darwin's beliefs

[archaeologist]

Okay. So God finished making them. It does not say:
1. That they can never change.
2. That they are perfect the way they are (Gen 1:31 says they are 'good')
3. That God fixed them exactly as they are in their current form.
4. That God will never see fit to change them, or make a process by which they can be changed.
5. That God made it so they can never change.

sigh... let's go through this:

1. if you are a furniture builder (this is an example) and you create a table, over the years it is subject to use and abuse...does it change with each alteration and split off a splinter to become a 'perfect' chair? No, no matter what changes occur, it is not evolving as it remains a table.

the same with creation, though the results of the fall of man affect the world, nothing changes all animals, trees, humans remain the same except they get used and abused over time. there is nothing to split off to form another species, creation was complete. which means everything proceeds as a result of that creation.

2. when it was created it was good but in a progressive creationists website, i was asked this very question and i had to explain that good also meant very good and perfect. check the oxford dictionary and you will see that is so.

3. yes it does. completed means just that, they were fixed in that form. the words 'begat their own kind' (approx.) tells us that future generations do not change, the words, 'God made', 'God formed' tells us that yes, they were fixed in that form. the word 'completed' tells us they were fixed in that form.

4. the words and God saw that it was good' (which are repeated) tells us that no change was required at any point in time. He was satisifed with what He made.

5. actually for point 4 as well, the words----- 'Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.' do tell us that.

to finish answering a previous point ( i lost a complete reply due to computer malfunction)

Ridiculous claims require ridiculous criteria, especially when the Scripture ISN"T clear or isn't consistent with the rest of the world.

scriptures aren't to be consistant with the world, they are the perfect words from the perfect God to a sinful world. of course the two will be different. How can Jesus save if He follows the world?

And of course, you being a true believer have insight that the rest of us false believers could never hope to have unless we come around to your side and no matter how hard you try to explain it we won't get it so you won't even bother trying

no, it is God's side not mine.

but saying Darwin did or did not do something when Darwin was not mentioned and there was no clear thing for him to have done in the previous discussion, it becomes confusing

just keeping the thread on track.

Well, the actually question was
Were there more or fewer species on the Ark than there are in existence today?

same answer applies here as well.

 

[Rudolph Hucker]

....


same answer applies here as well.

So what is the answer to the question "are there now more - or less - species than were on the ark"?

 

[Assyrian]

not at all, Gen. 1:31 takes care of the third one

sorry i mis-read the way my bible was printed genesis 2:1

Gen 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

So if you read it literally God finished his work of creation some time between creating man and his seventh day rest.


But you also say:

how long did God rest. One 24hr day or 1,000+ yrs. Also God is a spirit. How long would it take God to rest and how long could the Sabbath day have lasted

we don't know and it is not germane to the issue nor to salvation or history and so on. it is one of those thngs that God omits because it is not important.

If you don't anything about the timing of God's Sabbath, and dismiss it as irrelevant to salvation and history, how do you know Creation is finished?

You made this claim about Gen 1:31 before but were unable to give an answer to my reply:

we also know from the last verse of genesis 1 and from exodus that creation was completed in 6 days, which shuts the door on any other time frame theorized.

Isaiah 54:16 See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc.
Or what about:
Psalm 102:18 Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the LORD:
Isaiah 43:1 But now, this is what the LORD says--he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
...

So when did God create the blacksmith?

God commanded the earth to produce living creatures, and he commanded the living creatures to be fruitful and multiply. Have animals stop making baby animals? If this command is still in effect, why do you think God's command for the earth to produce different kinds of animals was revoked?

Even if we were to accept your literal six day interpretation, your argument still does not work.

If you weren't able to answer before, why bring the argument up again?

 

[theFijian]

2. when it was created it was good but in a progressive creationists website, i was asked this very question and i had to explain that good also meant very good and perfect. check the oxford dictionary and you will see that is so.

Actually the hebrew word for 'good' does not carry the notion of 'perfect' and indeed the hebrew word for perfect or perfection is not used in Genesis 1. The notion of perfetion must be inferred from elsewhere in scripture.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

The question is not whether the thief on the cross was an exception, but whether he was an extraordinary exception, whether the God who would have spared Sodom for the sake of 10 righteous would damn to eternal perdition somebody who, having studied the Bible, thoughtfully and prayerfully made the decision to confirm and continue in the cleansing and dedication of his/her soul to God that he understood to have been symbolized/effectuated in his infant baptism.

