Creationist Club

SoldierOfTheKing said:

OEC's won't be welcome, then?

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Of course OEC will be welcome. The issue is not whether or not the earth is 3 billion years old but whether or not life was creation 6-10 thousand years ago.

Grace and peace,
Mark

shernren said:

Maybe you'd need a separate place for YECs and another for OECs. I doubt that there's a lot of common ground in terms of origins between the two of them ...

Mark what did you mean by "creationists stand alone" in your OP? Curious.

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First of all I see no discernable difference between OEC and YEC with regards to origins. The theology is identical and when I identify myself as a YEC it does not mean that I am opposed to an old earth scenerio, I just disagree.

The second question is actually a little more complicated. Time and time again I have seen creationists run of the debate forums because they are intellectually gang tackled. When I started this whole thing I had very little in the way of substantive information to work with. What I am hoping to accomplish with this effort is to have resources for creationists to learn about the theological and empirical issues involved.

Originally I was considering just creating a post and asking the moderators and administrators to accept it. Over time I realized that there are some pretty capable people on here that should have a voice. I want to hear from creationists, that is what this is all about. Some may be reluctant at first but I think it is important to let others who are not well read on the subject hear from them as well. They have a lot to contribute to the discussion of Origins Theology, I am offering creationists a chance to permenantly fix their ideas at the top of the forum. I may not be able to accomplish this but I think it is important to at least try.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Remus said:

I wanted to address some debating guidelines in my first post in this thread. I hope you don’t mind.

The Creation/Evolution debate has interested in for some time now. It wasn’t long ago that I had never heard of Christians that believe in Common Descent. I was caught off guard by this and had to rethink some things. Is there room for Theistic Evolution under the umbrella of Christianity? Many would say no, and I can understand why one would say this. It’s difficult for me to understand how someone could hold to the concept that we evolved from lower forms of life and still maintain a belief in the teachings of Christianity. However, my lack of understanding does not preclude the possibility that they can do this. The Bible states that “whoever believes in Him shall not parish but have eternal life.” It does not say “whoever believes in Him and believes that God created the world in six literal 24 hour periods 6000 years ago shall not parish…” Above all else, TE’s are still our bothers and sisters and should be treated with the respect that they due and the respect that you want.

However, there will be times that you’ll come across one that claims to be a Christian but isn’t. The Bible does say that “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Be careful in situations like this. As a general rule, you should not attempt to call them out. Even if you are right, you won’t accomplish anything except having real Christians come to their defense and will end up giving them more support. People like this won’t be able to keep it up forever and will eventually show their true nature.

So, how does one debate this topic? The first suggestion is something that I’ve already said. Attempt to be respectful at all times. I know this is hard to do at times, but you should at least make a concerted effort. On the flip side, don’t refrain from ‘telling it like it is’ if the situation warrants it.

My second suggestion is to say what you mean and use terminology that will get your ideas across to the person you are addressing. They don’t care what you mean; only what you say. If they can disprove what you say, then you lose. For example, if you want to say that you don’t believe that we evolved from single-cell organisms then say that. Don’t say “I don’t believe in evolution” and expect them to take that as what you meant. The term “evolution” has many meanings and they use this to their advantage (of course, you can use this to your advantage at times too). It can mean common descent, or it could mean small changes within a population. If you don’t express what you mean, you’ll find yourself trying to explain how you can’t believe in it and still explain the different breeds of dogs.

My next suggestion is to keep the thread on topic. Don’t let someone pull you off on a tangent. That is unless you think the other person is going to end up hanging themselves. Most likely, you’ll be dealing with more than one person and end up having to defend against two or more people on different topics. This can also put you into a situation where you’re having to defend an opinion that you don’t hold.

Next is to read and investigate everything that is presented. This goes for scientific matters as well as Biblical matters. On scientific matters, go to the source if you can. There are several scientific publications online that you access. Some have limited free access and others you have to pay. There’s plenty free stuff out there though. Avoid using information from sites dedicated to either side. Even if what they say is true, the person that you are debating will not accept it as such.

