Darwin's evolution theory?

[coolstylinstud]

Actually, as a Christian, you should be trying to win over souls.

Ok but not yours because yours is already won over by someone else obviously since you believe in god

Then again, considering your grammatical skills, perhaps you should leave the heavy lifting to someone else.

OH my gosh shut up this is the internet not school we should be able to write however we natw(lol)

 

[justinstout]

Darwin’s Dilemma



One man who turned away from God because he could not reconcile a loving God with the suffering he saw all around him was Charles Darwin, whose unbelief eventually contributed significantly to the development of his so-called “theory of evolution,” a myth that has blinded many to the truth of God’s Word. In the January 1992 issue of Impact (published by the Institute For Creation Research), John Morris wrote about Darwin’s dilemma as to how certain complex parts of the human body could have come about by chance:

A favorite example of obvious design has always been the human eye. With its many functioning parts—the lens, cornea, iris, etc., the controlling muscles, the sensitive rods and cones which translate light energy into chemical signals, the optic nerve which speeds these signals to a decoding center in the brain—and on and on. The eye was unquestionably designed by an incredibly intelligent Designer who had a complete grasp of optical physics.






Darwin was frustrated by the eye’s complexity, even though he knew only a fraction of what scientists have now discovered about the eye. In his book, Origin of Species, he included a section entitled, “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication,” in which he declared: “To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” Yet in the next several pages, he discussed how he thought it might have happened.


One may wonder why Darwin was forced to adopt and defend what he admitted was an absurd conclusion. His reasoning is made plain in the following quote. Keep in mind that Darwin was raised in a nominally religious home, but whose extended family had a well established anti-Christian perspective. Darwin, himself, studied for the ministry, as was common in those days for individuals of a scholarly bent, but eventually rejected the Christian faith.


In a May 22, 1860 letter to Professor Asa Gray of Harvard, propagator of evolution on the American continent, Darwin wrote, evidently to answer Gray’s advocacy of “theistic” evolution: “I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence [goodness] on all sides of us. There seems to me to be TOO MUCH MISERY IN THE WORLD [Emphasis ours]. I cannot persuade
myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the ichneumonidae [parasites] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed.”




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It is noteworthy that Darwin studied for the ministry, but eventually rejected the Christian faith. Apparently, whatever he was taught laid the blame for human suffering on God. Not being able to bring himself to believe that “a beneficent and omnipotent God” could be responsible for the suffering in the world, he concluded that there must be no God. If the teaching Darwin received was anything like what most Christians have been taught about this subject, his disillusionment is understandable. Only God knows how many millions of others have turned away from Him for this same reason.

At one time in his life, nearly everyone asks questions about evil, sin and suffering such as those we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Asking the right questions is a big key to getting the right answers. We agree with Kushner’s suggestion that too many people may very well have been asking the wrong questions:

Could it be that God does not cause the bad things that happen to us? Could it be that He doesn’t decide which families shall give birth to a handicapped child, that He did not single out Ron to be crippled by a bullet or Helen by a degenerative disease, but rather that He stands ready to help them and us cope with our tragedies if we could only get beyond the feelings of guilt and anger that separate us from Him? Could it be that “How could God do this to me?” is really the wrong question for us to ask?




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This is an excerpt from the book Don't Blame God

 

[Donkeytron]

Well here is my view on evolution.....

As I understand it from my Biology Class in the 10th grade there is two types of Evolution. The first is Micro Evolution, or, Adaptation. Adaptation is simply the belief that an creature can change or adapt to its surroundings over time, BUT, it still remains the same creature. There is nothing wrong with Adaptation and it does not conflict with God's Word.

Then there is Macro Evolution, this is what most people think of when you say Evolution. Macro Evolution teaches, at its core , that all life started out as mirco organisms. And that over a long long long time those micro organisms transformed into basically every living thing on earth. The way it did this is by taking HUGE leaps in Adaptation to the point where those micro organisms became whole new creatures, whole new species. This conflicts with God's Word, in my view any way.

So the difference is the size of the change. Making changes but remaining the same thing basically is okay. But making changes and become an whole thing all together is just wrong.

But this is how I understand it.

