God used evolution? I think not.

Just wanted to clear up one of the many many misconceptions and inaccuracies in Paulrob's post. I won't get into his lack of understanding of the science, because I know he won't care. I will however, correct his history.

Galilao and Columbus both risked thei reputation and lives respectively to prove the world was not the center of the universe and that it was round respectively, and in both cases, they based their belief on what the Bible said. And both were right.

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The educated people at the time of Columbus knew the Earth was round - this had been discovered about 2000 years earlier by the GReeks and it was well known in the Spanish and Italian courts where Columbus was shilling for cash to pay for his expedition. What was also well known was that Columbus's math was bad and that he had vastly underestimated the size of the Earth. Had Columbus not gotten lucky and run into the Americas (he was trying to get to Asia), he and his crew would have long since died from lack of adequate provisions necessary to make the journey all the way from Europ to Asia (remember - no one at the time knew that the Americas were in the way).

While your statement is true, you must also concede that there are many doctorate level working biologists. etc., and specialists in other disciplines as well, who are totally convinced that the creation story is God's trenscript to us of the events of origins.

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I think your definition of "many" is a little strange. Will you at least admit that the number of professional scientists and biologists in particular that believe that the evidence is consistant with young Earth creationism are in the EXTREME minority?

ObbiQuiet said:

Why not? If you're seeking the truth I don't see how 'good or bad' implications will change what the truth is.

This isn't a political game I'm playing. I'm saying, honestly, what the Bible seems to be to me. The Bible seems to be a collection of cultural myths. One of these myths, Genesis, was at one time used to explain why things are they way they are. I think it was meant to be taken literally.

If hard science contradicts a creation myth you need to ask yourself if your interpretation is correct. If you conclude it is, then it's either the creation myth or science that is incorrect. You should be able to tell if something is meant to be taken literally or figuratively just by reading it.
"Does it give a moral?"
"Does it give a lot of superfluous details?"
"Does it attempt to explain why things are the way they are?"

These clues should help you understand if something is meant to be taken literally or not.



Do I hold this position because I'm a militant atheist or am I a militant atheist because I hold this position?

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I'm not sure the FACTS are any more supportive of evolution tnat they are of Creation. Its how the facts are spun, the pre-concieved and paradigm views of the facts that make the difference, not the facts themselves.

I'm not aware that there are any more out of place facts for creation than for evolution, they both require faith, and neither is subject to the scientific method of examination. Inferences from the evidence are equally valid, and neither has a provable first cause.

Maybe you should read another hardline evangelistic atheist on the subject:


James Perloff used to look at the world like you do, but changed his mind in the face of the evidence. A quick book review of one of his books is at
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/qa/19626.html

This is a quick experp from a interview about his book:


'Tornado in a Junkyard'
Geoff Metcalf interviews author and Darwin-debunker James Perloff



By Geoff Metcalf
Author James Perloff's latest book, "Tornado in a Junkyard," convincingly argues that no solid evidence exists for macroevolution -- the conversion of one animal type into another.

The book examines the growing body of scientific evidence that validates the beliefs of the majority of Americans who, polls claim, do not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. Among the issues he tackles are: the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record, the impossibility of mutations serving as evolutionary building blocks, the lack of evidence for "ape-men" and the mathematic impossibility of life beginning by itself.

So persuasive is Perloff's book that actor Jack Lemmon, who played the legendary pro-evolution attorney Clarence Darrow in the 1999 TV-movie "Inherit the Wind," said, "My congratulations to Mr. Perloff for an outstanding piece of work."

Perloff was interviewed by WND reporter Geoff Metcalf.

Question: James, the subtitle of your book is "The relentless myth of Darwinism." I use a line that states, "Some people don't like facts that contradict their preconceived opinions." Isn't that really what your book is all about?

Answer: Right. Well, unfortunately, Darwinism is being taught as a fact today in schools. It is being taught as though it is as provable as the law of gravity, even though Charles Darwin himself called it "grievously too hypothetical."

If I see the phrase "tornado in a junkyard" one more time I am going to spew.


Oh wait, it was part of a WND reference?