The scientific community has done some really amazing things and they are an asset and should be held in high regard. However, they are not perfect. Any scientist will tell you this. In forum debates, some people will attempt to portray modern science as if it’s never wrong and hold it up as some sort of ultimate measure of truth. It is up to you if you want to let them keep up this façade. From what I’ve seen, most people will go along with it and it ends up costing them the debate. There will be times that this isn’t necessary. Since the scientific community understands its limitations, it’s easy to find articles that will support your position.

Finally I’ll wrap this up with a couple of general suggestions:
Make sure your spelling and grammar is right.
Learn what logical fallacies are and learn how to recognize them. (very important)
Admit when you are wrong.
Apologize quickly.

That’s all I have for now. I hope this helps.

God bless,
Remus

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I can give you my personal gurantee that if there is a sticky that emerges from this, this post will be at the top of it. I was cut to the quick by this and it is a sound admonision. Creationists are sometimes sloopy in the way they present themselves, I am as bad as anybody about this. The first thing the Creationist Club is going to need is an editor and I am definitely not the one for the job. I will do it if no one else steps up but I would accept anyone who is genuinely interested in the task offering to add disciple to this project. I say that knowing full well I would be subject to their criticisms, I welcome the opportunity.

I think the part about spelling and grammer is right on the money. I allso think that reducing Darwinism to it's logical fallacies is the key to this whole thing. The last part is harder to accept but nonetheless crucial. In these debates we sometimes make mistakes, I know I have made serious fundamental errors and that is often the only thing your opponent will see or want to talk about.

Thanks Remus, that was a great post. God bless you for your interest and obvious zeal in this area of theology.

Grace and peace,
Mark

john crawford said:

I suppose we are in the process of sorting out how the club will work.

I propose that if we have any differences of opinion regarding creationism itself, that we open and use other threads for sorting those differences out, as I have done recently with the Homo erectus thread.

Otherwise, this thread could quickly become cluttered with all sorts of issues. I suppose Mark could move certain topics to other threads if he thought it necessary. One thing I would be interested in as a member of this club, is to what extent, some club members could agree on basic issues and work together as a team, since organization and team-work are essential to the success of any enterprise. It certainly would be an interesting project and challenge for some club members who share common beliefs to engage in.

Maybe we could organize ourselves into debating teams within the club for purposes of developing and honing our debating skills before we saunter out into the general debate forums where we usually get individually crucified by the evolutionist teams.

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No doubt there will be creationist debators who are trying to hone their skills interested in the subject. I am most interested in postive postions by creationists and consider criticisms of Darwinism to be a close second. Now having a debateing team seems like an interesting concept, that had not occured to me. Obviously you are interested in the hominid fossils while others are more interested in theology. I would expect that there are other aspects that creationist would focus on like archeology or apologetics.

I am wondering if there were such a debate team put together what their various areas of specialty would include. My only requirement for submitting a post for the Creationist Club would be that they are a confirmed creationist. For a debate team to develop they would have to be well read and willing to mix it up intellectually.

I have not given a great deal of thought to how membership is decided, I was thinking just a profession of faith in creationism would be all that was required. Ulitmately I would be looking at the quality of the posts and whether or not it was comprehensive to the average reader. Still, it makes sense to have a criteria for discerning between creationism and recycled evolution.

One thing I feel is firmly a part of creationism is human linage. If you don't accept the Adam was the first man then I don't think you qualify as a creationist. There may be other criterea but this one is foundational for me personally.

Grace and peace,
Mark

vossler said:

First of all I'd like to say this is a wonderful idea!

Creationist, like myself, who have a limited knowledge of the scientific terminology and logic behind many evolutionary ideas need a place they can go to get honest biblically based answers without getting into an argument. I rarely use scientific arguments for my posts, but that doesn't mean I don't want to have a basic understanding of the evidence being thrown about.

Now the theological reasoning and arguments I'm extremely interested in. That is my passion and where my focus will always remain. God's Word is rich with meaning, depth and importance. It is more than enough for me to digest and understand so I don't need to spend any more time than what is minimally required trying to understand evolution which is meaningless to me and God's plan for my life.

