It seems to me that the creationist argument is just... silly.

[Blue Wren]

Supersoldier - welcome to this section of the forums!

You wrote:



Um, these are both misused and misleading quotes repeated on creationists sites in misleading ways. You might want to look into them more before repeating them, as taking and repeating quotes out of context is something that atheists point to when they want to show that we Christians are dishonest. So it doesn't help our witness of the Gospel.

Specifically, the Lewontin quote is debunked here:

Thoughts in a Haystack: Failing to COPE

and the Michael Ruse quote here:

Is Darwinism a Religion?[bless and do not curse]|[bless and do not curse]Michael Ruse

Dr. Ruse ends his debunking of his misused quote with:

So the answer to the question "Is Darwinism a religion?" is varied, interesting and insightful. But I bet a million dollars that for the next 10 years it will be the first paragraph and only the first paragraph of this piece that will be quoted and requoted by those who are more interested in using my words for their own ends rather than for understanding what I am really trying to say.​

And following your post, the fact that Jennae swallowed the quotes taken out of context without so much as a blink again reflects poorly on the credibility of creationists.

*************************

Roman - welcome to this area of the forums!

You wrote:



Simple. Mountains and mountains of converging evidence from many different fields and tests, all giving answers that confirm each other.



Because that's a strawman. The mechanism is well described as well as being confirmed again through many experiments.


Because you are unfamiliar with the evidence. You could start by taking a college biology class, or reading at sites like this: TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy





non sequiter. Belief in God is perfectly compatible with evolution, just as belief in God is compatible with germ theory, gravitational theory, or atomic theory. In fact, most of the support for evolution comes from Christians.

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Blue Wren]

"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit in this one complaint… the literalists [i.e., creationists] are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today." - Michael Ruse (go 'head, look up his background)

I did have the pleasure of reading about Prof. Ruse. Thank-you, for bringing him to my attention. I especially thought this was interesting, as a Scandinavian Christian, who has been surprised, by American creationism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjfynVeST-o

Btw. If you look, on YouTube you will see other videos that try to make it look like, from the title, Ruse has dismissed evolution. If you watch the entire lecture video you will get, context to understand.


Christianity, it is my religion. Not American creationism.

 

[godenver1]

I'm a very, very religious Christian; I read the Bible, I study it, I pray, and, in all things, I (attempt) to worship the Lord. Christianity is my religion; God is my God.

I don't worship evolution in any form. I believe that it is true because that is what the data appears to show.

Christianity, it is my religion. Not American creationism.

How do you even worship evolution as a religion? Can you worship gravity, another scientific theory which is seemingly a fact? I don't get it

 

[BobRyan]

How do you even worship evolution as a religion?

Promote "belief in" evolutionism - blind faith "belief" and use it to destroy acceptance of the Bible as being God's reliable accurate "account" for origins.


Can you worship gravity or any other non-junk-science theory ? - I don't think so.

By contrast when it comes to the junk-science we call blind-faith evolutionism we have what no "real science" has --

============================

==============================

[FONT=&quot]Collin Patterson (atheist and diehard evolutionist to the day he died in 1998) - Paleontologist British Museum of Natural history speaking at [/FONT]the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 [FONT=&quot] - said:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Patterson - quotes Gillespie's arguing that Christians [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"'...holding creationist ideas could [/FONT][FONT=&quot]plead ignorance of the means and affirm only the fact[/FONT][FONT=&quot],'" [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Patterson countered, "That seems to [/FONT][FONT=&quot]summarize the feeling I get in talking to evolutionists today. They plead ignorance of the means of transformation, but affirm only the fact ([/FONT][FONT=&quot]saying):'Yes it has...we know it has taken place.'"[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]"...Now I think that many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]if you had thought about it at all, you've experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that's true of me, and I think it's true[/FONT][FONT=&quot] of a good many of you in here... [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]"...,[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge[/FONT][FONT=&quot] , apparent knowledge which is actually harmful to systematics..." [/FONT] __________________

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

I believe that God created the eath, all the lifeforms and living creatures. However, I do not believe that God created in six days of 24 hours each. In other words the word "day" : in Genesis 1 is not literal but instead, it refers to a phase pr stage. It means that God created in organized stage: First the light, then sun/moon ... land/sea ... then living creatures. How long did this take,whether 10000 or 500000 years, we really don't know.