I already spewed.

perloff (at the site cited by paulrob) said:

Once I heard evolutionary teaching in school, I concluded the whole Bible was a myth. I know my experience was not unique.

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Perhaps if young Christians were not indoctrinated from birth by militant creationists, they would never reach this crisis of faith! From speaking to many former Christians in my circles (of physics and engineering, not biology/evolution), I've found that creationism drives away more people from Christianity than militant atheist evolutionists could ever hope for!

Paul,

"I have no idea what you mean in that last sentence. All rain comes by naturalistic means, even Noah's flood. God didn't spit on earth! the fact is that God controlled the naturalistic means, combined them, manipulated them to produce a combination of events that covered the earth with water."

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The point is, some creationists claim that the naturalistic mechanism of evolution removes God. Yet they are perfectly fine accepting the fact that God used rain to cause the flood. Just like theistic evolutionists say he used evolution to create the diversity of life.

"It gets a bit wearisome discussing this statement on the earth being flat, etc. ad nauseum. The flat earth, sun rotates around the earth, etc., was a scientific understanding, not a Biblical one."

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Except that people in the past have used the bible to argue their scientific understand was correct. Just like creationists do today.

"If you can find anywhere in the Bible that teaches that the earth is flat, or that the sun rotates around the earth - apart from the language of appearances - then I'll apologise."

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"Language of appearance" I hear that excuse all the time. Ok, show me where the bible claims that it's a language of appearance?

This is another interesting double think of creationists.
They say,
-Genesis is literal, it says the earth was created in 6 days then it was 6 days. Scripture comes first. No evidence is to be accepted if it contradicts the literal reading of genesis. Scripture is used to interpret science not the other way around.
-A geocentric earth? No the bible never says that. Science has shown the earth to orbit the sun, so we know they were using the language of appearance.

I have yet to see scripture that says they are using the language of appearance even though I have asked more than one person to back it up with scripture. Oddly, few creationists seem to be bothered by the lack of scriptural evidence.

"Galilao and Columbus both risked thei reputation and lives respectively to prove the world was not the center of the universe and that it was round respectively, and in both cases, they based their belief on what the Bible said. And both were right."

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Double check your history. It's a common myth that columbus proved the earth was round and was scoffed at by flat earthers. All the well educated people of the time knew the earth was round. They laughed at Columbus because they thought he had incorrectly calculated it's size. They were right. His poor math skills gave him an earth that was much smaller than reality. This means that he didn't pack enough food or water for the real trip. Dumb luck saved him when he ran into a new continent. He even returned thinking he was right and he had traveled around the globe.

"The states that the earth is a ball, suspended on nothing."

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No it doesn't. Double check your bible and include Strongs. Ball is never used. A word that some translate into sphere is used, but that same word is often translated into circle (a flat object, that matches early Hebrew views of the earth) as well.

Battie said:

Myth is not a good term to use if you mean "fiction." Genesis is a myth, by definition: "a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon." (From Messiam-Webster Online).

The problem is that you are trying to turn this into a black or white issue, which it is not. Many Christians have realized that Genesis is very similar to the mythology of other ancient cultures.

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While you may be right, its a shame. Because Jesus therefore becomes no less reliable than any other historical personage. Jesus spoke of Genesis and creation as fact, not fiction (after all, He was there at the time). All the NT writers, and many of the old, in referencing Genesis and the creation and flood stories, stated them to be fact. There is no getting around this - they all had to be mistaken, and therefore the Bible cannot be God's revelation to us.

Battie said:

At that point we are faced with a crisis. As I deal with this, I see three possible interpretations: 1)Genesis is literal, and other cultures simply perverted the stories, or 2)ancient cultures borrowed from each other, and the Israelites used their version to communicate the truth of God's work in creation, or 3)all ancient myths are totally ficticious, and were a way to explain what science could not.

At the moment, I have discarded #1. Faith keeps me from accepting #3. #2 seems most likely then, but now I need to sort out all the implications.

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That's to bad. #1 is the only rational choice. #3 is obviously not right, as any anthropologist could tell you. No local legend gets the wide distribution of the flood story, incorporated into the chinese alphabet, carved on stones in Babylon; in fact told whereever indigenous people settled.

