EO & evolution

[rusmeister]

When we speak of "life" and "death", I think it an error to treat fruit as a living being. The phenomenon I see as referenced as living is animate beings. - Noah was not told to take every manner of fruit and vegetable into the Ark. So it is fallacious, I think, to try to treat fruit as something that "dies" and to speak of its "death" when eaten.

I don't accept that. Doesn't count as "death entering the world".

 

[rusmeister]

So what did animals eat, and how did they do so without killing any plants?

As for St Theophan, he is full of theological insights that are far beyond me. He is wrong about how something that definitely happened in the past - the earth is billions of years old and trilobytes have been dead for hundreds of millions, for instance - is somehow incompatible with Orthodox Christian theology. Perhaps if he were alive on the planet today he would have some theological insight correcting his previous opinion which has either proved to be wrong or at least need some mild revision and reapplication - perhaps the underlying idea motivating it is correct, but, simply put, things died millions of years ago.

It is easy to say that St Theophan is wrong because some things "definitely" happened in the past. I submit that your knowledge of this is based on a fervent belief in the calculations and interpretations of other scientists. I find it difficult in the extreme to believe that you have personally examined every scrap of evidence and come up with the methods and performed all the necessary calculations yourself. In fact, I think the whole problem is that your knowledge is not one of objective experience, but of faith - in assumptions and calculations of others.

 

[rusmeister]

"SCIENCE is weak about these prehistoric things in a way that has hardly been noticed. The science whose modern marvels we all admire succeeds by incessantly adding to its data. In all practical inventions, in most natural discoveries, it can always increase evidence by experiment. But it cannot experiment in making men; or even in watching to see what the first men make. An inventor can advance step by step in the construction of an airplane even if he is only experimenting with sticks and scraps of metal in his own backyard. But he cannot watch the Missing Link evolving in his own backyard. If he has made a mistake in his calculations, the airplane will correct it by crashing to the ground. But if he has made a mistake about the arboreal habitat of his ancestor, he cannot see his arboreal ancestor falling off the tree. He cannot keep a caveman like a cat in the backyard and watch him to see whether he does really practice cannibalism or carry off his mate on the principles of marriage by capture. He cannot keep a tribe of primitive men like a pack of hounds and notice how far they are influenced by the herd instinct. If he sees a particular bird behave in a particular way, he can get other birds and see if they behave in that way; but if be finds a skull, or the scrap of a skull in the hollow of a hill, he cannot multiply it into a vision of the valley of dry bones. In dealing with a past that has almost entirely perished he can only go by evidence and not by experiment."
GKC, "The Everlasting Man"

 

[gzt]

GKC is wrong. HTH. HAND.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Another aspect of these evolution debates that troubles me is that there is an undercurrent of "holy moly! If we're not pro-evolution, we're not keeping up with the times and we won't be able to attract new followers! Think about it! Everyone accepts evolution these days. We don't want to appear out of step and stale to newbies"

I always get that vibe in these discussions. It seems like evolution is such a "given" in this modern society, so the fear of looking out of step with the scientific community would give the impression of us having egg on our face?

I think we need to put CHURCH FIRST, science second. If that turns off potential newbies, so be it imho. I used to fervently accept evolution, as many on here can attest to, but I had to keep an open mind to the faith, the Fathers, the Church, and Orthodox reason over atheist scientific reason. I see evolution as incompatible with our faith. And, like Rus, I have yet to see how anyone in here is reconciling their faith with evolution in a coherent narrative. We hear of the "mountains of evidence" and yet not one example is ever given. gzt talks of being a statistician and how he sees the concrete realities, yet no examples, and all of these blanket statements about how Theophan is wrong, but no real solid reason as to why, and I hear nobody saying exactly how, in their mind, they are able to explain evolution from a sea of ammonia, creatures developing into primate-like hominids and eventually turning human, somehow only the First Parents committing the Original Sin, God making things perfect, then them being imperfect, then back to perfect, then fallen, and now in flux on a journey to God-knows-what, then Christ comes and takes on the Incarnation (that is also by implication imperfect as well because Christ jumped into human skin at a point on a long number line that is in flux), and now we're....

yeah, I just don't hear a coherent narrative. I hear all sorts of talking points for evolution like "the Bible isn't a science book!" and yet blanks are never filled in....

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

How and why is Chesterton wrong?

GKC is wrong. HTH. HAND.

 

[gzt]

Like I said, I'm here for jokes, not discourse. I pointed at some books if you really want to engage, but this is a message board, I'm not doing your homework. I just can't leave it so that hapless inquirers are deluded into thinking that they have to think the world is 7000 years old.

Chesterton is wrong because he doesn't believe the world is billions of years old and that life evolved from single celled organisms.

 

[gzt]

Like I said, I'm here for jokes, not discourse. I pointed at some books if you really want to engage, but this is a message board, I'm not doing your homework. I just can't leave it so that hapless inquirers are deluded into thinking that they have to think the world is 7000 years old.