I was not born a Christian, but when I was not a believer yet, I came across the theory of evolution. To be convinced, it means believing that a simple cell changed very gradually into a little more complex lifeforms, and very gradually over time, they evolved into 10, 20, hundreds .... thousands .... and millions of beautiful plants, creatures and animals that exist today. My question was, and still is: How is this theory more credible than creation? The vague notion that evolution happens by itself over ions of time, without sustainable explanations of how the mechanism of change took place, does not sound any more convincing than creation.

Evolutionism must appeal for the idea of the computer without the architect, the painting that "paints itself" - the fine tuning to the level of 10^120 -- without the fine tuner.


As Leonard Suskind pointed 'nobody believes that could be accident' its "too much... too extreme".

Yet this is exactly that sort of "pure nonsense" that is the everyday stuff for blind faith evolutionism.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Christianity, it is my religion. Not American creationism.

The video contrasts what it calls evilution against Christianity as if there is really no incompatibility. Which if one tosses their Bible out the window is probably true.

Bible calls it "being blown about by every wind of doctrine".

I like James Barr's assessment about the fact that the text itself is so glaringly obvious as to what it says - and the Bible believing Christians of course have noticed that not so subtle detail -- all along.

Originally Posted by BobRyan ============================================
[FONT=&quot]One leading Hebrew scholar is James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University and former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England. Although he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis 1, Dr. Barr does agree that the writer's intent was to narrate the actual history of primeval creation. Others also agree with him. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. [/FONT]

James Barr, letter to David Watson, 1984.
================================


in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

As a creationist, I find it amusing when my biology textbooks say something like: "evolution couldn't leave [this] to chance" or "evolution solved this issue by..."

Evolution is a religion absent a ruler, a Lord.

It's not God the Creator that makes them uncomfortable, it's the King of Kings part.

Amen that is exactly how they make a god of it.

 

[godenver1]

Promote "belief in" evolutionism - blind faith "belief" and use it to destroy acceptance of the Bible as being God's reliable accurate "account" for origins.

I don't think promoting a belief (which many hold to be fact) automatically means it's a religion. I'm sure you're aware of the vaccination debate in the US currently, can't one promote their personal views on that without it being a religion to them?

Could you provide links to persons using evolution "...to destroy acceptance of the Bible..." or are they all trying to destroy acceptance of YEC?

Personally, I wouldn't set out to "destroy" YEC, but I currently don't believe it's the correct interpretation

 

[Blue Wren]

The video contrasts what it calls evilution against Christianity as if there is really no incompatibility. Which if one tosses their Bible out the window is probably true.

Bible calls it "being blown about by every wind of doctrine".

He's not calling it EVILUTION. That's his accent. There really is no incompatibility, between Christianity and evolution. The problem, exists with the rigid Young Earth Creationism interpretation of Genesis, that is rare outside of the US, and evolution. Most Christians in Europe, find Christianity to be as compatible with evolution, as they find it compatible with gravity. Read through the resolutions, of most Protestant conferences, that are not fundamentalists. You probably dismiss what the Pope has to say, but he, too, has spoken several times, about the compatibility between evolution and faith.

I like James Barr's assessment about the fact that the text itself is so glaringly obvious as to what it says - and the Bible believing Christians of course have noticed that not so subtle detail -- all along.

Originally Posted by BobRyan ============================================
[FONT=&quot]One leading Hebrew scholar is James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University and former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England. Although he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis 1, Dr. Barr does agree that the writer's intent was to narrate the actual history of primeval creation. Others also agree with him. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. [/FONT]

James Barr, letter to David Watson, 1984.
================================

You're posting a 31-year-old quote, about a professor's remark about the intent of Genesis, even though he doesn't believe the historicity of it? I tried to find the quote online, to find full context of it, and saw it mostly on Creationists sites. It's been mined.

Mined Quote from James Barr

 

[godenver1]

I think the issue is that there is an incompatibility with evolution and YEC interpretation, not the bible itself

 

[SkyWriting]

So far, NOBODY has been able to demonstrate how it could be "figurative" with the Scriptures. They can only reject what is clearly written. And why? To believe that the science of man has supremacy to the will of God? No, sorry. God could create another identical universe tomorrow.

I'm not at odds with literalness, but I'll give it a go.

God doesn't walk with man in the Garden anymore.
Our gardens don't have knowledge trees or talking
serpents in them. In our world new beings are
created quite small and tiny.

So, it seems, we are not in the Garden world of
Adam and Eve.