Would that God, who sent his only son to be a model of the Godly life and to die for our sins, would that son, fully human and fully God, who brought the fulfillment of the Law, who taught the spirit of the law, insist upon a legalistic, letter of the law interpretation of how salvation is to be obtained?

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

sigh... let's go through this:

1. if you are a furniture builder (this is an example) and you create a table, over the years it is subject to use and abuse...does it change with each alteration and split off a splinter to become a 'perfect' chair? No, no matter what changes occur, it is not evolving as it remains a table.

In the first place if the back breaks off yes it can become a table, in the second place chairs do not reproduce and do not have genetics subject to drift and mutation.

the same with creation, though the results of the fall of man affect the world, nothing changes all animals, trees, humans remain the same except they get used and abused over time. there is nothing to split off to form another species, creation was complete.

So that would pretty much demonstrate that all species that currently exist were on the Ark in pairs or sets of seven.

I guess that like the Tardis, it was bigger on the inside than the outside.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

john 3:16 the act of belief comes first.

On what do you base this interpretation?

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

surely, science has a process figured out to get water from rocks...

Sure, find a water bearing strata, e.g. a layer of sandstone and put a pipe into it. Not all that hard.

It isn't all that hard to imagine a mundane explanation of how Moses got water from the rock. I would speculate that the reason God was so ticked at Moses over hitting the rock is that he cracked it, allowing the water to come out naturally, whereas God wanted a more complete miracle.

Whether the miracle was water literally springing from a rock sitting on dry sand or Moses finding the correct rock doesn't make any difference to me.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

So, no Christian or Jew prior to the 1500s had the Holy Spirit guide them with respect to the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun...

I'm sorry, did you respond to this already? Would you mind providing the post number?

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

the point is that when they found out they were wrong they dropped discussing it and did not consider the alternative--creation. which is par for the course for evolutionists. once they find something that disproves their theory, they try to make it go away or change the criteria to fit their beliefs.

The fact that we are holding this conversation, many of us in different countries, is an obvious demonstration of why science is "biased" against jumping to the conclusion that Goddidit, in general there is little to be explained via "Goddidit".

In the early 1900s Alfred Wegener looked at the geological and fossil evidence and suggested that Africa had nestled against S. America, that continents moved.
The mechanism he originally proposed simply didn't work, and the idea was generally rejected and died until 40 years later, when additional data had built up to the point that plate tectonics was fairly quickly accepted within the scientific community. I am fairly certain that there are more than a few believers in "common sense" who even today scoff at the idea of continents moving.

It seems to me that you think a good Christian should have published a paper stating that God caused the continents to move. And looked like a fool 40 years later.

 

[archaeologist]

the only person i will be responding to in this thread is metherion. we are having a good discussion and i will keep it that way.

 

[theFijian]

the only person i will be responding to in this thread is metherion. we are having a good discussion and i will keep it that way.

..translates as: can't answer, won't answer

 

[metherion]

Now let's go through yours.

1. if you are a furniture builder (this is an example) and you create a table, over the years it is subject to use and abuse...does it change with each alteration and split off a splinter to become a 'perfect' chair? No, no matter what changes occur, it is not evolving as it remains a table.

But animals are not made once and never changing afterwards. Animals change over time. And not just individuals growing up, either.
A table might a be fine analogy for the Earth, but not for living beings.

the same with creation, though the results of the fall of man affect the world, nothing changes all animals, trees, humans remain the same except they get used and abused over time. there is nothing to split off to form another species, creation was complete. which means everything proceeds as a result of that creation.

Not all animals, trees, and humans remain the same.
Different breeds of dogs and horses have emerged. They haven't stayed the same.
Plants have been bred for higher production, to be more environmentally resistant, and so on. They haven't stayed the same.
God only created 2 humans at the beginning. We now have Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasian, and I think a few other basic types of humans. Humanity hasn't stayed the same.
The claim that they never changed is false as false can be.

2. when it was created it was good but in a progressive creationists website, i was asked this very question and i had to explain that good also meant very good and perfect. check the oxford dictionary and you will see that is so.

But does it mean the same in Hebrew? Show me that. Since, for the meaning of a single word, it's the original we are concerned with, not the translation.

3. yes it does. completed means just that, they were fixed in that form. the words 'begat their own kind' (approx.) tells us that future generations do not change, the words, 'God made', 'God formed' tells us that yes, they were fixed in that form. the word 'completed' tells us they were fixed in that form.

