dont believe in evolution but sometimes i wonder

[knw1991]

i dont believe in evolution for various reasons, but how do you explain the skulls and bones paleontologists have discovered of "primitive humans" like neanderthals, africanus australopithecus, cro-magnons, how do i still look at these bones and say evolution is not true. to me evolution makes no sense because even at the chemical level the human body and even in all other organisms their is immense complexity and specificity, but how can i still say evolution is false when i see the bones?

 

[1watchman]

You might visit the site: icr.org, and see what sound Christian scientists say about such things. You can ask questions there.

Much evidence in the Bible shows that what is called dragons, monsters, etc. are really the so-called dinosaurs, which were here in the days of Job. Many scientists who are Christians see that the common method of determining age of relics by many science people who are Atheists is faulty.

To believe in relics and fossils, etc. does not mean one must also believe in the idea of evolution as Darby preached in his book on Origin Of Species.

 

[GarySneakers]

It's ok to believe how you want. I myself believe in the Old Earth.
There is no evidence in the Bible about dinosaurs. Christians today, disrespect the Father in Heaven by changing the Earth's age and it's progression of the species. It does not mater what any of creation thinks. Dinos would have feasted on the slow moving humans. The Father in Heaven created the dinos and to say they were plant eating, until after the flood and only baby ones went with Noah, is pure disrespect.
How the Father in Heaven created and controlled His creation is His Will, not mine.

 

[Bible2]

knw1991 said in post #1:

i dont believe in evolution for various reasons . . .

Don't let one of them be the mistaken idea that it somehow contradicts creationism, for evolution can co-exist with creationism, just as an automated process created by a human (e.g. a computer program which makes random, colorful pictures which can be seen as art) can co-exist with that same human sometimes performing a task himself, directly (e.g. painting some pictures himself by hand). That is, evolution can simply be a process created by God to allow new, adaptive species to arise naturally, and this process can co-exist with God sometimes creating new species himself, miraculously (cf. punctuated equilibria).

Creationism includes what could be called the double-gap theory, meaning there could have been 2 different gaps of time in Gen. chs. 1-2, the 1st gap being between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, and the 2nd gap being between Gen. 2:4 and 2:5. Gen. 1:1 could have occurred some 4.5 billion years ago, when God first created the planet earth and its atmosphere (the first heaven, in which the birds fly: Gen. 1:20b). Between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, some 4.5 billion years could have occurred, in which God could have allowed his own created process of evolution (random mutation and survival of the fittest) to serve as a mechanism by which new species arose on the earth. During those same 4.5 billion years, God could have also sometimes gone outside of evolution and created new species miraculously, whenever he wanted.

Gen. 1:2 could refer to the condition of the earth only about 12,000 years ago (at the end of the Paleolithic period), after some cataclysm, such as a comet strike, had killed off all life on the planet (both evolved and miraculously created), had submerged all land areas in water (comets contain huge amounts of water), and had ruined the atmosphere. The impact of the comet could have also knocked the earth out of its orbit around its original star, so that the earth was sent hurtling into the darkness of interstellar space. Gen. 1:3-2:4 could then refer to God, over a period of 6 literal, 24-hour days (some 12,000 years ago, at the start of the Neolithic period), miraculously restoring to the earth light, a good atmosphere, dry land, and life, including a race of male and female homo sapiens sapiens, after God had miraculously restored land plants (Gen. 1:11-13) and land animals (Gen. 1:24-25) to the earth.

Then, only about 6,000 years ago, God miraculously created on the earth an individual male homo sapiens sapiens named Adam in an uninhabited desert land (Gen. 2:5-7; the original Hebrew word translated there as "earth" can simply refer to a certain "land": e.g. Gen. 2:11). After that, God planted the plants of the Garden of Eden in that desert land (Gen. 2:8-9) and God placed Adam in that garden (Gen. 2:15). After that, God miraculously created the animals of the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:19). After that, God miraculously created in the Garden of Eden an individual female homo sapiens sapiens (Gen. 2:22) whom Adam named Eve (Gen. 3:20). If there were humans already existing on the earth when God created Adam, they could have died in the same ways people die today, and their descendants could have died during Noah's flood.

