpret it to mean the same as in the Gospel of John…This Light was Life …or at least an important ingredient in the formation of Life, the latter having it’s beginning on the first Genesis Day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth,

1. It says “let there be lights in the firmament (space of the sky or heavens)… and let them be signs for seasons and for days and years.” Okay, the lights are referred to as signs. Signs are usually objects that people can see that give them direction.

1. “and let them be lights… to give light upon the earth.” Here it is completely obvious that it is not just referring to the actual light being emanated from the sun, moon, and stars as they give off light, and is not just the light hitting the earth. The lights are the actual objects, sun, moon, and stars.

16 “And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.” The two great lights are obviously the sun and moon.

I am not in total disagreement, however, am still pointing to the "appearances of the stars and the moon as well as the sun, in turns of "images of the true bodies and not the actual bodies themselves. in referring to the sun and moon the Hebrew word asah (to make something from something else) is used rather than bara (to create something from nothing). Therefore, the creation of the sun and moon, in the sense of your opinion, is not implied. My question to you would be "what is the source of the light mentioned on the first Day?

Andre

 

[Hubriss]

All science. You read the same texts I do, don’t you? It is a matter of interpretation, and if you want to understand that interpretation, then read a creation science journal, a good one. TJ or something. You may disagree with their radical interpretation, but you can not say, “It is invalid because of science.” anymore than I can say, “Evolution is invalid because of science.” The origins of life can not be left to science! It must be an assumption, a concept, a theory, made on a foundation of science and all the other liberal arts. Nobody can look at a geological formation and say, “This means the world is x years old.” without having some previous ideas to pass that evidence through.

-Whiggamore

Examples! Examples! Examples! You’d do us all a favor if you’d present us with an example of evidense that supports creationism, and how it supports it, or how you interpret it.

‘Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with unfavorable traits.’ It doesn’t say our plethora of species came from a common ancestor but that they came from common ancestors. The creation theory is that all species of a ‘kind’, whatever that may be, came from that kind. For example, all cat species came from one cat species, or two, or three, but not many. This is what we have scientific evidence of, this is fact, beyond this we can only assume that because of certain common traits perhaps all cat species came from the same ancestor as all dog species. Unfortunately for those who make such assumptions there is a mass of missing links throughout their suggested ‘family trees’.

-Whiggamore

Partly true. The thing wrong with that is that all individuals in a species or even across species have many common ancestors that lived at different times, and not just one pair. For example. All humans have many common ancestors who lived at different times. All chimps have many common ancestors. And if you go back further, all humans and chimps have a common ancestor. And yet further, all humans, chimps, and horses have a common ancestor. Further still, all humans, chimps, horses and mice have a common ancestor. Even further still, all mammals have a common ancestor. All mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds have a common ancestor. Natural selection is not limited to one pair of individuals for each genus or species. The evidense is in the DNA. We can compare DNA across species and compare how closely related we are, and determine through mathematics based on calculations on the rate of change of DNA, how long ago we shared a common ancestor. Did you know that us humans and chimps have about 97.6 of the exact same DNA?

Hubriss, you are owed some congratulations for revealing the absurdity of theistic evolution.

-Whiggamore

Thanks… Do I get a medal? Don’t worry, creationism is next.

O.k.; but it’s a matter of different interpretation. The whole earth was saturated with water (still in the steam state) until it condensed and covered the whole earth ( leaving the land still very wet) until the water was gathered into one place(due to gravity), giving the chance for the land to dry for the first time.

-mich2

No, the Earth was not saturated in water. The earth was very hot. All the water was floating miles above the earth because it was all evaporated. Once the water condensed, gravity did not pull it all in one place. There was no basin where it all settled. While the earth was hot there were many volcanoes that made the earth’s crust uneven. There were already mountains and high land, so the water covered the lower land as it cooled and fell.

Your personal theory of the earth being dry during when the waters were in a the state of steam, I just don’t buy, since the land was saturated with steam.

-mich2

It is not a personal theory. Go read a book on it. Or look up Hadean Era on the internet, or in a book.

 

[Hubriss]

"John 1:4, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
The first Day of Genesis reads “God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Since all of the elements for life exists in that particular verse, I personally interpret it to mean the same as in the Gospel of John…This Light was Life …or at least an important ingredient in the formation of Life, the latter having it’s beginning on the first Genesis Day.

-mich2

Or it can be interpreted (kind of like what I said before), that referring to Jesus’s life as the “light of men,” could be a metaphor that Jesus is the guider of men through the darkness. Christians often use darkness to signify evil, and so the light (Jesus) is what purges the evil and guides us to salvation. I think that interpretation makes more sense, not that light is life.