Chesterton is wrong because he doesn't believe the world is billions of years old and that life evolved from single celled organisms.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

A few questions:

What do you mean about being here for jokes and not discourse? I must've missed that earlier.

Secondly, you can't give ANY evidence? Anything? Are we to take the argument seriously when you claim we're wanting you to do our homework? I have no desire to do the homework to begin with, but I'm asking you to prove it a bit, and you do zero in that area. If you are a serious scientist and you're this passionately in favor of evolution and the mountain of evidence is this epic, shoot, I would think just five bullets Power Point style with key points would suffice, no?

Who are the "hapless inquiers" you speak of?

Who in here believes the Earth is only 7,000 years old? When was that said?

Chesterton is wrong because he doesn't believe the Earth is billions of years old. Could you just give a little evidence rather than some reference link that it IS billions of years old? How can you possibly date something into the billions of years?

Final question--how old are you?

Like I said, I'm here for jokes, not discourse. I pointed at some books if you really want to engage, but this is a message board, I'm not doing your homework. I just can't leave it so that hapless inquirers are deluded into thinking that they have to think the world is 7000 years old.

Chesterton is wrong because he doesn't believe the world is billions of years old and that life evolved from single celled organisms.

 

[jckstraw72]

Gurney, if he admittedly is not taking this seriously, then i think it's best not to engage him - it will probably only lead to frustration.

 

[gzt]

Hapless inquirers: e.g. the OP?

Age of the earth: are you suggesting you believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old and nothing ever died until 7000 years ago? I really do want to hear about this.

Yes, please don't engage in conversation. As I mentioned at the very beginning, I'm not particularly interested in spending the time to engage discursively. HTH. HAND. There's a pile of resources I linked to. Really. I seriously won't talk about how we know evolution happened. It's, like, there. Look at the wikipedia. I don't have time for that nonsense.

Chesterton: sound and fury signifying nothing.

 

[gzt]

Gurney, if he admittedly is not taking this seriously, then i think it's best not to engage him - it will probably only lead to frustration.

I do take it quite seriously in that being a Christian is about being right about everything, and this entails believing in evolution. I don't take it seriously enough to wade into the fever swamps to think about some 19th century crap from a guy who thought the way to fight atheism was to insist vehemently that the world wasn't a few billion years old.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Wise advice, mate. I will disengage here. All he's doing is mocking Chesterton and providing no counter except to disparage a legend. Makes no sense. Usually when someone says things like, "look, dude, you're so wrong in your position that I'm not going to waste my time trying to correct someone so lost," that usually means they're out of bullets or never had a clip to begin with in the discussion.

Gurney, if he admittedly is not taking this seriously, then i think it's best not to engage him - it will probably only lead to frustration.

 

[gzt]

roflcopter.

 

[rusmeister]

I find some sad irony that the thread was started by someone named Grace and Peace, yet those qualities seem sadly lacking in this discussion.

Like I said, I'm here for jokes, not discourse. I pointed at some books if you really want to engage, but this is a message board, I'm not doing your homework. I just can't leave it so that hapless inquirers are deluded into thinking that they have to think the world is 7000 years old.

Chesterton is wrong because he doesn't believe the world is billions of years old and that life evolved from single celled organisms.

I do plan to look at your link, GZ; like I said, I think it would be wrong to dismiss your ideas.
But I do feel that you assume you know our ideas - in the specific example of thinking the Earth is only seven thousand years old. I could imagine that it is, but I don't THINK that; I think it wiser to be agnostic and admit that I don't know exactly. So you're in error, if only in trying to describe what we think. I realize that may be difficult if some DO think that and some of us don't.

I don't know what HTH and HAND are supposed to mean; in my past the one meant "hand-to-hand" (combat).

I do take it quite seriously in that being a Christian is about being right about everything, and this entails believing in evolution. I don't take it seriously enough to wade into the fever swamps to think about some 19th century crap from a guy who thought the way to fight atheism was to insist vehemently that the world wasn't a few billion years old.

I don't think you understand Chesterton's context at all; at any rate, it is useless to assert that someone else is wrong because you are right. It is useless in discourse because it assumes truths and doesn't try to convince anyone of anything. The comment on Chesterton looks about as informed as an atheist saying something similar about Schmemann or Homyakov. It says "I don't know the guy, and I don't WANT to know him (but I know all about him and understand him completely)".

I'm bowing out of this, unless I see more effort to conduct civil, polite and friendly dialog; for my part I still intend to look that link of yours up.

 

[gzt]

"Hope that helps. Have a nice day."

 

[gzt]

The server ate my latest lovely reply, so this will, unfortunately, be briefer.