So...while the story is literal, it took place in
an entirely different world.

You pastor should have pointed that out. Or you
should explain it to him....in a loving spirit.

 

[SkyWriting]

There really is no incompatibility, between Christianity and evolution.

Well, there is a big problem in that evolutionary theory proposes
that there is no purpose and "random" events of natural origin
native to any rock, will and have, produced man.

Believers reject that as nonsense.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

[FONT=&quot]Collin Patterson (atheist and diehard evolutionist to the day he died in 1998) - Paleontologist British Museum of Natural history speaking at [/FONT]the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 [FONT=&quot] - said:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Patterson - quotes Gillespie's arguing that Christians [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"'...holding creationist ideas could [/FONT][FONT=&quot]plead ignorance of the means and affirm only the fact[/FONT][FONT=&quot],'" [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Patterson countered, "That seems to [/FONT][FONT=&quot]summarize the feeling I get in talking to evolutionists today. They plead ignorance of the means of transformation, but affirm only the fact ([/FONT][FONT=&quot]saying):'Yes it has...we know it has taken place.'"[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]"...Now I think that many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]if you had thought about it at all, you've experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that's true of me, and I think it's true[/FONT][FONT=&quot] of a good many of you in here... [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]"...,[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge[/FONT][FONT=&quot] , apparent knowledge which is actually harmful to systematics..." [/FONT] __________________

in Christ,

Bob

When I did a search of Colin Patterson's name to locate this post that I wrote for you last summer to explain with evidence how it had been misrepresented and misappropriated to the dismay of him and his family until his passing, I saw pages worth of posts you'd written with the same quote, even after I provided this for you:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7840061-8/#post66268103

Did you simply copy and paste these quotes from a creationist website without attempting to validate their veracity or understand their context and intent? It only took a brief Google search to discover the facts about these quotes and how they were obtained in an underhanded manner by a creationist, cunningly contorted to suit an agenda, and then unscrupulously disseminated across creationist circles and later the internet. Most who've read the quotes haven't known the full truth about them, and even those who did most likely couldn't fully understand the actual truth of what Patterson was saying because his remarks were to professionals and within specific parameters regarding evolution. They were never intended for laypeople who didn't know the difference between criticizing something specific like a brand of soap, and throwing the baby, the bathwater, and the tub out and then demolishing the whole house.

"Patternson Misquoted: A Tale of Two 'Cites'" illuminates the matter. Here's a passage from a letter Patterson wrote pertaining to that speech:

I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false.

That brush with Sunderland (I had never heard of him before) was my first experience of creationists. The famous "keynote address" at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 was nothing of the sort. It was a talk to the "Systematics Discussion Group" in the Museum, an (extremely) informal group. I had been asked to talk to them on "Evolutionism and creationism"; fired up by a paper by Ernst Mayr published in Science just the week before. I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification). Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden tape recorder. So much the worse for me. But my talk was addressed to professional systematists, and concerned systematics, nothing else.

I hope that by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing with creationists, cryptic or overt. But I still maintain that scepticism is the scientist's duty, however much the stance may expose us to ridicule.

Yours Sincerely,

[signed]

Colin Patterson

If you scroll down the site linked above you can see the full letter, and above it there is a link you can click on to view a PDF of the original signed by Patterson.


He never "woke up" to the "problem" of evolution as you were led to believe he did, and there's no reason to swallow blind faith evolution when there's ample legitimate knowledge readily available to digest. Many Christians accept evolution as the central unifying theme of biology without distress to their faith. It depends on your hermeneutical approach to Genesis.

Why do you persist in disseminating the quote on Christian Forums when you have been made aware how misleading it is? Could you please not copy and paste it here again?

 

[SkyWriting]

Ken Ham is a good example of a person in this category.

I've met Ken and his intentions are good.
But his focus on "young" is misplaced.

I've also met James Irwin at a Christian
rally and asked him about the age of
the moon, in person.

"The moon is young" was not his answer.
I've chosen to go with Irwin over Ham as I feel
he holds the better researched creationist answer.

 

[BobRyan]

When I did a search of Colin Patterson's name to locate this post that I wrote for you last summer to explain with evidence how it had been misrepresented and misappropriated to the dismay of him and his family until his passing, I saw pages worth of posts you'd written with the same quote, even after I provided this for you:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7840061-8/#post66268103





Why do you persist in disseminating the quote on Christian Forums when you have been made aware how misleading it is? Could you please not copy and paste it here again?

you came up with nothing - zip ... nada.