. . . the skulls and bones paleontologists have discovered of "primitive humans"

Because Adam was created only about 6,000 years ago, but there are homo sapiens sapiens fossils said to be as old as about 200,000 years, God could have first created homo sapiens sapiens (or it could have evolved by God's created process of evolution) as far back as about 200,000 years. Also, all the different hominid forms the fossils of which long predate or are as old as the earliest fossils of homo sapiens sapiens, and which preceding or co-existing hominid forms we don't consider to have been fully human like us (such as homo sapiens neanderthalensis), could have all been created by God (or could have evolved by God's created process of evolution) over millions of years prior to the first appearance of homo sapiens sapiens on the earth.

And this doesn't even get into the possibly trillion other inhabited planets in the universe on which homo sapiens sapiens (or similar or far more advanced life-forms) could have been created by God (or could have evolved by God's created process of evolution) billions of years prior to the first appearance of homo sapiens sapiens on the earth. For the universe could be about 14 billion years old, and there are something like 100 billion different galaxies in the universe, each containing something like 100 billion different stars. So even if only one out of 10 billion stars in the universe has an inhabited planet, this would still mean that there are 1 trillion inhabited planets in the universe. And on most of these planets God could have begun his miraculous work (and the work of his created process of evolution) billions of years before beginning his miraculous work (and the work of his created process of evolution) on the earth.

 

[Bible2]

GarySneakers said in post #3:

There is no evidence in the Bible about dinosaurs.

It's sometimes claimed that Job 41's "leviathan" is referring to a dinosaur living at the time of Job. The Bible's description of leviathan as a serpentine dragon (Isa. 27:1) with multiple heads (Ps. 74:14) who's a king over all the children of pride (Job 41:1,34) points to him as being the same as the literal, 7-headed serpentine dragon Satan (Rev. 12:3,9), who could have started out as a dinosaur born on the earth some 66 million years ago, near the end the age of the dinosaurs. Over millions of years before his birth, his dinosaur species could have evolved to have consciousness, and his 7-headedness (Rev. 12:3,9), which could have been a fortuitous (or a miraculous) mutation, could have been greatly heralded by his species as the arrival of a super-consciousness into the world. As he grew up on the earth as a conscious dinosaur, leviathan could have come to know and worship God with all his heart.

God could have then granted him immortality and taken him into heaven to serve God as a cherubim. Cherubims are a type of angelic creature (Ezek. 10) which could include individuals shaped like different animals, like how seraphims are a different type of angelic creature (Isa. 6:2-3) which includes individuals shaped like different animals (Rev. 4:7-8). As a cherubim in heaven, Leviathan could have been assigned to the office of "the morning star", and so been given the name "Lucifer" (which means "the morning star"). After spending some 66 million years in heaven as a very contented cherubim, perhaps even as the greatest angelic creature of all (from this planet), Lucifer could have been assigned by God to go back to earth to be a "covering cherub" over the Garden of Eden (Ezek. 28:13-14), to watch over that special, local garden and its special, individual humans named Adam and Eve miraculously created by God only some 6,000 years ago (based on the detailed genealogies in the Bible which together give the total number of years from the time of Adam's creation to the building of Solomon's Temple).

