Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?
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Fervent
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You've invented some things there to finagle them in an attempt to side-step the problem and have two acts of creation, one in "witnessed time" whatever that is, and one in space-time. The problem is, as far as I can tell there is only one reality and one stream of history. So which stream of history are we living in, space-time or witnessed time?
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Yes I can if you'd like although im sure youve heard these arguments before. One the Bible says that the Earth was created in 6 literal days and rested on the 7th. Read Exodus 20:8-11 where Moses writes:
"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
It wasn't just the book of Genesis that Moses said that God made the Heavens and the Earth in six literal days . These weren't generations of billions of years but in fact seven literal days. When we look at the Hebrew it further proves that this was what Moses's original intention to explain that these days were in fact literal. The Jews knew this and understood this for thousands of years.
How can God make the universe and everything in it in seven days if it was made over billions of years? Two, the Bible says that the universe existed on the 3rd day in Genesis 1: 14-19 Moses said that the sun, the stars, . If the big bang is true and the world started with a giant explosion on the first day of creation why did Moses say that it was on the 3rd day that the sun, moon and stars were created? Which would have been the 1st day of creation if the big bang is true?
3. Modern science still hasn't 100% explained these descrepencies or explained the origin of life and why we are here. Modern science is treated as fact when they are just in fact, theories as to the origin of life. Whereas the Bible flat out says how life began and why we are here. God created universe and everybody in it. Evolution provides a theory as to the origin of life and its merely just a theory. Until it can be replicated like the rest of science it's won't be any more than just a theory whereas the Bible can be trusted because it's been proven over and over again accurate. The Bible says God created the world in six days therefore that's how life started if people take the Bible seriously for what it says.
4. Carbon dating isn't really 100% accurate as to the age of fossils because scientists assume that the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere has been constant over the course of time the pre-flood environment could possibly have had different levels of Carbon 14 therefore affecting the accuracy of the results. We know that the fossils we have is after the flood because God killed off everything on the Earth during the flood including the dinosaurs and everything that lived.
There are more but these are the main arguments for Creationism. If you want to learn about more evidence you can read Answers in Genesis or CMI industries they both do fantastic work at proving Creationism.
Btw, I wasn't saying that Evolution is in fact, wrong there just isn't any 100% definitive evidence for it but we do have definitive evidence of our world's history in the Biblical accounts of Jewish history. According to Jewish history that has been passed down since the time of Moses the world is approximately 7,000-10,000 years old. I tend to believe the nation that started everything and the man who saw the very back of God than a theory that hasn't 100% been proven to be true when God has imo, been 100% proven to be true.
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Can you present the two propositions that are incompatible?
Proposition P1 =___.
Propositions P2 = ___.
Fill in the blanks. I prefer to argue with people who can think and write precisely.
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Thanks for the reference. This is how to do referencing in a scholarly manner:
- Display and indent the quoted text.
- Selectively bold the relevant keywords that are important to the point that you are making. No need to bold the entire sentence. Have a laser-sharp focus.
- Be concise and precise to the point. No need to quote the whole chapter.
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Roderick Spode
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There's all types of evolution (architecture, music, education, etc.).
I think Darwinian evolution is an unnecessary compromise. There's a certain amount of pressure to accept it if one wants to be considered a part of upper crest mainstream society. Theistic evolution is tolerated to some degree at this point, but as we get closer to the end times, we'll be hit with more pressure to succumb to beliefs just to be allowed to function in society.
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Merrill
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We have to remember a few things
1. There were no "days" before the Earth was formed (or the universe for that matter). I have always understood the passages describing the number of days for God to create everything as metaphorical.
2. God is timeless, and does not see past, present, and future. As Boethius tells us, God sees everything all at once. We can say from a human standpoint that dinosaurs existed before people, but that does not mean dinosaurs existed before people in the mind, or perceptions of God. This is hard to conceptualize, but we should not apply human limitations on God
3. Humans evolving from earlier organisms does not contradict divine creation. We still "come from the creative action of God", and a million years for us, is nothing to God (see #2)
Genesis explains creation, which is a dauntingly complex thing, in human terms so we can understand it. This doesn't mean the Bible is merely "symbolic", but it can use metaphor, analogy, parables, stories, etc. in order to make the incomprehensible, comprehensible.
1. There were no "days" before the Earth was formed (or the universe for that matter). I have always understood the passages describing the number of days for God to create everything as metaphorical.
2. God is timeless, and does not see past, present, and future. As Boethius tells us, God sees everything all at once. We can say from a human standpoint that dinosaurs existed before people, but that does not mean dinosaurs existed before people in the mind, or perceptions of God. This is hard to conceptualize, but we should not apply human limitations on God
3. Humans evolving from earlier organisms does not contradict divine creation. We still "come from the creative action of God", and a million years for us, is nothing to God (see #2)
Genesis explains creation, which is a dauntingly complex thing, in human terms so we can understand it. This doesn't mean the Bible is merely "symbolic", but it can use metaphor, analogy, parables, stories, etc. in order to make the incomprehensible, comprehensible.
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Oh! I'm sorry! I misread what you said and answered a completely different question! I thought you were asking me why I believe what I believe not on what i think the origin of life is I apologize.
