Why I don't believe in evolution...

BNR32FAN

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Even though I don't agree with the young earth position, I like this response, because it really highlights the dilemma that Christians are largely in today.

In one hand, physical reality seems quite clear that the earth is ancient. But in the other hand, if scripture isn't taken literally, then what does that mean about key aspects of the Christian walk? If sin didn't enter through one man as described in Romans 5:15, then what does it mean for the second part of the verse that refers to the gift that came by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ?

In instances where Paul, or even Jesus himself spoke of Adam and Eve, could Jesus Himself have believed that Adam was a literal man? And if so, was Jesus mistaken? Or did Jesus simply tell the apostles what they needed hear in light of a complex world that they couldn't possibly have fathomed at the time?

If Jesus' true being were revealed to mankind, I'm not sure that mankind could have fathomed Him. Maybe mankind was not yet ready to handle the full truth when the living Word was originally revealed.

Look at the technological advances man has had in the last 6,000 years. To me this doesn’t suggest that man as we appear today has been on earth for 300,000 years. This would mean that man had zero technological advancements in 294,000 years, that’s 98% of man’s existence, then all the sudden an explosion of technologies in the last 2%.
 
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Job 33:6

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Look at the technological advances man has had in the last 6,000 years. To me this doesn’t suggest that man as we appear today has been on earth for 300,000 years. This would mean that man had zero technological advancements in 294,000 years, that’s 98% of man’s existence, then all the sudden an explosion of technologies in the last 2%.

Agriculture has been around for greater than 12,000 years. Do you consider this a technological advance? One major change in the history of mankind is the switch from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the sedentary agricultural lifestyle.

Pottery appears around 15-20,000 years ago as well. I would view this as a technological advance.

Stone tipped projectile weapons date back over 200,000 years. Etc.

I would consider these technological advances. Now obviously they didn't have computers 10,000 years ago. They didn't have metallurgical knowledge either. But I would still consider these technological advances.
 
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BNR32FAN

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Agriculture has been around for greater than 12,000 years. Do you consider this a technological advance? One major change in the history of mankind is the switch from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the sedentary agricultural lifestyle.

Pottery appears around 15-20,000 years ago as well. I would view this as a technological advance.

Stone tipped projectile weapons date back over 200,000 years. Etc

Thats only if you trust their dating methods. Carbon dating has shown to be unreliable and there could’ve been unforeseen circumstances that altered the natural aging process. According to the genealogy records in the scriptures the earth is just over 6,000 years old.
 
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BNR32FAN

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Agriculture has been around for greater than 12,000 years. Do you consider this a technological advance? One major change in the history of mankind is the switch from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the sedentary agricultural lifestyle.

Pottery appears around 15-20,000 years ago as well. I would view this as a technological advance.

Stone tipped projectile weapons date back over 200,000 years. Etc.

I would consider these technological advances. Now obviously they didn't have computers 10,000 years ago. They didn't have metallurgical knowledge either. But I would still consider these technological advances.

In any case the point I was making was that man has appeared to make a monumental leap in technology in just the last 6,000 years as compared to the first alleged 294,000 years. I didn’t mean that man literally made no accomplishments in the first 294,000 years but that his accomplishments would’ve been extremely minuscule compared to the last 6,000 years. Something comparable to if I were to only learn to speak a handful of words in 98 years of my life then in the next two years learned every word known to man. That’s the sort of comparison I’m seeing.
 
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Job 33:6

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Thats only if you trust their dating methods. Carbon dating has shown to be unreliable and there could’ve been unforeseen circumstances that altered the natural aging process. According to the genealogy records in the scriptures the earth is just over 6,000 years old.

Lol. So you don't believe in an old earth because you don't believe in dating methods. That's fine if that's your argument, but this has nothing to do with technological advances then.
 
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Job 33:6

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In any case the point I was making was that man has appeared to make a monumental leap in technology in just the last 6,000 years as compared to the first alleged 294,000 years. I didn’t mean that man literally made no accomplishments in the first 294,000 years but that his accomplishments would’ve been extremely minuscule compared to the last 6,000 years. Something comparable to if I were to only learn to speak a handful of words in 98 years of my life then in the next two years learned every word known to man. That’s the sort of comparison I’m seeing.

This has always been the nature of existence.