It's at this time of the Garden of Eden that God could have also given the as-yet-unfallen Lucifer authority over all the rest of the earth (Lk. 4:5-6). But Lucifer could have greatly chafed at his new assignment, seeing it as wholly beneath his dignity. He could have felt like a long-time chief of staff of a U.S. President would feel if he were suddenly assigned by the President to leave his high position in the White House to go baby-sit two pet salamanders in a hothouse in Alaska. From Eden, Lucifer could have repeatedly requested God to let him return to his high position in heaven, only to be refused, until Lucifer in his heart fell into rebellion against God and vowed to himself that eventually he would ascend back into heaven and take rule over all the angelic creatures there regardless of what God wanted (Isa. 14:13-14). And so the fallen Lucifer became Satan (cf. Lk. 10:18), which means the "Adversary". While still in Eden, as possibly his 1st act of open rebellion against God, Lucifer/Satan decided to deceive Eve into disobeying God (Gen. 3), knowing that this would result in her (and her offspring) becoming mortal (Gen. 2:17).

In the future, Satan will deceive the world (Rev. 12:9) into worshipping himself (the dragon) and the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of the beast) (Rev. 13:4,7-8), knowing that this will result in billions of humans ending up in eternal suffering (Rev. 14:9-11), the same eternal suffering he knows he himself will end up in (Rev. 20:10,15, Mt. 25:41,46).

 

[thesunisout]

i dont believe in evolution for various reasons, but how do you explain the skulls and bones paleontologists have discovered of "primitive humans" like neanderthals, africanus australopithecus, cro-magnons, how do i still look at these bones and say evolution is not true. to me evolution makes no sense because even at the chemical level the human body and even in all other organisms their is immense complexity and specificity, but how can i still say evolution is false when i see the bones?

Appearances can be (very) deceiving:

cro-magnon man

Apologetics Press - Cro-Magnon Man: Nothing but a “Modern” Man

australopithecus

Sediba not human ancestor

Neanderthal man

Neandertal Man—The Changing Picture - Answers in Genesis

 

[Harry3142]

knw1991-

To understand the creation stories of Genesis we must recognize whom the author of those stories intended to read them. In this case, the readers were a group of people who had already learned another creation epic, but that one depended on multiple gods and goddesses. You can read it yourself here:

www.theologywebsite.com/etext/egypt/creation.shtml

Egyptian mythology had a pantheon of gods and goddesses, all of whom were represented either by a celestial object, such as the sun, or an animal (or more often a combination of more than one specie of animal). Genesis 1:1-2:3, methodically stripped all that its readers thought of as representative of divinities of their divine connection, and caused them to be seen merely as either objects which gave us light, or fellow creatures who occupied this planet alongside us. The only divinity that was to be recognized as truly divine was also to be seen as a spirit who could never be fashioned into an idol.

The second creation story (Genesis 2:4-25) was also a rebuttal of the egyptian epic. In the epic mankind and all the other animals were created on the sixth day, and then 'dumped' onto the planet that the gods and goddesses had created. The second creation story set mankind apart from all the other species of animals. Only he could converse with God, only he had the authority to name the other species of animals, and only he had been placed in a special garden (The Garden of Eden) where he could tend it in relative ease.

Also only he could deliberately disobey God. Alone of all the species of animals, man was capable of conscious choice as to whether he would follow the directives which God had given him, or instead choose to rebel, going his own way. And because of this only homo sapiens has lost the innocence which all other species of animals share.

 

[ViaCrucis]

i dont believe in evolution for various reasons, but how do you explain the skulls and bones paleontologists have discovered of "primitive humans" like neanderthals, africanus australopithecus, cro-magnons, how do i still look at these bones and say evolution is not true. to me evolution makes no sense because even at the chemical level the human body and even in all other organisms their is immense complexity and specificity, but how can i still say evolution is false when i see the bones?

Well obviously since I accept evolutionary theory, my response is simple: Evolution happens and the fossil record demonstrates that. I would also suggest looking again at claims of irreducible complexity.

Irreducible complexity cut down to size - YouTube

Of course, that's me, and as I said I freely accept evolutionary theory and attribute it--like all natural processes--to the creative genius of God the Holy Trinity.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[chilehed]

...to me evolution makes no sense because even at the chemical level the human body and even in all other organisms their is immense complexity and specificity...

