Why I don't believe in evolution...

coffee4u

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You seem to impute motives to people you don't know.

Like anyone all I have to go on are your words.
I suspected your motives due to how you ended the post and then your non engagement with the answers I provided. I believe your motives are to argue.
Since I explained I would rather not argue then you also knew you were wasting my time.

If your motivation was to actually find out what others believe and perhaps to widen your own point of view, you would have shown that by asking respectfully about the answers provided. I am not saying at the end of the day that you must agree with me, but if you are closed down from the beginning then it isn't an exchange to gather any more information or views, just an argument. There are plenty of people on here who enjoy that, so argue with them.

You specifically said you weren't interested in debate - which is quite an odd position to take on a discussion board - so presumably you're just here to "teach". Well, sorry, but that's not how it works.

I am interested in an exchange of ideas based on scripture. Teaching can go both ways. But if someone is interested to know why I am a YEC then I will explain because maybe like me they are new to Christianity and they do not yet have a fixed idea.
Your ideas are fixed, you do not want to hear any other view point which is why I said posts ago that this exchange is a pointless waste of time.

If you had some solid ideas based on scripture I would be willing to look at them. I actually had my YE positioned strengthen by someone on here. When I first came to CF I thought maybe those who said the earth could have sat with no creation occurring for a very long time might have a point since genesis 1 isn't that clear on that, but then someone else pointed out Exodus 20 included the heavens and earth all within that 6 days. I must have read and forgotten about it but I was glad it was pointed out, and I told them that they were right.

I was asking questions of you to see if you had answers. If you did, your position would have had integrity. But I don't think you did have answers.

I did up an entire page of answers.

You just said that you didn't know on what day the earth was created, not how old it was, but it wasn't old. I just don't know where you got that from, but if you think that's an answer, then I confess I don't understand it. So I'm not aiming to be nice, or not nice; just inqusitive.

How about I ask you "when did God create purple?"
I had no answer because it was a silly question.

I don't remember not answering your questions so will try below.

Okay, I will take you at your word.

This website is short, and explains nicely (and with many reasons I agree with). Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days Were 24-Hour Periods You can disagree with it, but I think it shows that believing in an old earth is not surrender to liberalism, but a robust defense of the integrity of Scripture.

I would rather have your own answers but I will look at this and get back to you.

Well ... this is just confusing. Why are you arguing what God told the disciples about the life of Jesus? Did they not walk with Jesus? Did they not talk with Jesus? Did they not witness His works? Of course. And John 21v25 shows this. Being a first-hand witness to historical events is really not the same as God explaining what happened before you were on the scene.

Sorry I have forgotten what this is referring too.

Well see above. The Bible is a mixture of genres of literature - poetry, history, prophecy, apocalypse - as you know. If you read history the same way you read poetry, you will miss the heart of God's message; the same in reverse. I'm merely saying that I believe God explained prehistory to technologically primitive people in a way they could understand it. He explained things in a way that was comprehensible, because what mattered was that He authored creation, not whether He created in six days or six weeks or six billion years. It's all the same to God.

I also don't know what this is referring to now either. :/

I agree that the Bible has different types of writing. I am not basing my doctrine on poetry.
Death came in with sin. There is no possible way for millions of years to pass without death.
 
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The Barbarian

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Death came in with sin. There is no possible way for millions of years to pass without death.

God makes it clear that the death He referred to was a spiritual death. Would you like to learn how we know this?
 
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Derek1111

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Sorry I have forgotten what this is referring too.

You were basically suggesting (if I understood you correctly) that, if you followed my logic of assuming that saying that the creation account could have symbolic meaning, then what was to stop any other part of Scripture also being symbolic. You specifically referenced the Gospels.

My reply is: it's very different for God to explain to us what happened before we were on the scene, than for the historic records of the life of Jesus. Both are inspired and infallible. But it hardly seems plausible that the Gospels, written by men who either witnessed or heard about the life and deeds of Jesus, should resort to symbolism. By contrast, it seems plausible that God simply wanted to tell us (especially technologically primitive society) the basics of creation. Who was He working with that He should or could explain the details? It makes no sense.
 
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Wilderness Cry

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There still are some mutations of recent origin spreading through the human population, though.
A mutation is not considered evolving as most mutations are a loss of information, DNA, etc. All things naturaltends towards chaos, not improvement.
 