I'm sorry to say you didn't learn it right. What kind of school did you go to? Although the terms have some meaning in biological circles, micro- and macro-evolution are typically abused by creationists where

micro= any evolution that we can't deny without looking silly
macro= anything we can still deny without specifying when its "macro"

 

[Donkeytron]

Darwin’s Dilemma



One man who turned away from God because he could not reconcile a loving God with the suffering he saw all around him was Charles Darwin, whose unbelief eventually contributed significantly to the development of his so-called “theory of evolution,” a myth that has blinded many to the truth of God’s Word. In the January 1992 issue of Impact (published by the Institute For Creation Research), John Morris wrote about Darwin’s dilemma as to how certain complex parts of the human body could have come about by chance:

A favorite example of obvious design has always been the human eye. With its many functioning parts—the lens, cornea, iris, etc., the controlling muscles, the sensitive rods and cones which translate light energy into chemical signals, the optic nerve which speeds these signals to a decoding center in the brain—and on and on. The eye was unquestionably designed by an incredibly intelligent Designer who had a complete grasp of optical physics.






Darwin was frustrated by the eye’s complexity, even though he knew only a fraction of what scientists have now discovered about the eye. In his book, Origin of Species, he included a section entitled, “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication,” in which he declared: “To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” Yet in the next several pages, he discussed how he thought it might have happened.


One may wonder why Darwin was forced to adopt and defend what he admitted was an absurd conclusion. His reasoning is made plain in the following quote. Keep in mind that Darwin was raised in a nominally religious home, but whose extended family had a well established anti-Christian perspective. Darwin, himself, studied for the ministry, as was common in those days for individuals of a scholarly bent, but eventually rejected the Christian faith.


In a May 22, 1860 letter to Professor Asa Gray of Harvard, propagator of evolution on the American continent, Darwin wrote, evidently to answer Gray’s advocacy of “theistic” evolution: “I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence [goodness] on all sides of us. There seems to me to be TOO MUCH MISERY IN THE WORLD [Emphasis ours]. I cannot persuade
myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the ichneumonidae [parasites] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed.”




​

​

It is noteworthy that Darwin studied for the ministry, but eventually rejected the Christian faith. Apparently, whatever he was taught laid the blame for human suffering on God. Not being able to bring himself to believe that “a beneficent and omnipotent God” could be responsible for the suffering in the world, he concluded that there must be no God. If the teaching Darwin received was anything like what most Christians have been taught about this subject, his disillusionment is understandable. Only God knows how many millions of others have turned away from Him for this same reason.

At one time in his life, nearly everyone asks questions about evil, sin and suffering such as those we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Asking the right questions is a big key to getting the right answers. We agree with Kushner’s suggestion that too many people may very well have been asking the wrong questions:

Could it be that God does not cause the bad things that happen to us? Could it be that He doesn’t decide which families shall give birth to a handicapped child, that He did not single out Ron to be crippled by a bullet or Helen by a degenerative disease, but rather that He stands ready to help them and us cope with our tragedies if we could only get beyond the feelings of guilt and anger that separate us from Him? Could it be that “How could God do this to me?” is really the wrong question for us to ask?







​

This is an excerpt from the book Don't Blame God

What does theological obsfucation have to do with the science of evolution? Good example of the "research" conducted at ICR.

 

[Deep_MindQuest]

http://www.creationism.org/articles/index.htm Mount St. Helens

 

[Deep_MindQuest]

http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/ Science Against Evolution-Massive sites !!! http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/topics.htm the idea of evilution is completely ignorent!

 

[Donkeytron]

http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/ Science Against Evolution-Massive sites !!! http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/topics.htm the idea of evilution is completely ignorent!

ROFL you spelled ignorant wrong.

 

[A. believer]

A. believer, it looks like we've just about come to the end of this. You've already said you're not necessarily an ID proponent, and while I haven't explicitly stated it anywhere, I'm not 100% convinced by evolution, either, so what are we arguing over? Truth be told, I'm not even against the idea of ID. It could very well be the answer. I just don't want to try to pass it off as real science, that's all.

And that's what we're disputing--whether or not ID is "real science" according to the working definition of modern science.

The only thing that I really want to respond to is your assertation that I was wrong to use the term "supernatural". I will say two things about this. One, whether it's aliens, God, Mother Nature, or the Muffin Man who lives on Drury lane tinkering with DNA, guiding it, designing it, whatever, is not the natural way of things. For all intents and purposes, this type of influence is "supernatural". It is untestable, you can't observe it, and it is unquantifiable. It is outside the realm of our physical science. Which leads me to my second point...my main argument against ID as science is this reliance on supernatural explanations. Supernatural explanations are great for religion, but not so much for science.

And the following quote from the conclusion to an excellent piece on ID by Stephen Meyer, one of the originators of ID theory, published in a Canadian newspaper speaks to this assertion.