I have precious little time to engage in constructive dialogue, and, as I am no expert in theology, philosophy, evolutionary biology, or paleology, my responses would require extensive reference to othe materials, mostly electronic, to compose. As they are better stated and more accurate than anything I would produce as well as generally electronically available, it would be best to just encourage you to read them on your own. I'm sure you can find them. The OP asked about EO and evolution and I can't let the OP get away with the impression that there is only one option, the creationist option that can't believe the Earth is billions of years old or that there was any kind of death before approximately 7000 years ago, give or take a few thousand, at the Fall. It is simply by no means the only view.

My comment about the fever swamps was more directed at jckstraw and his sources than at Chesterton, as he is, after all, mostly a 20th century figure. A better response to Chesteron is more like, "And?" He states a few things most scientists don't fail to consider and seriously underestimates the process and results of the scientific enterprise. Perhaps some people then were deserving of his bluster, and at other points his response to evolutionism are quite handy, but here he really doesn't have any purchase. So he's just plain wrong here. He's quite right generally that scientism is a bad thing. Perhaps I was a bit too strong there - but I don't doubt his tenor would change quite a lot if he were around today, as there are decades more research into the matter under discussion, so his point there is simply not relevant today, at least not as a bludgeon against all of scientific endeavour in paleology.

 

[rusmeister]

The server ate my latest lovely reply, so this will, unfortunately, be briefer.

I have precious little time to engage in constructive dialogue, and, as I am no expert in theology, philosophy, evolutionary biology, or paleology, my responses would require extensive reference to othe materials, mostly electronic, to compose. As they are better stated and more accurate than anything I would produce as well as generally electronically available, it would be best to just encourage you to read them on your own. I'm sure you can find them. The OP asked about EO and evolution and I can't let the OP get away with the impression that there is only one option, the creationist option that can't believe the Earth is billions of years old or that there was any kind of death before approximately 7000 years ago, give or take a few thousand, at the Fall. It is simply by no means the only view.

My comment about the fever swamps was more directed at jckstraw and his sources than at Chesterton, as he is, after all, mostly a 20th century figure. A better response to Chesteron is more like, "And?" He states a few things most scientists don't fail to consider and seriously underestimates the process and results of the scientific enterprise. Perhaps some people then were deserving of his bluster, and at other points his response to evolutionism are quite handy, but here he really doesn't have any purchase. So he's just plain wrong here. He's quite right generally that scientism is a bad thing. Perhaps I was a bit too strong there - but I don't doubt his tenor would change quite a lot if he were around today, as there are decades more research into the matter under discussion, so his point there is simply not relevant today, at least not as a bludgeon against all of scientific endeavour in paleology.

I'll drop everything else, GZ.
I don't think a negative spirit is worth it.

I will say that your comments on Chesterton look like those of an art student with no physics background on Einstein's theories. If a man was really great (and you just don't realize that yet about GKC as some do not realize it about Schmemann) then you'd have to first learn about that greatness and exactly how and why and what it is before you could begin to fairly assess him. To say that he "blustered" is the wild opposite of the truth. You might as well say that "Schmemann raged", which would reveal to anyone who actually READS (more than soundbites of) Schmemann would know is simply absurd.

So I don't mind your saying that Chesterton is wrong, but I do mind your speaking as if you know a lot about him, including what he would change his tone about. I've read maybe fifty of his books, but still consider my knowledge of him limited and imperfect, but I doubt that he would change his tone on most things because he held a holistic philosophy, something I hope you discover to be true one day.

You're approaching him as a hostile figure, which is a pity. If you ever really meet him in a book, you will find him more congenial than you ever imagined, just as you would tell someone that Schmemann is more full of love, forgiveness and thankfulness than they might imagine - because you know it to be true.

 

[Dorothea]

When we speak of "life" and "death", I think it an error to treat fruit as a living being. The phenomenon I see as referenced as living is animate beings. - Noah was not told to take every manner of fruit and vegetable into the Ark. So it is fallacious, I think, to try to treat fruit as something that "dies" and to speak of its "death" when eaten.

I don't accept that. Doesn't count as "death entering the world".

Yes, I pretty much thought that for years before I knew anything about the details and reading up on Evolution debates. I thought there was no death in the Garden meaning man or animal and that they ate plants, not each other.

 

[Kristos]

because it is hard for there to be evolution if Creation is groaning for the liberty that we will have. well, the liberty that we will have is the liberty that we lost, so if Creation is groaning for that liberty, then there is a liberty which they lost, which cannot be true if evolution were true. because what enslaves us is death, sin, corruption, etc.

The groaning is because the world is in travail - as in giving birth. It seems to be that the language fits evolution more than not. Through the fall, sin and death entered the world and because sin and death are at enmity with God's good creation they have distorted it. Is this not a base premise of natural selection? Survival of the fittest etc? If the world was in harmony with God would it change? Maybe that could be pondering, but certainly one cannot assert that the world NOT in harmony with God doesn't change.