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The Barbarian

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A mutation is not considered evolving as most mutations are a loss of information

No, that's wrong. Every new mutation in a population increases information in that population. Would you like to see the numbers for a simple example?

All things naturaltends towards chaos, not improvement.

River systems, plants, global winds, humans, plate tectonics, etc. are all natural things and they tend to produce order. And natural selection tends to increase fitness in a population for the environment. Would you like to see some examples?
 
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rjs330

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You were basically suggesting (if I understood you correctly) that, if you followed my logic of assuming that saying that the creation account could have symbolic meaning, then what was to stop any other part of Scripture also being symbolic. You specifically referenced the Gospels.

My reply is: it's very different for God to explain to us what happened before we were on the scene, than for the historic records of the life of Jesus. Both are inspired and infallible. But it hardly seems plausible that the Gospels, written by men who either witnessed or heard about the life and deeds of Jesus, should resort to symbolism. By contrast, it seems plausible that God simply wanted to tell us (especially technologically primitive society) the basics of creation. Who was He working with that He should or could explain the details? It makes no sense.

The difficulty many people have is two fold when making the claim that creation is not as the bible described.

The first one is that no one can say when Genesis moves from allegory, divine story or whatever they want to call it I to actual historical events.

Secondly the next difficulty is explaining how Christ and the apostles believes in the accuracy of Genesis. Specifically Adam, Eve and the other historical figures and events recorded.

If we truly believe that Christ was God and everything was created by him, then we know he was present. We also know since he was God he was present for all the events that took place in the entire book of Genesis. The Holy Spirit is also God and inspired the apostles to write and what to write. Paul explains this very well and even says they have the mind of Christ. The revelation of doctrine and belief is wrapped up in the scriptures.

We could go though some of this if you were open enough to it. But I'm not sure you are ready or willing.
 
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The Barbarian

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The difficulty many people have is two fold when making the claim that creation is not as the bible described.

The problem is that there is no consensus among Christians when it comes to determining what parts are figurative and what parts are literal history. Fortunately, it doesn't matter to salvation, which depends on following Jesus, not some person's interpretation of things like the way God made the diversity of life on Earth.

If someone tells you that such things are critically important, they aren't following the Author.
 
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FaithT

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The "appearance of age" idea is based on the notion that God is deceptive, and would fake great age. This is incompatible with the God of the Bible Who is truth.
Sam Saved By Grace, what do you say to that?
 
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BeliefBite

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The two main reasons why I don't believe in evolution, other than the lack of evidence, are that the Bible says we were created from the dust of the ground, not from an ape-like ancestor, and because there's no way to draw the line of when humans became fully evolved, morally conscious, and spiritual beings.

This doesn't mean, however, that I believe earth is less than 10,000 years old, which isn't taught anywhere in the Bible. Christian geologists discovered the earth's antiquity before Darwin was even born.
What do you think of the possibility that evolution took place for millions of years, then, at some point in time, God breathed the breath of life into a creature to turn him into a human with a spiritual nature?
 
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Guy Threepwood

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What do you think of the possibility that evolution took place for millions of years, then, at some point in time, God breathed the breath of life into a creature to turn him into a human with a spiritual nature?

I'd agree with that, although I'd say evolution needed more help along the way.

Darwinian processes appear able to only affect fairly minor changes, overwhelmingly destructive ones at that.
Where most creative input would have required a creative mind, rather than random chance.
 
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The Barbarian

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I'd agree with that, although I'd say evolution needed more help along the way.

Darwinian processes appear able to only affect fairly minor changes, overwhelmingly destructive ones at that.
Where most creative input would have required a creative mind, rather than random chance.

Darwin's great discovery was that it isn't random. And of course, Darwinian processes are remarkably capable. In one case, a culture of bacteria evolved a new irreducibly complex enzyme system. Would you like to learn about that?
 
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Guy Threepwood

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Darwin's great discovery was that it isn't random. And of course, Darwinian processes are remarkably capable. In one case, a culture of bacteria evolved a new irreducibly complex enzyme system. Would you like to learn about that?

Appealing to random chance to account for all biological novelty, is the defining characteristic of Darwinism.
 
