We’ve been reading Charles Darwin all wrong

[AV1611VET]

You are a good one to get people to question the Bible. What you have to say about it is so preposterous that a sensible person might be tempted to reject the whole book.

What got you to question It?

(Please answer this.)

I'm going to take a guess and say it has something to do with embracing evolution.

But I could be wrong.

In any event, what specifically got you to question It?

 

[The Barbarian]

My pastor likes to bring this verse to mind ...

2 Timothy 4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Given the stuff we've seen from Kent Hovind, "Answers in Genesis" and so on, God had their numbers.

 

[AV1611VET]

Given the stuff we've seen from Kent Hovind, "Answers in Genesis" and so on, God had their numbers.

I have a feeling it's not just Kent Hovind that people use as an excuse to reject the Bible.

After all, the rejecters have been around since the Garden of Eden.

And notice Adam blamed Eve, and then Eve blamed the Devil.

No one wants to step up to the plate and say "I reject it and here's why ..."

 

[Tinker Grey]

Please, stop. Your condemnation of other Christians is almost as bad as your exegesis.

or, eisegesis

 

[The Barbarian]

I have a feeling it's not just Kent Hovind that people use as an excuse to reject the Bible.

They use him to reject YEC. You've confused YEC stories with the Bible.

After all, the rejecters have been around since the Garden of Eden.

Hovind is noting new. Paul talked about guys like him.
1 Timothy 1:7 Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.

And notice Adam blamed Eve, and then Eve blamed the Devil.

And YECs blame all the other Christians. We get that. It's not new.

 

[Buzzard3]

In a way that is a false dichotomy. You are assuming that explaining a process in terms of natural causes rules out divine Providence.

Are you saying a natural process could have produced human beings? I don't think so.

 

[Buzzard3]

There you go again: "natural" is not the same thing as "Godless."

A natural process is devoid of any supernatural influence. For example, you can boil water without God stepping in to help.

 

[Buzzard3]

If the ToE is the best scientific explanation, then you can't complain when scientists utilize it in their work. So I'm not sure what your point is now. Do you want scientists to do their work differently? If so, how?

That depends what you mean by "work". If their "work" is dreaming up stories about how life evolved millions of years ago, then their "work" is meaningless and pointless and doesn't advance scientific knowledge one iota, so they should do something more constructive with their time and talent.

 

[Buzzard3]

You ask a question that you know is nonsense and when someone notes that the question is nonsense, that's your support for your claim?

Sorry, I don't know what you mean.

 

[River Jordan]

That depends what you mean by "work". If their "work" is dreaming up stories about how life evolved millions of years ago, then their "work" is meaningless and pointless and doesn't advance scientific knowledge one iota, so they should do something more constructive with their time and talent.

No, evolutionary biologists do not go to work and sit around dreaming up stories. I guess then you don't want them to do their work differently, which brings us back to my question to you: What is your point?

 

[River Jordan]

Sorry, I don't know what you mean.

Never mind, it's not important. I'm still trying to figure out what your overall point is today.

 

[Buzzard3]

What is your primary issue with evolution? You have already admitted it is the best scientific explanation. Reading your comments, it seems you just don't like it because you have a problem with atheists?

I believe the history of life on earth is one of evolution. As for what caused evolution, no one knows, nor will anyone ever know. It can't be proven that evolution is the result of any natural process.

Which of the above means I have an "issue" with evolution?

Is that what you are trying to say, you don't like atheists and since they accept it, you don't?

Huh???

 

[Buzzard3]

No, evolutionary biologists do not go to work and sit around dreaming up stories.

Really? Literally thousands of scientific papers, articles and books have been written by evolutionary biologists about that very thing ... stories about how they think prehistoric life evolved.

 

[Buzzard3]

What you are really doing is promoting a literal and inerrant reading of Genesis.

What are you talking about? For starters, I haven't even mentioned Genesis. And I don't believe in a literal reading of Genesis - on the contrary, I accept the scientific evidence that suggests life on earth began millions-billions of years ago as relatively simply organisms that became more complex and diversified over time.

The truth is that nothing that science has discovered or in principle could discover in future can disprove the existence of a creator God.

I agree.

 

[River Jordan]

Really? Literally thousands of scientific papers, articles and books have been written by evolutionary biologists about that very thing ... stories about how they think prehistoric life evolved.

Show me one. Show me a published paper that is nothing more than a dreamed up story.

Also, are you intentionally avoiding answering the question, "what is your point"?

 

[Buzzard3]

Directly observed

It has been "directly observed" that mutations and natural selection produced the history of life on earth? Really?

 

[The Barbarian]

Mutation and natural selection.
Directly observed. Can't do much better than that. Would you like to learn about some examples?

It has been "directly observed" that mutations and natural selection produced the history of life on earth? I don't think so.

It's been directly observed that evolution proceeds by mutation and natural selection. As even honest YECs admit, the evidence shows common descent. For example, evolutionary theory predicted that lungfish would be more closely related to humans than they would be to other fish. And that prediction has been observed.This would make no sense whatever if creationism were true, but it's another confirmation of Darwin's theory.

 

[The Barbarian]

Are you saying a natural process could have produced human beings? I don't think so.

You and I for example, were produced by natural processes. Our souls were given directly by God, but that is outside the reach of science.

 

[The Barbarian]

A natural process is devoid of any supernatural influence. For example, you can boil water without God stepping in to help.

Do you think that God isn't involved in every particle and force in the universe? Who do you think keeps it working? Are you perhaps a deist, who supposes that God created the world and walked away to let it work on its own?

 

[public hermit]

A natural process is devoid of any supernatural influence. For example, you can boil water without God stepping in to help.

That's only true if your metaphysic is like a deist's, i.e., God creates like one spins a top so that once it gets going, it's on its own. But that is not the metaphysic of classical Christianity. "In him all things hold together" (Col. 1.17). Accordingly, God doesn't just create but also sustains all things in their existence. All things that make boiling water possible are sustained in their existence, including those properties they regularly exhibit. No, God isn't stepping in to help since God never stepped out. What makes it "natural" is that we can observe their working and regularity (order), and we can give an account of their properties without recourse to divine intervention, but that is only because there is (or at least seems to be) an inherent order in which they operate.

That order, itself, is simply assumed by science, and for good reason. But we don't really have an account for the appearance of order in the universe. Perhaps the best option out there concerns entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I am sure some of the smarter folks on the board have ideas, too. But we can't get outside of the universe to see it as a whole and give an account. As Einstein remarked, the great mystery of the universe is its comprehensibility. At any rate, for a robust Christian metaphysic, that order is an act of divine grace that sustains all things in an orderly way so that water always boils under the same conditions. In short, it's all a miracle and an act of divine influence.