I look forward to coming back here and taking part in the dialog.
Thanks Mark.

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Actually, theology is a crucial part of this discussion. It's virtually impossible to understand creationism and not look at the theology involved. Science is not the only source of wisdom in this world and I doubt seriously any self respecting scientist would argue that it is. In fact science is wrong a lot of times and Darwinism is a prime example of how it can be misused. Theological insights into this issue would be not only accepted but greatly appreciated.

I'm going to contact the moderators and admins about this in the next couple of days. What I want to be able to present to them are indepth and well thought out essays focused on the theological and scientific issues involved.

Grace and peace,
Mark

chaoschristian said:

I think this is a great idea. I look forward to reading this thread as it develops. All the best to you all with it.

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Thanks CC, I sincerly hope TEs take an interest in this. I'm trying to reign in the creationist concensus and put their reasoning forward. To tell you the truth I wouldn't mind getting the TE perspective on this, just for the sake of clarity.

I don't think it would make it into the final cut but TE is definitly a perspective that creationists should consider.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Ok, I think that is everybody but if I missed your post I apologize. This is the challenge, you are the keynote speaker at the Creationist Club. They have just finished their coffee and are waiting on the edge of their seats to hear what you have to say.

What do you have to say to these people?

Grace and peace,
Mark

I think the first order of buisness would be to inform and educate creationists. This week I was thinking about this and I came up with what I consider to be key issues but certainly not an exaustive list. We have to be able to help people realize that there is a fundamental difference between the Theory of Evolution and Darwinism. What I have is two acromyms:

Evolution

E- The energetic costs of adaptations, simply put the benefits must outweigh the costs.

V- Variable elements, genes recombine to created the various traits that create diversity in populations. Darwin's Finches are a prime example of this, these were varations of the Finches, they did not really speciate.

O- Open Reading Frame, this is primarily in the protein coding genes and functional part of the genome. If there is a change in the reading frame at an amino acid seqeunce level the most common result is it closes down the reading frame. A beneficial trait resulting in a beneficial trait would be a very rare result.

L- Laws of Inheritance and this is Mendel's Laws of segregation and independant assortment. This are legitamate laws of science that are diametrically opposed to Darwinism.

U- Universal ancestory aka, the Single Common Ancestor Model (SCAM). This is the most contrived and convoluted doctrine in modern science. It should be understood that this is an a priori assumption.

T- Transitional Fossils, these should be examined and debunked with a vengence. The Hominid fossils (classified Hominae) are the primary transitionals in human evolution. They go from the Austrophicenes to the Homo species with virtually no transitional forums. Homo Habilis was 680cc while the Homo Erectus were over 1000 cc.

I- Irreducible Complexity, every creationist should be aware of the work of the Intelligent Design movement. While it is not creationism per se, it is none the less the best scientific criticism of Darwinism in natural science today.

O- Ontology, this is another word from metaphysics which is the substantive element that transends all reality. Darwinism seeps into every aspect of legal, scientific and cultural reasoning in the modern world.

N- Natural Selection, it is only after the energentic costs are overcome that natural selection can act. What it does is to preserve favorable traits and it does not act on the level it is assumed to in evolutionary biology.

For the Creationist Club to be successfull it would be nessacary to define Creationism in theological and scientific terms. The theological issues are clear enough in both the Old and New Testaments. An expositive post on the primary passages from Genesis to Revelations would be nessacary. The scientific issues relate to certain key concepts in genetics and the fossils.

Creationists should be in agreement on certain essential points of referance:

C- Classification according to kinds. To date I have yet to see a creationist classification system that identifies the independant lineages of various kinds in nature. For me the taxonomic level of genus seems the most simular to the Biblical concept of kinds.

R- Rate of changes, how did things adapt and improve fittness? This is a fundamental question because there is no question that they would have had to do it rather quickly. I would suggest that the orginal created kinds were more vigorous and capable of more adaptive changes in a relativly short period of time.

E- Equilibrium, darwinism is based on gradualism and evolution is anything but gradual. The Cambrign explosion and human evolution being the most dramatic evolutionary epocs in TOE.

