Some questions for Christians who accept evolution

[AV1611VET]

There's tonnes of evidence of transition. Literally tonnes.

Am I a transitional between my father and my son?

 

[Not_By_Chance]

I love science and though I am not a scientist, I have found myself doing some tests for the better sciences of things in a hobby of mine (which ironically is reptile care)

Evolution is an interesting one, and I had this discussion the other day, indivudually in sciences, (evoloution, and natural selection) (when you look at both) are not friendly with each other, AT ALL!
Even the fossil record has never once shown one species (turning into another) this is important to look at.
You will find none, what you will find is species, within species, that share similarities, but never once has a dinosaur been found to have turned into a bird in fossil records.

When-ever I refer to evolution, I am often speaking about the time frame in which a species has been on the planet, I do not deny, some species would have had to have moved, further, south, or north, in an attempt to recompensate for survival losses, after the earth has been hit with many astronomical events and natural disasters.

So to a degree I beleive it is possible (some species) may have evolved into differing habitats, and evolved to use those habitats a little better, but either way you look at it, biblically, or scientifically, there is still a big empty gap in our being here, and the fact is, the odds of us being here are the equivilent to winning the lottery, every single day, for the last how-ever billion years, I think we can all agree, that's pretty astronomical, and something else has to have driven that force.

I think I cleaned the floor with a good amount of atheists the other day.
People say there is no evidence of God, there is pleanty of evidence for God.
Heck, even the story of Noah, geological findings, will show, that there was a great flood around those biblical times, and more interestingly, skulls of giants are still found today, (even goliaths was supposedly found in the place the battle of David took place with a dint in his skull, his tomb is in israel.

So much for a book of fairy tailes eh?

The Bible is demonstrably God's book. It contains information that couldn't have been known at the time that it was written and it's consistency of a period of 1,500 years or so is nothing short of astonishing. The scribes who wrote the scriptures when to extraordinary lengths to preserve the accuracy of the previous copies. I believe one of the methods they used was to count all the letters in one of the books, determine which was the middle letter (or letters if it was an even number) and then check that both copies were the same.

I would suggest, if you haven't already, getting your hands on some of the excellent videos available if you want to challenge your atheist friends. Here is a list of some that I have found particularly useful and interesting:-

1. From Evolution to Creation, by Dr Gary Parker
2. 4 Power Questions to ask an Evolutionist, by Mike Riddle
3. Evolution's Achilles Heels (new DVD where 15 Ph.D scientists explain evolution's fatal flaws - in areas claimed to be its greatest strengths).
4. Our Created Solar System and Our Created Stars and Galaxies by Spike Psarris
5. How do we know the Bible is true?, Parts 1 to 4 by Brian Edwards

 

[Armoured]

The Bible is demonstrably God's book. It contains information that couldn't have been known at the time

Such as...?

 

[AV1611VET]

Our Created Solar System and Our Created Stars and Galaxies by Spike Psarris

 

[Not_By_Chance]

There's tonnes of evidence of transition. Literally tonnes.

Are you sure it's not just false interpretation? If it really occurred, why don't we see it occurring today and why do other scientists, some of whom are experts in fossils, totally reject the idea? I've lived on this planet for a tad over 60 years and I haven't come across one single creature, either around me or in a documentary, that can be said to be transitional.

 

[AV1611VET]

Such as...?

The universe is expanding.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Such as...?

I would have thought you would know have known this already as a Christian. If not, it might be a good idea to contact Peter Sparrow via the creation.com website as he is the one who told me this in a video called "Thy Word is Truth" and he could no doubt explain it better than me. By the way, the video I mentioned is basically about how you would explain to a group of people of different religions why you believed that yours was the one true religion.

 

[Armoured]

I would have thought you would know have known this already as a Christian. If not, it might be a good idea to contact Peter Sparrow via the creation.com website as he is the one who told me this in a video called "Thy Word is Truth" and he could no doubt explain it better than me. By the way, the video I mentioned is basically about how you would explain to a group of people of different religions why you believed that yours was the one true religion.

Or, you know, you could just simply answer my question.

 

[Armoured]

Are you sure it's not just false interpretation?

Yep.

 

[Colter]

So if there is no evidence of transition in the fossil record, how can it be of any support to the evolution story? It's just a faith-based idea, another kind of religion if you will and a poorly-supported one at that.

For me it's in the layers of the fossil record where we see the remains of different life forms that lived in different ages on an earth where the oldest rocks are billions of years old in a universe that's billions of years old.

 

[Colter]

I agree that micro-evolution is a fact (small changes within kinds - creation scientists have no problem with that whatsoever), but I totally reject the notion of macro-evolution (one kind changing into a totally different kind).