What makes you think that complexity means that evolution can't be true?

 

[mark kennedy]

i dont believe in evolution for various reasons, but how do you explain the skulls and bones paleontologists have discovered of "primitive humans" like neanderthals, africanus australopithecus, cro-magnons, how do i still look at these bones and say evolution is not true. to me evolution makes no sense because even at the chemical level the human body and even in all other organisms their is immense complexity and specificity, but how can i still say evolution is false when i see the bones?

Neanderthals were human, africanus austropithecus was an ape, cro-magnons were human. Look up their cranial capacity (brain size in square centimeters) and consider this. By what molecular mechanism(s) does evolutionary biology explain the three fold expansion of the human brain from that of apes? Oh, and my personal favorite, where are the chimpanzee ancestors?

Everyone believes in evolution, there are only two real issues. The timeline and the actual starting point. Creationism is not opposed to 'evolution', it's opposed to Darwinism.

Anyway, don't get too wrapped around the axle over these issues. They are really not as difficult as some people like to make them.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Bouke285]

Or you can look at every animal and realize evolution is impossible. How could birds evolve along with their egg and survive? If the first fully formed bird hatched from a fully formed egg they must have evolved at the same rate. The relationship between a bird and its egg is so close that if one thing evolved too slowly the bird would never have hatched, and the mutation couldn't have been passed on.

How can a bird evolve with an egg of the exact structure needed for survival, while evolving with the exact tools needed to break from the egg on the 19th day every time?

How does an animal know exactly what to do for survival if its parents never taught it what to do? How is instinct passed from one creature to another? A minuscule mutation causing a new instinct based on that mutation?

How did the giraffe evolve its long neck along with the features it needs to keep its brain from exploding when it takes a drink, (I bet the first forms of long necked animals leading to a giraffe had to lay on their side to drink) or to keep it from passing out as the valves in its neck close to prevent this? For the giraffe to exist 3 completely distinct, unique, unrelated features must have evolved at the same exact time, or the giraffe would not exist. Unless you go by the video posted earlier and understand those 3 features formed for different reasons and then eventually evolved to be used together for a completely different task in the creatures survival. Or the giraffe's ancestors didn't have a need for those three parts because there was another part subtracted from its genetic code, maybe its neck used to be short! Or it didn't have a need for legs and slithered around on its belly like a snake, taking away its need for a gigantic heart.

The video posted earlier attempts to give 2 or 3 examples of why these cases don't matter, but its examples are limited assumptions. Every creature alive today has parts commingled in its survival. Billions of years would not give you enough time for parts to be taken away added, oops that fittest creature was killed by a mere accident, now we have to wait for that same mutation to come up for the chain to continue.

The answer is simple, evolution in this sense has never existed!

Well obviously since I accept evolutionary theory, my response is simple: Evolution happens and the fossil record demonstrates that. I would also suggest looking again at claims of irreducible complexity.

Irreducible complexity cut down to size - YouTube

Of course, that's me, and as I said I freely accept evolutionary theory and attribute it--like all natural processes--to the creative genius of God the Holy Trinity.

-CryptoLutheran

Actually one of the most common arguments against evolution is lack of fossil records. There are no transitional forms found in the records, fact! This is what causes most modern evolutionists to turn away from natural selection and start looking for other answers.

 

[SuziTiri]

on thing that is exciting about your post is that you are developing independent thought congrats its exciting!!

 

[ramblingokie]

Satin will tell a thousand truths so that you would believe on small lie. There are some great links in this thread to check out. Bottom line however is to keep an open mind, do your own research, and keep reading the bible. The truth will come.