A- Adamic ancestory, we descended from Adam and Eve who where specially created by divine fiat. This is nonnegotiable, I feel strongly that anyone rejecting Adamic ancestory should not consider themselves a creationist.

T- Time Limits, the Bible as a primary source document simply does not give us the billions of years for adaptive evolution. Genesis is not a metaphore, it's redemptive history. The revelation made to Moses and other prophets does not present itself as an analogy.

I- Inheritable Traits, simply put this is what traits can change and what ones cant.

O- Observed effects and demonstrated mechanisms. Mutations are thought to be the mechanism that produces evolutionary changes. Darwinians have to answer for the effects of mutations, particularly with regard to human mutations.

N- Noetic effects of sin, this is how our fallen nature effects our reasoning skills. Mankind is in darkness until the light of God's glory, revelation and intervention reaches them.

John,

I like you idea about a debate team, it could work if we had a core group commited to the task. What I am looking for here are well researched informative and comprehensive essays on the issues. I would suggest we spar among ourselfs. Take the best arguements for Darwinism available and systematically break it down.

There are other issues involved that make creationism more vital then people realize. Judical activists like Oliver Wendel Holmes was an evolutionist.


http://www.arn.org/docs/pearcey/np_judges1200.htm

I would strongly recommend that if you are genuinely interested in evolution as a larger philosophy of eduction you check this out:


http://www.christianparents.com/jdewey.htm


Grace and peace,
Mark

john crawford said:

Very good. The first order of business in the mission and purpose of the club would be to inform and educate creationists on the topics covered under the acronyms of Evolution and Creation. This gives us a basic framework within which to organize around and get club activities off the ground. Members can open threads on selected topics of interest and discuss them from a strictly creationist point of view. This shared activity should give us a sense of teamwork and enable us to appreciate other members POV's.

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I see we are in agreement on this point. Lets move on...

So two more threads should be started in which we can deal with, and sort out, the theological and scientific issues from a creationist perspective. That should be interesting.

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They would be locked threads where submissions are only made with permission, I assume the person making the decision would be me. Of course I would be open to anything a creationist on here might want to say about it. We could come up with a criteria for deciding what should be in the threads and what should not be.

I only picked out these topics in order to show that we should eventually be able to differentiate between the creationist sheep and 6-day goats. (just joking)

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I know your kidding here but this is actually something to be concerned about. In Liberal Theology it is common to redefine terms and discernment of what is genuine creationism and what is recycled atheism is important.

This is a good approach to eventually developing debating teams because as we discuss and debate the various topics we will all get to know each other's style much better. The main reason to develop teamwork is to be able to go to the open forums and back each other up when debating with die-hard evolutionists so that we end up with that feeling of being all alone in a thread. I personally can deal with it, but since there is strength in numbers, a cheer-leading squad doesn't hurt and is in line with the Christian principle of two witnesses.

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We would have to find some people who were actually serious about debating the issues. It takes time to get up to speed in these discussions, particularly if you are going to take on scientists who hold Darwinian views. If it were just me and you I wouldn't mind doing it in the formal debate forum, depending on the opponent and the rules. I might be a way of learning the ins and outs of dealing with real world debate. How about a subject like, 'Homo Erectus, man or ape'? It's just a thought but I doubt seriously that we would have any trouble finding someone to take up the debate.

Yes, both links are very informative in the sense that they show how the Darwinist philosophy of 'scientific naturalism' is closely associated to the Marxist philosophy of 'scientific materialism' and how both philosophies have become the basis of Dewey's pragmiticism which is fundamental to the modern American philosophy of education.

For more insightful critiques into the devasting effects of anti-Christian humanism in secular law and education, I highly recommend the writings of Christian Reconstructionists like Gary North and R. J. Rushdoony.
http://www.fortifyingthefamily.com/institutes.htm

http://members.aol.com/Patriarchy/definitions/humanism_religion.htm

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Wow! It has been a long time since I read anything like that. I'll consider reading those books but for now I wanted to share some thoughts on the articles. I was impressed that the first one emphasised Van Till, I was heavily influenced by him when I first started studying apologetics. Presuppositional Apologetics is highly under rated. I was a little put off by the attack on dispensationalism though, I happen to like dispensationalism. Don't get me wrong, I have some problems with it but alienating solid fundamentalists is not on my agenda.