So if you accept #2, you deny that the Bible was inspired by God, and therefore contains mistakes. If it contains mistakes, you cannot trust it, for how do you judge where the mistakes are, and where they are not. How could the isrealites use these myths to convey truth?

Battie said:

You see things differently. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that only your interpretation could be correct. Since, ultimately, the core of a Christian's belief is a matter of faith, one can never hope to proove, once and for all, any interpretation. You are free accept or discard any interpretation you wish, but you must not be so quick to write off others' beliefs.

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Why interpret anything? Why not just read it as you would any other narrative that was intended to provide you with an overview of an event?

have you read Josh McDowell or Phillip Johnson on the subject?

Do you know that many brilliant scientists DON'T accept evolution (not all Christians, by the way), and are still leaders in their fields? The majority are seldom right about anything! And many of the scientists, and others who claim to be evolutionists, are evolutionists in name only - that's what they were taught in school, and they haven't given it much thought since.

I find many of the kids today who are wrestling with this issue, have been so brainwashed by the evolutionist spin doctors that its amazing, and only by the grace of God, that they attempt at all to harminize the issues. They truly don't realize tha evolution is a religion (a matter of faith, not fact) that has been so presented as to cover up its religious overtones, its termendous leaps of faith, and its damnable outcomes.

Most kids today, attempting to hold to their Christian faith, have never saty down and read any serious books by logical clearthinking Christian apologists. And I find that a shame.

You cannot spend 15 years being brainwashed in evolution and it not have an effect on you, and reading one or two articles won't erase all those years of indoctrination, but if you know God is real, and His Word is real (and true) you are able to go aganst the grain of evolution and ask the hard questions.

And over the years, we've seen the discrepancies between the Bible and "pop science" resolved in the Bible's favor.

How silly will many people feel 50 years from now when the Bible's acount of origins is vindicated, and evolution is replaces by another anti-god populist religion?

Tha's what happened when Pasteur proved the previous scientiufic religion, spontaneous gerenations, was false.

There was a religion built around spontaneous generation?
I bet it was anti-bible too, I mean to think bacteria isn't the ectoplasm of demons and insects aren't instantly created by God, must be heriticitial.



Should I laugh, or is he being serious?

paulrob said:

...

I'm not aware that there are any more out of place facts for creation than for evolution, they both require faith, and neither is subject to the scientific method of examination. Inferences from the evidence are equally valid, and neither has a provable first cause.

....

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This little paragraph stuck out at me because it had the highest concentration of "wrongness" in the post.

1. Evolution requires no faith because it's completely evidence based. Faith means believing in something without evidence so please make note of that.
2. Evolution IS subjected to the scientific method of examination. That was how is was created in the first place, by examining the evidence collected and drawing a conclusion from the evidence.
3. Evolution doesn't address first cause because it's not relevant to the ToE.

I think that the majority of the problems YECs have with evolution is that they don't have a clue what it is and just repeat nonsense they hear from other people who are just as naive as they are on the subject.

paulrob said:

While you may be right, its a shame. Because Jesus therefore becomes no less reliable than any other historical personage. Jesus spoke of Genesis and creation as fact, not fiction (after all, He was there at the time). All the NT writers, and many of the old, in referencing Genesis and the creation and flood stories, stated them to be fact. There is no getting around this - they all had to be mistaken, and therefore the Bible cannot be God's revelation to us.

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I don't recall Jesus saying they were literal. The rest of the NT writers may or may not have taken them literally. I don't know exactly how those cultures interpreted history/mythology back then. Note that in Galations 4:21-30, Paul shows how Genesis could at least in part be read allegorically (I'm not saying Abraham and Sarah weren't real; I just think it's an interesting point).

That's to bad. #1 is the only rational choice. #3 is obviously not right, as any anthropologist could tell you. No local legend gets the wide distribution of the flood story, incorporated into the chinese alphabet, carved on stones in Babylon; in fact told whereever indigenous people settled.