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The Barbarian

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Appealing to random chance to account for all biological novelty, is the defining characteristic of Darwinism.

Nope. Maybe it would be good for you to go find out what it actually is. Start by finding the four basic points of Darwinism. Then come on back and tell us which of them has been refuted. We'll go from there. Suffice to say you've been completely misled about the theory and how it describes the phenomenon of evolution.

Darwin didn't discover evolution, BTW. By Darwin's time a lot of scientists had come to realize that some kind of evolution must have happened. Darwin discovered how it works. And that's what you don't know. Check it out.
 
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Guy Threepwood

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Nope. Maybe it would be good for you to go find out what it actually is. Start by finding the four basic points of Darwinism. Then come on back and tell us which of them has been refuted. We'll go from there. Suffice to say you've been completely misled about the theory and how it describes the phenomenon of evolution.

Darwin didn't discover evolution, BTW. By Darwin's time a lot of scientists had come to realize that some kind of evolution must have happened. Darwin discovered how it works. And that's what you don't know. Check it out.

You might want to argue your assertion with Bezerkly, and let me know what they think of your hypothesis. I don't think they are a creationist source!

Mutations are random - Understanding Evolution

HomeDNA and Mutations → Mutations are random
Mutations are random
Mutations can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful for the organism, but mutations do not “try” to supply what the organism “needs.” Factors in the environment may influence the rate of mutation but are not generally thought to influence the direction of mutation. For example, exposure to harmful chemicals may increase the mutation rate, but will not cause more mutations that make the organism resistant to those chemicals. In this respect, mutations are random — whether a particular mutation happens or not is unrelated to how useful that mutation would be.
 
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The Barbarian

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You might want to argue your assertion with Bezerkly, and let me know what they think of your hypothesis. I don't think they are a creationist source!

The source says mutations are random. That's true. You've just confused evolution with one of the agencies of evolution. I see now why you're completely backwards on this.

You probably should still go and find out what Darwin's four points are, and learn what the process actually entails. Here's a hint: if a mutation doesn't in any way affect the fitness of the population, it will randomly vary in the population. Look up "Hardy-Weinberg" to learn why this fact is so useful for detecting selection and directional evolution.

Let me know what you find.
 
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Guy Threepwood

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The source says mutations are random. That's true. You've just confused evolution with one of the agencies of evolution. I see now why you're completely backwards on this.

The agency Darwinism invokes to account for all biological novelty, all input of new genetic information.

Natural selection is not unique to Darwinsim, only the random chance part is.

Lamarkism, creationism, intelligent design, natural engineering, all invoke natural selection as an agency which filters and distributes biological novelty throughout the biosphere.

They just don't rely on blind random chance to provide everything natural selection has to select. Only Darwinism resorts to that.
 
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The Barbarian

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The source says mutations are random. That's true. You've just confused evolution with one of the agencies of evolution. I see now why you're completely backwards on this.

The agency Darwinism invokes to account for all biological novelty, all input of new genetic information.

No, that's wrong, too. Immigration and emigration are also ways that can happen. You're still missing this. But I see you have looked it and found that Darwn's discovery was that natural selection does this.
And of course natural selection is the antithesis of randomness.

Lamarkism, creationism, intelligent design, natural engineering, all invoke natural selection as an agency which filters and distributes biological novelty throughout the biosphere.

No. Lamarckism is quite different and did not involve natural selection, but rather a teleological process that most importantly promotes the idea that acquired traits would be inherited.

Creationism, "intelligent design" and all those others are more recent, and just borrowed some things from Darwin to dress up their religious ideas. Some IDers like Michael Behe have ultimately recognized the truth and now describe themselves as evolutionists.

Here's IDer Michael Denton, once an anti-evolutionist, in Nature's Destiny:
it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science—that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called “special creationist school.” According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God’s direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world– that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies. In large measure, therefore, the teleological argument presented here and the special creationist worldview are mutually exclusive accounts of the world. In the last analysis, evidence for one is evidence against the other. Put simply, the more convincing is the evidence for believing that the world is prefabricated to the end of life, that the design is built into the laws of nature, the less credible becomes the special creationist worldview.

As you learned, random mutations and natural selection are all that's needed for evolution to function. Want to see some examples.
 
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