Your response is more of an argument from incredulity than it is an argument that has any specific substance behind it.

You "feel" as though 200,000 years is too long and that perhaps people should have invented satellites back during the ice age. That's just not what the evidence shows.
 
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BNR32FAN

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Lol. So you don't believe in an old earth because you don't believe in dating methods. That's fine if that's your argument, but this has nothing to do with technological advances then.

So you don’t notice how man has come from such a primitive state just 6,000 years ago to where we are today? That the advance in technology in the last 6,000 years doesn’t reflect a gradual progression of advancement stemming from 300,000 years of progress? I never said this has anything to do with carbon dating. I merely pointed out the fact that carbon dating is not reliable. This has been proven. For example it’s believed that man didn’t invent the wheel until 3500 BC. So for 294,500 years man couldn’t invent a wheel but in 5,500 years after that he put men in space and on the moon. We have televisions, computers, smart phones, internet, massive ships, etc. that quite an extraordinary change in advancement. For 98% of man’s existence he couldn’t figure out how to build something as simple as a wheel then in the last 2% of his existence he’s learned all the technology we have today? That doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t seem plausible.
 
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BNR32FAN

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This has always been the nature of existence.

Your response is more of an argument from incredulity than it is an argument that has any specific substance behind it.

You "feel" as though 200,000 years is too long and that perhaps people should have invented satellites back during the ice age. That's just not what the evidence shows.

294,500 years to figure out how to build something as simple as a wheel then in just a mere 2% of that time, 5,500 years, to go from the wheel to satellites.
 
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Job 33:6

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294,500 years to figure out how to build something as simple as a wheel then in just a mere 2% of that time, 5,500 years, to go from the wheel to satellites.

No. Though we had pottery, speared weapons and agriculture beforehand, as you now know. These amount to more than a wheel.
 
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Job 33:6

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So you don’t notice how man has come from such a primitive state just 6,000 years ago to where we are today? That the advance in technology in the last 6,000 years doesn’t reflect a gradual progression of advancement stemming from 300,000 years of progress? I never said this has anything to do with carbon dating. I merely pointed out the fact that carbon dating is not reliable. This has been proven. For example it’s believed that man didn’t invent the wheel until 3500 BC. So for 294,500 years man couldn’t invent a wheel but in 5,500 years after that he put men in space and on the moon. We have televisions, computers, smart phones, internet, massive ships, etc. that quite an extraordinary change in advancement. For 98% of man’s existence he couldn’t figure out how to build something as simple as a wheel then in the last 2% of his existence he’s learned all the technology we have today? That doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t seem plausible.

Like I said, your argument amounts to nothing more than incredulity. When you have an actual argument beyond personal emotions, feel free to let me know.

Personally, I think it makes perfect sense for hunter gatherers running around hunting whooly mammoths with spears not to somehow magically create nuclear weapons overnight. It's no surprise to me that they didn't figure things out back then, given that they didn't exactly have universities to study the science. Many cultures today still don't even have advanced technology aside from tech given to them by other nations. Some amazonian tribes still live in rainforests. They simply never took that next step in scientific advances.

We didn't create computers until the 1800s. Why did it take us until just the last 200 years to make computers? its just the way history played out. Why didn't the Spartans and Athens make computers? Maybe you should ask them (they didn't have the technological or scientific know-how), but either way, this is just the way it happened.

Chinese dynasties date back some 15,000 years. Why didn't they make cell phones in that long period of time? It's just the way it is.

Primitive man was probably too busy trying not to get eaten by sabertooth tigers to have time to sit down to study science.

Ever heard of terror birds?
Phorusrhacidae - Wikipedia

Mankind had to fight for survival on a daily basis. They had no time to sit around doing philosophy and advanced physics.
 
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The Barbarian

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Not at all since He specifically told everyone how and when the earth was created.

He never told us how or when He created the Earth. He just said He did. It’s not His fault that some aren't satisfied with that, and add their own ideas to His word.
 
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The Barbarian

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It's true of all science that observation of the effect is different from explanation of the cause. And I'm aware changes in allele frequency are often observed.

Which is evolution, by definition. Most people who think they hate evolution, really hate some consequences of evolution, like common descent.
 
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The Barbarian

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Thats only if you trust their dating methods. Carbon dating has shown to be unreliable and there could’ve been unforeseen circumstances that altered the natural aging process.