Proposition 1 would be that God created the universe and everything in it and that if
Evolution is true that it was in fact, God that started evolution and was not some random chance. Because one thing is definitely clear from scripture and that's that God created the universe and that explains the origin of life and why we are all here giving a definitive answer as to the origin of life and not a guess. This is where I think both of us agree. Beyond that, evolution is at best a guess as to how we came to be and tries to explain how we got here without a creator God. The universe and everything in it was created about six-ten thousand years ago in six literal days as the Jewish calander and imo the Bible proves when you have a literal interpretation of scripture and dont just take scripture verse by verse butnsee what the whole Bible has to say on the subject. I generally trust the Bible because it has been proven time and time again to be an accurate portrayal of Jewish/world history and has never been completely disproven as a whole or really, at all. In fact, every battle in the Old Testament is proven to have really happened like King Cyrus conquering Babylon in 539 BC. Every "problem" with scripture can be disproven by taking the Bible literally and as a whole vs just debating one verse that was originally in a different language than English and has translation mistakes because you cant get a 100% accurate English translation from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic and the Bible should be debated by the original manuscripts and not by an English translation.
Two, like I stated above I generally don't believe in Evolution because there isn't enough Biblical or scientific evidence yet to prove the concept beyond any doubt. In fact, evolution contradicts the Biblical account of creation for several reasons beyond what i stated above and if in fact evolution is true it should match scripture not completely contradict it. A scientific fact like DNA or how we get sick as two examples should be believed because it can be replicated and has been proven beyond ANY doubt and is also proven to match scripture. But science that cannot be replicated should be treated with caution because it's generally a theory and not completely proven and honestly evolution cannot be replicated or EVER proven beyond any doubt so it should be treated in schools and by the world as a theory as to the origin of life and not scientific fact. I'm not saying that Creationism should be taught in schools (although i do believe that both should be taught in schools and both be treated as theories as to the origin of life because you cannot force people to believe the Bible) but merely that the world generally treats a theory as scientific fact
I just realized I could have shortened this by using chatgpt but I've already posted it and you've likely already read/skimmed through it.
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Roderick Spode
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The bible does use metaphor, analogy, parables, stories, etc. We can use literal combined with any of those 4 you mentioned in one sentence.
But there's really no reason to claim humanity did not start with one man/one woman in the context of Genesis. It's perfectly logical. If a nuclear war broke out leaving only 2 survivors, a man and a woman, they could start up a new civilization.
If God can create a universe ex nihilo, creating an adult male and female would be no problem.
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Roderick Spode
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From a Christian standpoint, the Creator is a reality.
Do you feel that science disproves an ex nihilo type creation?
Do you feel that science disproves humans originating from 2 humans?
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sfs
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Sure.
Ex nihilo creation of what? Of the universe billions of years ago -- not at all. Of the universe, the Earth, and all living things a few thousand years ago -- yes. (That is, everything about the world indicates that it's much older than that and that life evolved. If we can trust our sense to reflect reality, than yes, YEC is ruled out. If we can't trust our senses, then we can't know anything at all.)
Yes, within the last ~500,000 years, barring repeated miracles whose only function would be to deceive us.
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Roderick Spode
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I wasn't necessarily referring to YEC. But I do lean towards that. I don't know what your stance on God/Christianity is, but if a Christian accepts the miracle of ex nihilo creation, and the miracles and resurrection of Jesus, then how can they rule out any miracle that seemingly contradicts majority scientific conclusions?
The problem is that we weren't around at the time of creation, so it would be difficult to judge reality in terms of human origin, and creation of the universe.
Do you think Darwinian, or natural evolution is the only path to take?
The idea of God creating something mature is not out of the question as far as scripture is concerned. Jesus created mature wine from water. That may not be proof of God creating a mature universe, or 2 adult humans. There was a specific purpose for Jesus creating mature wine. There's nothing said in scripture about there being purpose in God creating a mature universe, but it might be for a similar reason as with the wine...for His glory! It's an assumption that God would be deceiving us in that God tells us what He did in His Word.
But again, I don't know what your position is on God, and His Word.
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sfs
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I'm a Christian and I have no problem in principle with miracles. But literally everything about the physical world says that it's ancient, while everything about living things says that they arrived here via evolution. Invoking miracle after miracle after miracle for the sole reason of denying the evidence of our senses, and doing so solely to support a belief based on what is (to me) a serious misunderstanding of what Genesis is -- yes, I have a problem with that.
We don't have to be present at the moment to judge the evidence that's been left behind.
It's the only explanation anyone has offered that makes sense of the data.
My point above was that even if you posit that God created exactly two humans ex nihilo and allow them to have been in whatever mature state you like, that still would result in human genetic diversity that does not match what we observe, unless they were created a very long time ago. You have to also invoke subsequent miracles to doctor the genetics to make us look like we came from more than two recent ancestors.
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Roderick Spode
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I don't really think there was that many miracles. It's sort of a catchy thing to say the bible is a book of magic, and then using plurals like talking animals which gives the impression of a mythological tale. There were specific moments where divine province took place mentioned over a very long period of time. Most of the miracles that took place were probably orchestrated by Jesus.
What would your senses say about Joshua's longest day battle?
Where would God's Word fit in with evidence?
What scientific data would you apply to the miracle of the fishes and loaves?
How do you know the recent ancestors were not made in the image of God, and considered a man like us?
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sfs
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I must not be making myself clear, since your responses here don't seem to have anything to do with what I've written. I'm not talking about the miracles described in the Bible. I'm talking about the countless things that would have had to be created, not to make a mature world, but a world with a false history. All of the layers of sedimentary rock that were never actually sediment, all of the fossils of creatures that never existed, all of the cooled lava from eruptions that never happened.
I'm assuming they were, in this scenario. What does that have to do with my point? You can't get current human genetic diversity from a single pair of recent ancestors.
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