 

[okiemom79]

Evolution can be a hard thing to accept or deny. I have been struggling with evolution for some time now. I do not deny micro evolution, but macro evolution does not sit right with me. I also do not understand why it has to be taught so dogmatically. It seems that if anyone questions it they are ridiculed...why? If we are to believe the Bible, it does not point towards evolution's origin of life.. some sort of goo to you primordial soup...the Bible clearly talks of God creating Man-Adam and Woman- Eve. If it were not the case I would think the Bible would have simply stated that God breathed life into everything and let it take it course over time, Adam and Eve's role would not be needed. As for the bones, you really should take the time to study what others have said about this, how they were found, and what some of these bones have actually been identified as. Creation.com, ICR.org, and answersingenesis.org all have some good info on them. I choose not to believe in the evolutionist way of how life arose, but that is my personal opinion, there are other Christians that believe in it, which is fine as we are all entitled to our beliefs.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Actually one of the most common arguments against evolution is lack of fossil records. There are no transitional forms found in the records, fact! This is what causes most modern evolutionists to turn away from natural selection and start looking for other answers.

First: This statement is false, there is no shortage of "transitional fossils".

Second: All fossils are transitional fossils, just as all organisms are transitional organisms.

My father represents one iteration of change from my grandparents down to me. I am not a genetic replica of my parents, I am a unique organism, sharing the genetic material of both my father and mother; but with my own unique genetic makeup due both to the genes I inherited directly from my parents and the way those genes have changed (evolved) in producing and making up me.

If I died and my remains fossilized my fossils would be transitional.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[okiemom79]

Nice post CryptoLutheran. I had never thought of that way before.

 

[okiemom79]

Sorry, I think I got your name wrong...ViaCrucis ? Apologies.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Sorry, I think I got your name wrong...ViaCrucis ? Apologies.

Either works. My original name when I joined ChristianForums was CryptoLutheran and I signed myself as such. I reformatted my computer and lost my login details along with the email address I used to make the account, so I made this one. I continue to sign off as CryptoLutheran though, as I wanted to make it clear that it was still me and not someone else.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Bouke285]

First: This statement is false, there is no shortage of "transitional fossils".

Second: All fossils are transitional fossils, just as all organisms are transitional organisms.

My father represents one iteration of change from my grandparents down to me. I am not a genetic replica of my parents, I am a unique organism, sharing the genetic material of both my father and mother; but with my own unique genetic makeup due both to the genes I inherited directly from my parents and the way those genes have changed (evolved) in producing and making up me.

If I died and my remains fossilized my fossils would be transitional.

-CryptoLutheran

You're speaking of microevolution, this discussion is referring to macro evolution. Big difference, the possible vs the impossible. There are no macro evolution transitional fossils.

Micro evolution, for example, would result in different breeds within a species, never change the species. Macro evolution is the theory by which one species changes into a new, distinct species. No one should deny micro evolution, especially creationists. This is how millions of animals exist today, from the animals on the ark to the many, many distinctions within each species or kind of animal. Micro evolution is how our immune system works, it changes each time it's faced with a new virus, constantly "evolving" A completely different idea than macro evolution(our immune system will never change to perform a new, unrelated function then it does now.)

Evolutionists attempt to illustrate the link between the two, but there is no link.

 

[ViaCrucis]

You're speaking of microevolution, this discussion is referring to macro evolution. Big difference, the possible vs the impossible. There are no macro evolution transitional fossils.

Micro evolution, for example, would result in different breeds within a species, never change the species. Macro evolution is the theory by which one species changes into a new, distinct species. No one should deny micro evolution, especially creationists. This is how millions of animals exist today, from the animals on the ark to the many, many distinctions within each species or kind of animal. Micro evolution is how our immune system works, it changes each time it's faced with a new virus, constantly "evolving" A completely different idea than macro evolution(our immune system will never change to perform a new, unrelated function than it does now.)

Evolutionists attempt to illustrate the link between the two, but there is no link.

The problem with your talk of "micro" vs "macro" evolution is that it's an artificial, arbitrary, and false distinction. All those "micro" changes become pretty "macro" over the course of millions of years.

-CryptoLutheran