When a table is completed, it is not fixed in that form. It may be shattered or splintered or refinished. A complete car may be upgraded or wrecked. The completed Earth is still shaped by volcanoes and earthquakes. No, complete doesn’t mean fixed. Not by a long shot.

4. the words and God saw that it was good' (which are repeated) tells us that no change was required at any point in time. He was satisifed with what He made.

Yes. But nowhere does it say He would be unsatisfied with anything else. Furthermore the system He made wasn't perfect, as mutations happen. So He MADE something capable of changing over time. And He thought it was good.

5. actually for point 4 as well, the words----- 'Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.' do tell us that.

Already showed how they don't. Furthermore, it doesn't say anything about the animals being completed in their vast array, does it?

to finish answering a previous point ( i lost a complete reply due to computer malfunction)

I HATE it when that happens to me as well.

scriptures aren't to be consistant with the world, they are the perfect words from the perfect God to a sinful world. of course the two will be different. How can Jesus save if He follows the world?

Scripture CANNOT BE THE PERFECT WORDS OF GOD. Do you know why? Because it contains the imperfect words of man in quotes. When it says how Moses replied to God, what Elijah the prophet said to instruct Elisha, John the Baptist's exhortations, and so on. THOSE ARE MAN"S WORDS. So the Scripture cannot be completely the perfect words of God.
Furthermore, God said we would know Him by His creations. The earth and the Heavens are just as much His creations as the Bible, if not more so because He made them directly and not through men. So, by Scriptures own admission they must be consistent with the world as both came from God.

same answer applies here as well.

So, you don't know is the answer?
Then use logic. Use what you have said and the dodo bird. These are the only two tools you need to form an answer.

Metherion

 

[archaeologist]

But animals are not made once and never changing afterwards. Animals change over time

what changes? breeds i snot an evolutionary change, you are still getting the animal that was created.

Different breeds of dogs and horses have emerged. They haven't stayed the same

they are still horses and dogs and begat the same, the change you claim is not the change you want.

God only created 2 humans at the beginning. We now have Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasian, and I think a few other basic types of humans. Humanity hasn't stayed the same.

they are all still human and only come in two varieties, unless you are calling non-whites sub-human. they also beget only humans with the same characteristics--they haven't changed they way you want them to.

But does it mean the same in Hebrew?

moot point

When a table is completed, it is not fixed in that form. It may be shattered or splintered or refinished. A complete car may be upgraded or wrecked. The completed Earth is still shaped by volcanoes and earthquakes

but it still remains a table, a broken one but still a table. the earth is not changed at all, it still has gravity, minerals, precious jewels, humans an so forth and its shape remains the same. again your definition of change is over-reaching.

Yes. But nowhere does it say He would be unsatisfied with anything else. Furthermore the system He made wasn't perfect, as mutations happen. So He MADE something capable of changing over time. And He thought it was good.

don't follow as to what you are referring as the Bible states many times that God is not pleased. sure it was, mutations only happened after the fall.

Already showed how they don't.

no because the changes you describe do not come from evolution nor from God who is perfecting His work. creation was complete at that time, what we see today is the result of that creation and the fall of man.

Furthermore, it doesn't say anything about the animals being completed in their vast array

they are included.

THOSE ARE MAN"S WORDS. So the Scripture cannot be completely the perfect words of God.

you are really going to extremes here, use some common sense.

Furthermore, God said we would know Him by His creations.

we do BUT evolution is not part of that statement. we see God is very creative, powerful, loves variety, controls all things sustains all things, makes things out of the scope of human comprehension or secular investigation, requires faith not secular science or its theories to understand Him

we learn a lot from creation and the Bible tells us that God's ways are above man's which eliminates evolution right there. secular man constructed evolution, God said it was done in 6 24 hour days--whom do you choose to believe?

 

[theFijian]

what changes? breeds i snot an evolutionary change, you are still getting the animal that was created.

So did Noah take two animals of the 'dog' kind onto the Ark, or two of each 'breed' of dog onto the Ark? (If the Ark had as many holes as your argument it wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes)

 

[Assyrian]

what changes? breeds i snot an evolutionary change, you are still getting the animal that was created.

I was really taken by the
"breeds i snot an evolutionary change"

While I was trying to get my head around this concept I realised that this is archie describing microevolution. He accepts the concept of creatures developing into different breeds, he just doesn't call it evolution. I wonder what it is in the different natural environments he thinks would produce different breeds. Perhaps some sort of natural environment selection factors...