So if you accept #2, you deny that the Bible was inspired by God, and therefore contains mistakes. If it contains mistakes, you cannot trust it, for how do you judge where the mistakes are, and where they are not. How could the isrealites use these myths to convey truth?

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Actually, number 1 is the least rational choice. It relies entirely on faith, which is not rational. Number 3 is the most rational, since it leaves faith out altogether.

I do not understand how you can say that choice 2 denies God's inspiration. If I say I believe that the Israelites took some of their stories from other cultures, but reworked them to show how different God is, I think that indicates that God had a hand in it. Isn't it amazing that the Hebrew God is so vastly different from the gods of other cultures? Did I not say that it is faith that makes me trust number 2? You only say that I am denying God because you do not agree with my interpretation.

Why interpret anything? Why not just read it as you would any other narrative that was intended to provide you with an overview of an event?

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Because the ancient peoples did not write myths or history the same way we do today. If we do not interpret them with that consideration, then we can never hope to undertand them properly.

have you read Josh McDowell or Phillip Johnson on the subject?

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I have not.

Do you know that many brilliant scientists DON'T accept evolution (not all Christians, by the way), and are still leaders in their fields? The majority are seldom right about anything! And many of the scientists, and others who claim to be evolutionists, are evolutionists in name only - that's what they were taught in school, and they haven't given it much thought since.

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I don't reject creationism based on numbers.

I find many of the kids today who are wrestling with this issue, have been so brainwashed by the evolutionist spin doctors that its amazing, and only by the grace of God, that they attempt at all to harminize the issues. They truly don't realize tha evolution is a religion (a matter of faith, not fact) that has been so presented as to cover up its religious overtones, its termendous leaps of faith, and its damnable outcomes.

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I'm not brainwashed. I went to private Christian schools my entire life. I knew all about how "evil" evolution was. In fact, several months ago I was one of the most rabid creationists you ever met, but I slowly started to realize that things just weren't matching up. Once I talked to a few people and had a few misconceptions cleared up, I was ready to proceed with a more open mind.

Most kids today, attempting to hold to their Christian faith, have never saty down and read any serious books by logical clearthinking Christian apologists. And I find that a shame.

You cannot spend 15 years being brainwashed in evolution and it not have an effect on you, and reading one or two articles won't erase all those years of indoctrination, but if you know God is real, and His Word is real (and true) you are able to go aganst the grain of evolution and ask the hard questions.

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You are making assumptions about me now. As I said before, I was taught creationism my entire life. I soaked up the literature like a sponge. I even had a creationist biology book! I just knew that given the chance I could defeat those evil evolutionists!

This is what happened: I was about to launch myself into a debate with soem evolutionists, and realized that it had been a few years since I studied. I dug out my biology book and another book to refresh myself, and realized that what I was reading really did not make much sense. So I went to these evolutionists (this is coming to the conversation I mentioned previously), made a few weak arguements, had them politely torn apart, and then finally realized and admitted that I really had no idea what I was talking about.

So you see, I was indoctrinated by creationism, not evolution. I do not appreciate you assuming that I don't know how to think for myself in this respect.

I'm asking the hard questions now. And the hard questions can have hard answers.

And over the years, we've seen the discrepancies between the Bible and "pop science" resolved in the Bible's favor.

How silly will many people feel 50 years from now when the Bible's acount of origins is vindicated, and evolution is replaces by another anti-god populist religion?

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Well, if those people are truly out to disprove God, I'm sure they'll feel pretty silly. But, as has been stated oh so many times here, evolution is not anit-God.

Tha's what happened when Pasteur proved the previous scientiufic religion, spontaneous gerenations, was false.

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Didn't Pasteur also disprove the idea that sickness is caused by demons? Isn't that an out-dated religious belief?

In closing, please understand that I do not reject creationism just because everyone said I should or because I've been indoctrinated. My own studies and learning from others has led me to this point. Perhaps someday I'll find out I'm wrong, I don't know. After being so sure I was right all this time, and then finding out how very wrong I was, I hesitate to say anything for sure.