There's been various ways to calibrate those processes, most notably lake varves, which in some lakes give reliable annual layers for many thousands of years.

And they confirm carbon dating. No point in denial.

According to the genealogy records in the scriptures the earth is just over 6,000 years old.

Since the Bible gives two different, conflicting genealogies for Jesus, I'm pretty sure those aren't meant to be reliable dating tools.
 
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BNR32FAN

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No. Though we had pottery, speared weapons and agriculture beforehand, as you now know. These amount to more than a wheel.

Your not seeing my point at all. Those are the most primitive examples of technology. That’s all man accomplished for 98% of his existence was the most primitive forms of technology then all the sudden he exploded into everything we have today in the last 2% of his existence. The rate of progression was almost nothing for 294,000 years then all the sudden man became a genius. If you looked at it from a standpoint of percentages, it would equate to man progressing a fraction of less than 1% in his first 294,000 years then managed to accomplish the rest of his progress of over 99% in just 6,000 years.
 
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BNR32FAN

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Like I said, your argument amounts to nothing more than incredulity. When you have an actual argument beyond personal emotions, feel free to let me know.

Ahh ok I see the problem now. My position is contrary to your’s so your going to refuse to acknowledge it. That’s fine.
 
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BNR32FAN

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He never told us how or when He created the Earth. He just said He did. It’s not His fault that some aren't satisfied with that, and add their own ideas to His word.

The genealogy records in the Bible tell us how old the world is and the scriptures say that Adam was created from ashes. Doesn’t say anything about him evolving from something else.
 
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Sam Saved by Grace

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There's been various ways to calibrate those processes, most notably lake varves, which in some lakes give reliable annual layers for many thousands of years.

And they confirm carbon dating. No point in denial.



Since the Bible gives two different, conflicting genealogies for Jesus, I'm pretty sure those aren't meant to be reliable dating tools.

The Bible never contradicts itself. It is completely inerrant and God-breathed. One genealogy is traced through Joseph, and another through Mary. This isn't hard to fathom, seeing as how Luke was the physician of Jesus, and probably had a close relationship to Mary.

As for dating the Earth, I believe the current estimates are flawed. There was a time when men lived to be 900+ years. But now, without modern medicine and a decent standard of living, a person is lucky to make it to 50. The Bible says that the whole creation is groaning, being in bondage to decay. Sin has corrupted everything.

It really comes down to where you put your faith. We know that according to science, much of what is written in the Bible could not possible. The Earth was not created, snakes and donkeys do not talk, archaeology and egyptology does not support the exodus account, fire doesn't come down out of heaven, bread doesn't come down out of heaven, a man cannot survive in a fish's belly, and people do not rise from the dead.

Yet, the Bible says these things did happen. And they happened supernaturally. Because God is above the natural world. God is above man. His Truth is above our truth. And His ways are above our ways. Therefore, those who would believe science over the Bible, or compromise scripture to fit with scientific theories, demonstrate their lack of faith.

Jesus Christ is everything, and everything else is nothing! He is the only value to be had in this world. It is only through Him that any good can be had at all. Jesus is our great God and Savior, whom we must adore above all, and lift up above all things in all ways.

There are people for whom Christianity is just a religion. Jesus, merely an accessory. They love their own life, and live it as they themselves desire. Their god might be their occupation, a hobby, a political platform, or something else. Maybe they enjoy, above all else, being lifted up in themselves. But Jesus is not everything to them. And Jesus + something = nothing.

If I suffer incredulity concerning anything, it is how any born again child of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, could possibly insist that people made in the image of God came from apes, even to the point of denying biblical inerrancy and attacking the beliefs of Christians who reject manmade theories and take the Bible at it's Word. I am not claiming anyone isn't a Christian - but I am quite incredulous, indeed.
 
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BNR32FAN

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It really comes down to where you put your faith. We know that according to science, much of what is written in the Bible could not possible. The Earth was not created, snakes and donkeys do not talk, archaeology and egyptology does not support the exodus account, fire doesn't come down out of heaven, bread doesn't come down out of heaven, a man cannot survive in a fish's belly, and people do not rise from the dead.