My question to you would be "what is the source of the light mentioned on the first Day?

-mich2

I don’t know. It to me just seems to be a contradiction in the attempt to personify god.

 

[Deus_Vult]

One must analyze evolution in the light of faith, stepping into an area that has long been a religious and scientific minefield. While in fact, Christian’s have a responsibility to locate the scientific understanding of the universe within a Christian vision of creation. It is in my belief wrong for them to ignore the truth and makes it even harder for them to bring more into the fold. It is our responsibility to help them understand these truths. First, you have to accept as likely the prevailing tenets of evolutionary science: the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in a “big bang”; the earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago; all living organisms on earth descended from a first organism; and man emerged some 40,000 years ago with the development of the larger, human brain.
Second, there is a divine design in specific processes of evolution. While acknowledging that some experts do see a providential design in biological structures, such development might also be contingent, or dependant on chance. True contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. In other words, God’s plan allowed for all kinds of variables to play out. Or, any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. But is the emergence of man one of these chance results? Or did God play creationist in this instance? That’s the crux of the current debate. Most people would pose the question this way: Did we come out of a necessary process or a chance process? If it’s a necessary process, God did it. If it’s chance, why do you need God? But I think the question itself is wrong. It’s not just necessity or chance, it’s also opportunity. Humans live in a universe that statistically offers so many opportunities for the life-building processes to work together. In a universe so fertile in opportunity, it was inevitable. I say inevitable, not necessary – that human beings emerged. That’s the way our God made it…God created the “Big Bang” for this very reason.
Evolution is more than a hypothesis and had been widely accepted by scientists not Christians. Here lays the problem, the scientists do not believe in God so it is difficult for Christians to believe anything they say. In fact we may have an easier time convincing the non-believers with this than the Christian. We must insist that man was not just a link in the evolutionary chain. The emergence of man marked an ontological leap … the moment of transition to the spiritual that cannot fully be explained in scientific terms.
Expanding on that argument, the appearance of the first members of the human race must be attributed to some form of divine intervention. It speaks of God acting through causal chains from the beginning of cosmic history to prepare for the special creation of the human soul. God is a personal creator, not an impersonal force or energy. Man is the only creature on earth that God willed for his own sake. Well, are humans forced by revealed, religious truth to accept a dualistic view of the origins of the human person evolutionist with respect to the material dimension, creationist with respect to the spiritual dimension? And could a case be made for a type of divine creation that did not pre-ordain human beings, or which might have even produced thinking beings different than humans? Does that contradict religious truth? Not, as it appears to me , if theologians can develop a more profound understanding of God’s continuous creation that allows for freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process maybe…but there is only one right and that is what I speak of.
The wider discussion on evolution between religion and science is marked by misunderstandings. The term creation, for example, is about existence itself, not the chain of events which bring about a specific kind of being. Likewise, when religions speak of God “creating out of nothing,” scientists often equate it incorrectly with the vacuum of quantum mechanics. Among believers, there’s an unfortunate tendency to latch onto God when scientific explanations fall short. One gets the impression from certain religious believers that they fondly hope for the durability of certain gaps in our scientific knowledge of evolution, so they can fill them with God.
God should not be understood as a dictator, who has fine tuned the universe to run like a watch. But it will take considerable dialogue and reflection by Christian thinkers before a central tension is resolved between the omnipotence of God and the dynamism of a universe in evolution.

 

[Whiggamore]

Examples! Examples! Examples! You’d do us all a favor if you’d present us with an example of evidense that supports creationism, and how it supports it, or how you interpret it.

The topic at hand is not the validity of creation but the difference between evolution and theistic evolution. Furthermore, you know as well as I that examples, examples, and more examples would avail us nothing. Haven’t you learnt to avoid those pointless discussions?

Of course, check out a good creation science journal.

… many common ancestors that lived at different times, and not just one pair.

That is your assumption and demonstrates my point: we both observe natural selection happening amongst ‘kinds’, reconcile this fact with our previous understandings, and draw certain conclusions. Beyond that scientific evidence it is a matter of theory, and theory is not in the realm of empirical science but that of reason and the liberal arts. And no matter how much either of us claim otherwise our theories are not science. There is no experiment to prove the account of Genesis and there is no experiment to prove the conjecture of Origin of Species. We can only guess. Educated guesses, yes, but guesses nonetheless.

You have to accept that much or else any kind of fruitful discussion would be absolutely impossible. If a man can not accept that then he is not interested in truth but in winning… and it is a shallow victory at that.