Then you want to regale us with the failed effort to discredit that quote - as if this failure on your part is supposed to substitute for a compelling response to the points raised in the quote.

I don't understand why your failure at that point is supposed to be held in any degree of consideration by the objective unbiased reader?

You show that T.E.'s prefer to ignore the quote and love to engage in factless accusation when the quote comes up - but nothing more.

What is your logic in demonstrating that failure for us??


What is worse - you mix the letter to Sunderland up with the talk at the American Museum in the "deny all" solution T.E's are so enamored with as they pretend that "all news is good news" to this very day on this particular issue.


in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

However since you bring up that other thread - it is helpful to a degree and I add my comment there -- something like this.

=========================================

Did you simply copy and paste these quotes from a creationist website without attempting to validate their veracity or understand their context and intent? It only took a brief Google search to discover the facts about these quotes and how they were obtained in an underhanded manner by a creationist, cunningly contorted to suit an agenda, and then unscrupulously disseminated across creationist circles and later the internet.

Ad hominem attacks while back-handedly admitting that the quote is verbatim - accurate. pure.

How in the world do you suppose we are to "lament" that fact that the added "information" you claim only "further admits' that the quote is 100% verbatim correct??? No "other words added" in fact we have the entire letter. T.E.'s "hoped" the response would have a magic phrase in it to discount the verbatim quote. Sadly for that desperate hope -- it did not.

Nobody is forcing Patterson to make these confessions even in your own statments and all the supposed revelation you claim.

Nothing.. nada ... zip in that regard. The statements "remain"

The point -- "remains".

Most who've read the quotes haven't known the full truth about them, and even those who did most likely couldn't fully understand the actual truth of what Patterson was saying

Wrong again. The quotes are incredibly easy to understand. No dark knowledge, no secret knowledge needed. The points are obvious as he states them and NEVER does Patterson claim that his words are not understandable.

because his remarks were to professionals and within specific parameters regarding evolution. They were never intended for laypeople

Here again you are trying out the "hopeful monster" defense -- you appear to imagine or hope that the evolutionists Patterson was addressing were "pleased" or "not at all shocked" -- even as the laypeople that read those words would be.

Turns out that is not at all true with regard to the talk he gave at the museum in Chicago.

If you scroll down the site linked above you can see the full letter, and above it there is a link you can click on to view a PDF of the original signed by Patterson.

I have all the material and the "hopeful rescue" you seem to have hoped for - never shows up in it.

He never "woke up" to the "problem" of evolution as you were led to believe he did, .

His "wake up"-- was in his own words, in his own lament ... He never retracts them. He would love to have had a better state of things in his much beloved religion of evolutionism. This is beyond question.

The point remains.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Job8]

I talk about Adam and Eve, too. I don't think they were historical individuals. When you hear someone say they take Genesis figuratively, be sure you don't confuse "figurative" with "untrue."

Since you "don't think they were historical individuals" you too are saying that the Genesis account is untrue.

But the entire Gospel and the finished work of Christ are a result of the historicity of Adam and Eve and their disobedience. If Adam (the first Adam) is unhistorical, that also makes Christ (the second Adam) unhistorical, and indeed unncessary.

 

[godenver1]

Well, there is a big problem in that evolutionary theory proposes
that there is no purpose and "random" events of natural origin
native to any rock, will and have, produced man.

It doesn't. All evolution tells us is the history of the diversification of species of the world so it isn't at odds with Christianity

 

[Willtor]

Since you "don't think they were historical individuals" you too are saying that the Genesis account is untrue.

...

Incorrect. I am saying it is non-literal.

 

[Audacious]

Since you "don't think they were historical individuals" you too are saying that the Genesis account is untrue.

But the entire Gospel and the finished work of Christ are a result of the historicity of Adam and Eve and their disobedience. If Adam (the first Adam) is unhistorical, that also makes Christ (the second Adam) unhistorical, and indeed unncessary.

This is a false dichotomy: "either X and Y are both literally true, or neither are!" The fact is, there are other options than these two; for instance, one can be literally true and the other be figurative -- a very common stance among Christians, and, in fact, Bible scholars. Hell, St Augustine thought that Genesis was literal, and that was before Biblical historicity and historical dating were even things.

You're needlessly connecting two events which are theologically connected, but don't have to be literally so. There are parallels, but that doesn't mean that one depends upon the other in order to be literally true.