Of course, many will still dismiss intelligent design as nothing but warmed over creationism or as a "religious masquerading as science." But intelligent design, unlike creationism, is not based upon the Bible. Design is an inference from biological data, not a deduction from religious authority.


Even so, the theory of intelligent design may provide support for theistic belief. But that is not grounds for dismissing it. To say otherwise confuses the evidence for a theory and its possible implications. Many scientists initially rejected the Big Bang theory because it seemed to challenge the idea of an eternally self-existent universe and pointed to the need for a transcendent cause of matter, space and time. But scientists eventually accepted the theory despite such apparently unpleasant implications because the evidence strongly supported it. Today a similar metaphysical prejudice confronts the theory of intelligent design. Nevertheless, it too must be evaluated on the basis of the evidence not our philosophical preferences or concerns about its possible religious implications. Antony Flew, the long-time atheistic philosopher who has come to accept the case for design, insists correctly that we must "follow the evidence wherever it leads."

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Oh yeah, and good point about the mouse trap. I hadn't thought of that. *shrug* oh well.

Of course, you can thank Michael Behe for that, not me, but I do appreciate your change of tone in this latest post and your willingness to acknowledge a good point when you hear one. I hope you'll read Dr. Meyer's article which specifically and clearly addresses your objections to ID as science, including your charge that ID was invented by frustrated Creationists trying to gain credibility in scientific circles. It's not a long read. Not By Chance.

 

[dunkel]

My tone changed because there is no point in arguing further. There is a name for theories that are based on supernatural explanations...mythology. Mythology is not science, no matter how well you might try to dress it up. As I said, ID may very well be true and evolution may be false, but that is independent of whether either of them are scientific in nature.

Antony Flew, from your quote, says:

we must "follow the evidence wherever it leads."

And I agree. But once the path down which we are being led seems to be pointing towards the supernatural, that path has gone off the scientific reservation, so to speak.

And I guess that's about all I have to say on the matter.

 

[Yusuf Evans]

I kind of believe in Evolution. There are three periods in which the Lord will evolve the Earth into what he intended it to be, two of which have already happened.


1) Kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden.

2) The Flood

3) Christ's Millennium Kingdom

 

[dunkel]

I kind of believe in Evolution. There are three periods in which the Lord will evolve the Earth into what he intended it to be, two of which have already happened.


1) Kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden.

2) The Flood

3) Christ's Millennium Kingdom

God planned on kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden? God planned on having a flood? If they were part of his over all plan, as you are suggesting, he had these actions in mind before everything was laid out?

 

[A. believer]

My tone changed because there is no point in arguing further. There is a name for theories that are based on supernatural explanations...mythology. Mythology is not science, no matter how well you might try to dress it up. As I said, ID may very well be true and evolution may be false, but that is independent of whether either of them are scientific in nature.

Antony Flew, from your quote, says:



And I agree. But once the path down which we are being led seems to be pointing towards the supernatural, that path has gone off the scientific reservation, so to speak.

And I guess that's about all I have to say on the matter.
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I can't even imagine the level of cognitive dissonance you must experience as a professing Christian who believes that we must draw a dichotomy between science and the reality of the transcendent. In your paradigm, it's either God or science. The two cannot co-exist. If God is, then science is an illegitimate discipline that can only lead to false answers. But as long as you insist on holding to this paradigm, then please do at least be consistent and relegate the Big Bang theory to the scrap heap of the "supernatural" on the same grounds you've dismissed ID theory as legitimate science.

 

[dunkel]

I can't even imagine the level of cognitive dissonance you must experience as a professing Christian who believes that we must draw a dichotomy between science and the reality of the transcendent. In your paradigm, it's either God or science. The two cannot co-exist. If God is, then science is an illegitimate discipline that can only lead to false answers. But as long as you insist on holding to this paradigm, then please do at least be consistent and relegate the Big Bang theory to the scrap heap of the "supernatural" on the same grounds you've dismissed ID theory as legitimate science.

lol. Whatever, man. You are obviously too dense to undertand what I'm saying here. I'll try one more time, using small words. If this doesn't do it, then feel free to argue in this thread all you want, but I'm not coming back.

ID, because of its reliance on supernatural explanations, is not science. Evolution, because of its reliance on natural explanataions, is science. I have made no claims as to which theory is the right one. Only that one is scientific in nature and one isn't.

