Creationism or Evolution?

pressingon said:

Ron --

I'm only addressing the personal question, rather than debating with you regarding the rest of your post. There's probably far more in my testimony that brings glory to God (and possibly even understanding of at least one YEC's walk) than in any argument over what interpretation of evidence is correct.


No offense is taken. Not to judge, and certainly not to put words in your mouth, but I understand that we all have the thoughts, "how can they believe that?" or "how can they not see what I see?" from time to time. They enter my mind quite frequently. It's just a fact of life -- sometimes it's hard to see the other side of an issue.


What a coincidence! I'm not a "scientist" either, but studied physics while majoring in electrical engineering in college. I completed my bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering (graduating summa cum laude), and have just recently obtained licensure as a professional engineer.

(Note: I hesitated to post these things, as I posted rather critically of the "qualifications" debate that has been fought here and feel that my doing so demonstrates sinful pride. Know that my intent is not to try to make my opinions and viewpoints hold more weight or bolster my reputation, but merely to let you know where I'm coming from and relate our commonalities.)


Okay, on to how I went from atheistic evolutionist to theistic evolutionist to young earth creationist.... This is in bullet form, as a narrative might take pages.

• I’ve always been driven by a desire to understand things and to do things as perfectly as possible. That’s probably related to childhood experiences, but that’s another story….
• I have always been interested in nature, science, and the like.
• I grew up Catholic, even went to a Catholic school. Faith stopped seeming important to me as I grew older, probably due to lack of good role models in the faith.
• Began considering myself an atheist sometime in early high school. I started thinking that God wasn’t needed for the world to exist (science said so!), so why should I believe? (Note to all: teenagers obviously don’t understand everything!)
• Went to college, and met my future wife. Started attending church again, “for her sake”. Got saved my senior year of college. Note that I had questions how evolution and the Bible could both be true, but never really asked anyone about it.
• I started studying the Bible, and quickly observed its consistency and truth.
• After a while being saved (not sure how long, one year, two?), I felt I finally had a grasp as to how evolution and the Bible could both be wholly true (I thought that God directed it). I guess that’s not strict theistic evolution, now that I think about it, but more God-directed evolution.
• Ended up teaching Sunday School at my church. While looking for new material, I started researching the creation / evolution debate so that I could be prepared for a new study. Read a lot of information on genetics, in particular.
• Found nothing wrong with the concept of natural selection, but ended up being convinced that there was not sufficient evidence to accept evolution as truth and abandon a straightforward reading of the Bible. The most convincing evidence (to me) was how improbable the formation of life from non-living things seems, and how improbable it seems that life could go from simple single-celled organisms to such complex creatures as humans by genetic information increase.

Anyway, that’s my personal experience. As I expect this post to be dissected, rebutted, twisted, and corrupted[sup](1)[/sup], let me state a couple more things to clarify, things you’ll probably all point out anyway.

• In my initial acceptance of evolution, I never really looked into all of the science behind it, so it’s not as if I suddenly came across research that convinced me to accept it as true. It was more of a, “this is what is taught by science as true, okay, that sounds good to me”, kind of thing.
• It was in my study of the creation / evolution debate that I first took a serious look at both sides of the issue, examining published research, reading books, etc. My opinion is that I was objective in my study, but that’s probably debatable as I was preparing for a Sunday School study (even if I did believe evolution to be true going in).

Finally, I’m not here to debate this issue… I’ve seen too much nonsensical bickering and arguing here to do so anymore. I’ll be happy to relate personal experience on the matter or answer questions regarding my viewpoint, but I’m not going to fight with anyone over this issue -- it’s not essential to salvation. If you want to fight amongst yourselves, feel free (I wouldn't recommend it, but I can't prevent it), but when you post, please keep in mind the question I asked earlier… “Does the wording of my post glorify Christ?”


Note:
[sup](1)[/sup]The italicized phrase is intended as sarcasm... just a poor attempt at humor!

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Pressingon,

no, I am not going to "rebutted, twisted, and corrupted" your post. In fact, I am pleased that you decided to give me an honest response without calling me a devil worshipper or something, which I have heard a lot of in the 2 months I have been posting here.

Here is a web site I found yesterday, concerning theistic evolution. It was in a post in another thread on this page. http://www.ualberta.ca/%7Edlamoure/3EvoCr.htm

I think it explains my point of view fairly well.

Congratulations on the PE. I ended up not taking that route. I did my college in the late 60's. Originally in engineering, then in my senior year I tried to change my major to secondary education with a physics minor, to teach high school physics. The draft board didn't like that, and I ended up joining the Navy. I stayed for 9 years, and never went back and completed school. I did take some programming courses at the local community college, and got a job doing that when I got out.

As far as your changing your mind, here is another parallel. sort of. Our church was doing a Bible study on the end times. I asked what the biblical evidence was for pre-trib rapture (which our church teaches). I was told by the pastor to reasearch it on my own, and ended up changing a life long belief, from pre to post.

I do appreciate a short discussion on this that didn't quickly degenerate into name calling.

Ron

Ron21647 said:

no, I am not going to "rebutted, twisted, and corrupted" your post. In fact, I am pleased that you decided to give me an honest response without calling me a devil worshipper or something, which I have heard a lot of in the 2 months I have been posting here.

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For the record, that poor attempt at humor really wasn't directed at anyone in particular, but was more a crude characterization of the stuff I've seen happening in here the past month or so. It's the primary reason I've, for the most part, stopped participating in threads here (as much as I enjoy the discussions)... meaningful, edifying discussion that brings understanding seems nearly impossible here of late.

Ron21647 said:

I do appreciate a short discussion on this that didn't quickly degenerate into name calling.

Ron

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As do I. It's what this forum is intended to be. If / when it returns to this, perhaps I'll return to more active participation in these discussions.

God bless...