Sure they do, here is one kind changing to a different kind:

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Or, you know, you could just simply answer my question.

OK, I'll give you a summary of what Peter says in his video:-

• Job 38:31 "Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion's belt?

Before I continue, can you tell me what you understand the above quote to mean and also, whether you think the people who lived thousands of years ago when it was written would have understood it to meant?*

• Job 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.

Many ancient civilisations believed that the earth must have been supported by something, the most familar to us probably being the strong man "Atlas" from where we derive our word to mean maps of the world. Some other religions thought the earth was suspended on the back of a cow or a giant fish. The Bible is the only one to have got it right. How did Job know that, when it must have seemed crazy to him at the time that anything could be suspended on nothing? Or did he write it in the knowledge of God, the one who knows everything?

• Job 38:14 It [the earth] is turned as clay to the seal.

The ancient seals were rolled across parchment or whatever they were using to print on in order to imprint their pattern. Isn't this how the earth moves, i.e., it spins as it moves around the sun? They wouldn't have known this at the time, but God knew of course and he told Job to write it down.

• Luke 17:34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left.
• Luke 17:35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.
• Luke 17:36 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.

Again, the above text would not have made much sense in the days before the lights always on/24-hour society existed. How could the Lord come both when some people were asleep but also while others were up and about working? And yet, to us, this represents no problem, because we now know that while half the earth is in darkness, the other half is in daylight, so whatever hour Jesus decides to return, some people will be asleep and some will be working. God knew this and he told Luke to write it down.

*Apparently people have puzzled over the meaning of this verse for centuries, but it is only in recent times that we have discovered that the Pleiades is what is called a "bound cluster", the stars all moving in the same direction, whereas Orion is a "loose cluster", the stars moving away from each other in different diections.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Sure they do, here is one kind changing to a different kind:

Makes you think doesn't it?

 

[Colter]

Poetic, if a bit redundant -- God knew the end since before the beginning, exactly as I said.



"Custody"? As in they were running loose before and now are safely locked away? No more harm to anyone?

Yes, all taken in for judgment. And when they were here they never could invade the sanctity of the human will of normal minded people. Humans have a bad habit of blaming the devil for their own behavior, their own temptations coming from our own desires. The evil ones were at war with the authority of God, they introduced the meme of atheistic rebellion into our world.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

For me it's in the layers of the fossil record where we see the remains of different life forms that lived in different ages on an earth where the oldest rocks are billions of years old in a universe that's billions of years old.

There are other ways of interpreting the fossil record and the ages of the rocks which would give a different conclusion and it still doesn't explain why we don't see them today. This article is quite telling on the creation.com website and I've seen it quoted in several vidoes:-

"One of the most famous and widely circulated quotes was made a couple of decades ago by the late Dr Colin Patterson, who was at the time the senior paleontologist (fossil expert) at the prestigious British Museum of Natural History.

So damning was the quote—about the scarcity of transitional forms (the ‘in-between kinds’ anticipated by evolution) in the fossil record—that one anticreationist took it upon himself to ‘right the creationists’ wrongs’. He wrote what was intended to be a major essay showing how we had ‘misquoted’ Dr Patterson.1 This accusation still appears occasionally in anticreationist circles, so it is worth revisiting in some detail.

Dr Patterson had written a book for the British Museum simply called Evolution.2 Creationist Luther Sunderland wrote to Dr Patterson inquiring why he had not shown one single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book. Patterson then wrote back with the following amazing confession which was reproduced, in its entirety, in Sunderland’s book Darwin’s Enigma:

‘I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic licence, would that not mislead the reader?’
He went on to say:

‘Yet Gould [Stephen J. Gould—the now deceased professor of paleontology from Harvard University] and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. … You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.’3 [Emphasis added]."

 

[Colter]

There are other ways of interpreting the fossil record and the ages of the rocks which would give a different conclusion and it still doesn't explain why we don't see them today. This article is quite telling on the creation.com website and I've seen it quoted in several vidoes:-

"One of the most famous and widely circulated quotes was made a couple of decades ago by the late Dr Colin Patterson, who was at the time the senior paleontologist (fossil expert) at the prestigious British Museum of Natural History.

So damning was the quote—about the scarcity of transitional forms (the ‘in-between kinds’ anticipated by evolution) in the fossil record—that one anticreationist took it upon himself to ‘right the creationists’ wrongs’. He wrote what was intended to be a major essay showing how we had ‘misquoted’ Dr Patterson.1 This accusation still appears occasionally in anticreationist circles, so it is worth revisiting in some detail.