Furthermore, you claim that it is either science or God is childish and simplistic, and it is not even remotely a view that I would hold or a statement that I would make. God created the universe to run smoothly. To run smoothly, it must operate under a certain set of rules. These rules were created by God. Science is one tool that we use to discover these rules. There are other tools, but they are not science. Religion and mythology are two other tools that we have used. As I've said before, maybe in this thread or maybe in another thread, science and religion are two of the tools that we have in our toolbox. Or, in the case of ID, mythology can be another tool that we have. We should apply the right tool to the right jobs...using a hammer as a screwdriver doesn't work. Sometimes it's not so easy to figure out the right tool, so we have to try out different tools until we find the one that fits. It doesn't mean that one tool is better or more capable than the other tool...just that each tool is designed for a specific job. Maybe mythology (ID) is the right tool, maybe science (evolution) is the right tool, time will tell. But let's put the right labels on the tools, regardless of which one is the right one for the job.

As for the Big Bang, everything that happened before that event must be considered supernatural in nature, which is why science doesn't try to explain what was happening before the Big Bang. For me, there is no issue with saying that God caused the Big Bang and that everything that happened afterwards, barring the possibility of a miracle here or there, is in the realm of science.

Now, in the words of David Spade...buh-bye.

 

[Yusuf Evans]

God planned on kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden? God planned on having a flood? If they were part of his over all plan, as you are suggesting, he had these actions in mind before everything was laid out?

Can you explain Revelations? Can you explain the Prophecies regarding the Messiah, Jesus Christ? Can you explain the prophecies of Daniel? Isaih? Ezekial? Elijah? Noah?

 

[A. believer]

lol. Whatever, man. You are obviously too dense to undertand what I'm saying here. I'll try one more time, using small words. If this doesn't do it, then feel free to argue in this thread all you want, but I'm not coming back.

How many times now have you suggested that you're done with discussion? LOL Anyway, there's a definite tone of absolute finality in this post, so I guess I can trust that you're really done this time.

ID, because of its reliance on supernatural explanations, is not science. Evolution, because of its reliance on natural explanataions, is science. I have made no claims as to which theory is the right one. Only that one is scientific in nature and one isn't.

I know what your argument is, but what amazes me is how you think that just because you made your assertion as to what you regard as the proper definition of science, it's indisputable. This is exactly what the dispute is about, and I've provided a great deal of support for my contention that your definition of "real science" is arbitrary and inconsistent with the practical world of science. You just keep putting your fingers in your ears and repeating your original claim.

Furthermore, you claim that it is either science or God is childish and simplistic, and it is not even remotely a view that I would hold or a statement that I would make. God created the universe to run smoothly. To run smoothly, it must operate under a certain set of rules. These rules were created by God. Science is one tool that we use to discover these rules. There are other tools, but they are not science. Religion and mythology are two other tools that we have used. As I've said before, maybe in this thread or maybe in another thread, science and religion are two of the tools that we have in our toolbox. Or, in the case of ID, mythology can be another tool that we have. We should apply the right tool to the right jobs...using a hammer as a screwdriver doesn't work. Sometimes it's not so easy to figure out the right tool, so we have to try out different tools until we find the one that fits. It doesn't mean that one tool is better or more capable than the other tool...just that each tool is designed for a specific job. Maybe mythology (ID) is the right tool, maybe science (evolution) is the right tool, time will tell. But let's put the right labels on the tools, regardless of which one is the right one for the job.

You mean, let's just accept your categories, undisputed, regardless of how things really work. Gotcha!

As for the Big Bang, everything that happened before that event must be considered supernatural in nature, which is why science doesn't try to explain what was happening before the Big Bang. For me, there is no issue with saying that God caused the Big Bang and that everything that happened afterwards, barring the possibility of a miracle here or there, is in the realm of science.

And there's absolutely no difference between accepting that the scientific evidence leads to the Big Bang theory, but that science cannot address the origin of the Big Bang, and accepting that the scientific evidence leads to the ID theory (that there was diversity of life from the beginning), but that science cannot address the identify of the designer. Dr. Meyer's point exactly. Thank you for fleshing it out.

Now, in the words of David Spade...buh-bye.

See ya later, and thanks for the discussion.

 

[Peacelily]

Theory is just a theory. Not fact.

To me.... the Bible is FACT. I will stick with my Bible.

 

[dunkel]

Can you explain Revelations? Can you explain the Prophecies regarding the Messiah, Jesus Christ? Can you explain the prophecies of Daniel? Isaih? Ezekial? Elijah? Noah?

Can you answer my question with more questions?

 

[skepticismskeptic]

There is an entire group of Christians who embrace evolution as a valid belief. They fit under the "Theistic Evolution" category.