I'll give you one thing John, you are motivated. If there were 5 more like you I would expect the Creationist Club to be a great success. I think we should pray about this and seek God's will about where we go from here. I think Remus is interested but a couple of the creationists I am aquainted with are a little more...shall we say...stand offish.

Great post John, thanks for the links.

Grace and peace,
Mark

John, I think you should be aware that most of the creationists that come on here don't post to these forums very much. I don't really blame them for wanting to stay out of these highly contentious debates. I think it is worth the effort to try to put something comprehensive and helpful where they can consider the science and theology of creationism privately.

I honestly believe that genetics will eventually derail darwinism. All it really takes is seperating Darwinian philosophy from real science. The better informed believers are about biology and genetics the better equiped they will be to confront Darwinism.

The only thing I would really expect a Creationist to do is to submit an essay or expostion on the theology and/or science involved. It would have to be 500 to 2500 words long, reasonably well researched, civil and comprehensive.

I just want to be clear on one point, any creationist that shuns these kinds of debates is fine by me. I say go in peace and God bless you. If however, there are willing skillfull workers who would like to contribrute to this forum something permenantly affixed to the top of the thread, then join us, you are more then welcome.

I know they are out there and I would dearly love to hear more from them. I think I'm ready to contact the senior staff and my fellow moderators on this forum. I am going to suggest a locked thread for submitting potential contributions to a permenant sticky at the top of the thread.

John, you have done more then enough research to make a contribution simular to the ones you have in the Smithsonian and Homo Erectus threads. I would really like to see some kind of a book review on the Bones of Contention included but that's your call. It would have to be civil, comprehensive and suitable for equipping believers.

Grace to you and peace through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
Mark

Remus said:

I am interested when I have the time, which will come and go. One suggestion that I have is to do some collaborative efforts. Some people may have some ideas; but don’t know how to put them into words, don’t have time to do so, or haven’t fleshed everything out. If someone that had an idea could get together with someone that could verify the data or investigate further and put it in essay form, then that would remove a barrier that some may have. I know in the past, I’ve had some ideas floating around in my head that I would like to flesh out, but I haven’t had time to spend on them.

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I understand completly, the study that goes in to something like this is a real drain. If you have some ideas in mind and want to kick them around I could help you with some of the reaseach. Finding good unbiased sources can be a challenge but well worth the time and effort. Just let me know here or by PM what you think you would like to write it on and I'll help you with it.

It really dosen't bother me if it takes a while to get it written. I want something comprehesive, civil, fairly well researched and suitable for building up creationists in their faith. There is no time limit on how long it takes to write it if it's good, that's all that matters.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Remus said:

One thing that I'd like to investigate further is so-called "convergent evolution". From the many examples out there, it seems to me that a common designer would be a much better explanation than evolution. It also points out that many of the things that have supposedly evolved had to do so many times over. If it’s highly improbable for these things to evolve once; how much more improbable is it to evolve multiple times?

It’s a work in process…

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Your in luck, NWcreation has a rather interesting article on that very topic. Convergent evolution is a theory that species that are not related by descent change characteristics to adapt to simular environmental challenges. The Auk of the Artic north and the penquins of the artic south being one example.

They attribute the changes in population in Australia that lead from placental mammals to marsupials to be the result of genetic recombination. You should never think of natural selection without considering the key concept involved, the preservation of favored traits. Darwinism insists that this selection of favored traits is competition in the struggle to survive. Medelian genetics has a very different and far more scientific explanation for how this occures in the first place, genetic recombination:

http://www.nwcreation.net/marsupials.html

A summary of John Woodmorappe's work are listed here, this is the statement he made that is directly related to the above article.

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=367

I think I'll order the 12 papers described in the latter article. It's only 13 dollars and it seems like fascinating research.

Grace and peace,
Mark