Yes, I am going through a bit of a crisis of faith. I think if it had been the creationism thing alone I'd have been fine, but there is a lot that I am going through and learning about and it's taking its toll. I really wish it had not taken me this long to realize that not all assumptions work. As Deamiter said, finding all this out now really makes it hard.

But, you know, I'm not giving up. Through all of this I pray to God that He'll show me answers and that He won't let me go. I think He is putting me through this for a reason, because He knows what a skeptic I can be and that I won't rest easy on untested faith. That's what really matters, isn't it? That I keep faith that God will see me through?

It would really help, though, if creationists could offer more support than things that sound like, "You're wrong and that's that."

paulrob said:

While you may be right, its a shame. Because Jesus therefore becomes no less reliable than any other historical personage.

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How is this a shame? You believe Jesus over Buddha, Mohamed, or Confucius because of faith. Reports of him are no more reliable than any other personage, but you choose to believe him as a matter of faith.

Or is faith not good enough for you?

Jesus spoke of Genesis and creation as fact, not fiction (after all, He was there at the time).

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Is that the reason he did so, or was it because he was speaking to people who believed them as fact?

All the NT writers, and many of the old, in referencing Genesis and the creation and flood stories, stated them to be fact. There is no getting around this - they all had to be mistaken, and therefore the Bible cannot be God's revelation to us.

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So the Bible is not God's revelation because man is fallible. Okay....

Gods daughter said:

Why do some people think that God used evolution to create us?

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Because it's the only way to believe in reality and also the claim that God created life at the same time.

paulrob said:

All the NT writers, and many of the old, in referencing Genesis and the creation and flood stories, stated them to be fact. There is no getting around this - they all had to be mistaken, and therefore the Bible cannot be God's revelation to us.

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Just where did they "state them to be fact"?

Honey, I dont think that God wants us to worry about things like evolution so much. I believe that Jesus walked on water and tuned water into wine and mysteiously appeared before the desciples during a storm. How can we explain any of that? How can you explain that Jesus rose form the dead? I dont even try. Its not really any of my business. I try to concern myself with spiritual things and leave the world to the world. If faith is the belief in things for which we have know tangible evidence why do we have to understand how life was made?


I try to concern myself more with the creation and the Creator than how it was created. Sometimes I cant even find my car keys.

primate said:

The transitional hominid fossils at 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. I can't post a link or an image or I would. The image of the hominid skulls is worth a thousand words.

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Here you go

Nathan Poe said:

Because it matches up so well with what we see around us.

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Christians say the same thing about their faith and the implications of their faith on their life all the time (and even compare their lives before converting with their lives after), but many people don't believe them.

So is God a man or a woman?

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God is Spirit. He made us in His image (same word as likeness in the OT); meaning that we as human beings can reason, that we can think abstractly. We are like Him in aspects like that, not in physical features like face or hair color.

paulrob said:

It gets a bit wearisome discussing this statement on the earth being flat, etc. ad nauseum. The flat earth, sun rotates around the earth, etc., was a scientific understanding, not a Biblical one.

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False. The origins of the idea are Biblical. The Bible, if taken literally, does strongly indicate a flat earth and a geocentric model.

The church, in its infinite stupidity and attempt to be scientifically correct, incorporated the "science" into its theology, as the Catholic church has today incorporated evolution.

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That's a backwards, twisted and false statement.

If you can find anywhere in the Bible that teaches that the earth is flat, or that the sun rotates around the earth - apart from the language of appearances - then I'll apologise. Ain't going to happen.

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I could show you the verses, but you're right. It aint gonna happen because your mind is already made up.

Galilao and Columbus both risked thei reputation and lives respectively to prove the world was not the center of the universe and that it was round respectively, and in both cases, they based their belief on what the Bible said. And both were right.

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lol...umm....wow. No, they did not base their ideas on the Bible.

The states that the earth is a ball, suspended on nothing.

As I've said before, the Bible isn't a scientific textbook but where it touches on science it is 100 percent accurate.

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No, it is not.

Scholar in training said:

Christians say the same thing about their faith and the implications of their faith on their life all the time (and even compare their lives before converting with their lives after), but many people don't believe them.

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So what does that have to do with evolution?