Dr Patterson had written a book for the British Museum simply called Evolution.2 Creationist Luther Sunderland wrote to Dr Patterson inquiring why he had not shown one single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book. Patterson then wrote back with the following amazing confession which was reproduced, in its entirety, in Sunderland’s book Darwin’s Enigma:

‘I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic licence, would that not mislead the reader?’
He went on to say:

‘Yet Gould [Stephen J. Gould—the now deceased professor of paleontology from Harvard University] and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. … You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.’3 [Emphasis added]."

I don't doubt that scientific speculation occurs and it's wrong just like the speculation of the authors of scripture. But basic radiometric dating of rocks on the earth is pretty straight forward stuff. The lack of transition fossils doesn't bother me when we have the fact of results everywhere. Unless creationist are prepared to argue that everything that has ever lived all lived at the same time 6,000 years ago? Besides, the only thing science proves wrong is the creation story of the priest class which never claimed to be writing the Word of God in the age of the Babylonian captivity.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Are you sure it's not just false interpretation? If it really occurred, why don't we see it occurring today and why do other scientists, some of whom are experts in fossils, totally reject the idea? I've lived on this planet for a tad over 60 years and I haven't come across one single creature, either around me or in a documentary, that can be said to be transitional.

Because none exist. Breed mates with breed producing new breeds within the species. Not by evolution through mutation, but by the recombining of genes into recessive and dominant traits. Evolutionists know this - they just prefer to ignore it.

Just as there is no transitory species between a Husky or Mastiff and a Chinook, there are no transitory species in the fossil record. But because they refuse to apply real life propagation to the fossils in the past, they are confused by what they see.

Triceratops did not evolve into T. Horridus or T. Prorsus. They are all simply different breeds of the same species. A new breed appears suddenly in the record, just like we observe between two different breeds of dogs when they mate and a third pops up basically overnight. If they interpreted the fossil record according to what we observe they would understand this and stop trying to name everything a different species. They have already messed that up so bad they named baby dinosaurs and adults of the same species as separate species.

These I say:

are no different than these:

And until they figure this out, we will have to hear about all the false interpretations of transitory species.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I don't doubt that scientific speculation occurs and it's wrong just like the speculation of the authors of scripture. But basic radiometric dating of rocks on the earth is pretty straight forward stuff. The lack of transition fossils doesn't bother me when we have the fact of results everywhere. Unless creationist are prepared to argue that everything that has ever lived all lived at the same time 6,000 years ago? Besides, the only thing science proves wrong is the creation story of the priest class which never claimed to be writing the Word of God in the age of the Babylonian captivity.

But again, why should we assume the earth is 6,000 years old when the Bible says nothing of the sort? Instead it tells us that it is from "ancient times". It tells us the earth was thriving with life and that life went extinct. I have found no one, Christian or evolutionist that can explain to me why I should interpret "hayah" as "was"?

http://www.christianforums.com/thre...ccept-evolution.7893108/page-27#post-68243045

 

[AV1611VET]

Besides, the only thing science proves wrong is the creation story ...

Science might think it has proven the creation story wrong, but Someone is coming Who is going to prove science wrong.

Satan has set up an infrastructure on the earth (Ephesians 6:12), which consists of the nine muses who dictate how scientists who have sold their souls to science should think.

Those nine are:

1. Calliope = the muse of epic poetry
2. Clio = the muse of history
3. Erato = the muse of love poetry
4. Euterpe = the muse of music
5. Melpomene = the muse of tragedy
6. Polyhymnia = the muse of sacred poetry
7. Terpsichore = the muse of dance
8. Thalia = the muse of comedy
9. Urania = the muse of astronomy

Their job today is to sterilize as much of the Bible as they can before their boss shows up.

 

[Colter]

But again, why should we assume the earth is 6,000 years old when the Bible says nothing of the sort? Instead it tells us that it is from "ancient times". It tells us the earth was thriving with life and that life went extinct. I have found no one, Christian or evolutionist that can explain to me why I should interpret "hayah" as "was"?

http://www.christianforums.com/thre...ccept-evolution.7893108/page-27#post-68243045

Lots of people use the Bible as a foundation to back up their diverse, even diametrically opposed beliefs. I'm just referencing the most common one based on the Hebrews creation explanation, one of many creation stories in Mesopotamia that they used when writing their particular history.

In my theology life was planted in the shallow, briny seas 550,000,000 years ago. Everything evolved from that creation event. The Hebrew authors knew nothing about evolution or science for that matter. But the ancient story of the default of Adam and Eve lead people to conclude that they were the first man and women on earth so the authors attempted to trace their blood lines back to Adam and Eve.