Amen, if we can’t believe anything that contradicts what science teaches us today then how can we even believe in Christ’s resurrection? God is not constrained to work within the of the laws of science. After all He’s the one that created them. Those are our boundaries not His. :oldthumbsup:
 
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Job 33:6

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Ahh ok I see the problem now. My position is contrary to your’s so your going to refuse to acknowledge it. That’s fine.

You don't really have an argument. You have a broad opinion. I could have an opinion that the moon is made of cheese, but without any real evidence-based argument behind it, it's just an idea.

I think it's perfectly reasonable that life took over 2 billion years before we could start making nuclear weapons, which took us only a couple decades. I wouldn't expect cavemen who were battling saber-toothed tigers and whooly mammoths to have the time to sit down and to do science to develop nuclear technology. They didn't even have modern chemistry back then, nor had the tools been invented to produce such things. And so it makes sense to me that they wouldn't have nuclear technology. When I think of people 10,000 years ago, they lived in a world where a mile high sheet of ice covered half of North America. I wouldn't expect people to be sitting around in a classroom studying nuclear thermodynamics in the middle of an ice age either. I

And the further back in time we go, deep into hunter gatherer lifestyles that were non-sedentary and far more dangerous than today, people didn't have the time to study science and technology. Where they didn't have modern medicine and would die by the age of 20, people didn't have the time to sit around doing philosophy and advance mathematics.

Today we have universities and people live into their 70s and 80s and they have a lot of time to sit around crunching equations and brainstorming how to solve problems.

So, It makes perfect sense to me that technology advances more at an exponential growth than it does a linear growth, and so there's no reason to expect people 300,000 years ago to be driving cars (of course they didn't have roads or concrete to drive on back then).

If you have an actual evidence-based argument for why pleistocene cave people should have known how to do advanced thermodynamic nuclear physics, you're welcome to share it though. Maybe there is some cave drawing somewhere in which some caveman used a spear to carve the equations of general relativity, that might imply that they knew a lot more than we think they knew and that they did in-fact have time to figure it out. That would be a line of evidence that would make for a good argument that people should have figured out advanced technology long ago.

But of course such cave drawings don't exist.
 
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Job 33:6

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Your not seeing my point at all. Those are the most primitive examples of technology. That’s all man accomplished for 98% of his existence was the most primitive forms of technology then all the sudden he exploded into everything we have today in the last 2% of his existence. The rate of progression was almost nothing for 294,000 years then all the sudden man became a genius. If you looked at it from a standpoint of percentages, it would equate to man progressing a fraction of less than 1% in his first 294,000 years then managed to accomplish the rest of his progress of over 99% in just 6,000 years.

I think you're underestimating the value of the invention of agriculture (which goes back roughly 10-15,000 years) which allowed us to change from roaming and hunting, to sitting around getting fat and reading books.

And at the end of the day, it's not really about your opinion of how fast you think people should have learned things, it comes down to what the evidence shows us that the pace was. If the cave people didn't have cave carvings and drawings of the theory of relativity, then we can only conclude that they simply didn't discover it yet. And that's that.

There is a popular phrase that you may have once heard. "People don't know what they don't know". A lot of our advances in technology come from information sharing these days, because we have things like computers and email. But go back 10,000 years ago and if some person happened to discover something, they wouldn't necessarily even have the ability to share that information. It's not like they had computers that they could just type on and click a send button and have their discovery sent around the planet. They didn't have a mailbox outside of their cave that they could just stick a carved stone into and have some mailman come pickup.They didn't have cars to drive down the road to the next tribe to talk either. They may even end up dead before the age of 20 from a lack of medical advances and dangers of hunting and gathering. Dead before they could even share an idea. Let alone did they even have universal languages worldwide to even communicate with other tribes. Today, we can pull up Google translators and we can speak Mandarin and Arabic if we wanted to. But we shouldn't expect our ancestors to have been able to do the same.

And technology even today continues to move forward exponentially. Back in the '70s we might have struggled to launch a handful of satellites, but today I could pull up an article of SpaceX launching 10,000 satellites in a single year.

When telescopes first came out we struggled to identify one or two exoplanets in foreign solar systems. Today we have super computer telescopes that can discover a thousands a year.

Our technology and our medicine is still exponentially advancing, and this hasn't stopped.

And someone could try to argue that maybe the wright brothers should have been making Boeing 747 and mach 5 fighter jets, but at the end of the day the evidence suggests that that's just not how history has played out.
 
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