***Everyone Only*** - Vossler's Theory on Evolution

[shernren]

I'm sure there's a scientist who'd love to check my midichlorian count, maybe he'd find I'm actually of some other descent.

You missed a Star Wars reference! For that alone you ought to be drawn and lightsabered.

You obviously see this different than I. Like I've said before I'm not here to change your mind, that thought has long since been given up on.

I've given my reasoning; what reasoning do you have to say that your different view is valid and mine not?

Look, there were countless biblical passages I could have used to make the same point.

Can you quote a few? Some that actually make the point you're trying to make?

If you feel I've mangled these biblical passages you are obviously free to counter my biblical argument with your own.

I did! I quoted Psalm 19 and Psalm 104; I could also refer to Romans 1 (which busterdog twisted in Creationism) and Colossians 1. Are those not passages of Scripture? Am I not making my points with Scriptural backing?

Scripture typically doesn't provide hard evidence, it's not meant to.

Read Acts and tell me how the early apostles proved to Jews and Gentiles that Jesus is the Christ. For someone who believes Scripture and thinks he's berating someone who doesn't, you have quite little faith in it.

Within the Scriptures I find that time and time again God's action in the world is not limited to words but to deeds, and not simply to undetectable deeds but to deeds that left behind objectively observable physical evidence, so that even doubters could not deny when miracles had occurred.

You certainly see a lot more in the Scriptures than I do.

Doesn't mean it's not there.

During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt."
(Exodus 14:24-25 NIV)
​

I don't see the Egyptians being able to deny God's action ...

The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Master, Master, we're going to drown!" He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."
(Luke 8:24-25 NIV)
​

... or the doubting disciples ...

The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.
(John 9:30-34 NIV)
​

... or the hostile Pharisees. And these are just three examples.

The Biblical pattern is clear. Miracles leave objective evidence. The people who have an agenda to prove that they didn't occur, the people who would gain most from doubting, are the very ones who are forced to admit that it occurred - either in direct speech or by the simple fact that they cannot destroy or deny the physical evidence. That's God's Scriptural M.O. He's not shy when He has to overturn nature.

So why would things change? As creationists themselves remark, why would God specially create man biologically distinct from animals - and then leave his genome looking precisely like he evolved with the apes? Why would God leave 4.5-billion-year old asteroids in a 6,000-year-old Solar System, multiple layers of rooted forests in the debris of a flood that destroyed everything at one shot, ice layers from three Ice Ages in the wake of one, and many other things besides that point to the need for careful interpretation of the Bible? And why would God perform not just any miracle, but the miracle that essentially should have the entire universe as its evidence - and make it look like it never happened?

I have my Scriptural bases for my views; do you have yours?

Well that's encouraging to know, at least this isn't something you talk about outside of CF.

What? I talk about evolution outside CF all the time. I led a study on Genesis last year, as a matter of fact, and you can be sure I brought it up there. But I certainly don't feel the need to convince people that evolution is true. That would be akin to me setting up a ministry for the Christian Revelation of Thermodynamic Truths whose goal would be to make sure that every Christian in the church knew all about how the Sackur-Tetrode equation governs the entropy of gases and the Debye model successfully predicts the heat capacity of crystalline solids at low and high temperature limits.

Of course, if someone wants to know the best picture we have of the biological origins of biodiversity, I'm more than happy to tell them all I know. And if someone wants to know how they should interpret Genesis, I'll tell them what God has revealed to us in creation through scientific research. But ultimately, in all other cases, evolution is not a big issue for me. It's after all a scientific theory. It's no more and no less a sin to reject evolution than it is to reject Copernican heliocentrism or Newtonian mechanics (both of which have been used in the past to advance heresies or been perceived as such).

Of course there are and always will be those who misuse God's Word. As you began, we will be known by our fruits, it is what we as Christians should use to judge one another by. It is exactly those fruits that led me to post what I did. It doesn't take much effort to see which Christians support things like abortion, same sex marriage, the Bible not being consider the Word of God, etc.

You want to talk about fruits?

How many Christians do you know who would be the first person their neighbors would run to if they had a need? (How many Christians do you know whose neighbors even know they're Christian, or even know them?)
How many Christians do you know who actively participate in community programs?
How many Christians do you know who carefully consider the impacts of their lifestyles on the environment? How many do their best to take public transport and don't drive gas-guzzling SUVs?
How many Christians do you know who are concerned about the ethical issues surrounding poverty in the non-Western world and regularly take active steps to confront it?

How many of those aren't creationists?

Forgive me for blunt, and for wielding a stereotype which may well be wrong in your particular social circle. But here it is: you Western Christians are so happy in your economically-insulated, socially comfortable bubbles, never starving, never thirsting (for justice even, let alone for food), blissfully unaware that the entire planet and two thirds of its human population are going to hell in a handbasket either directly because of the things you're doing or indirectly because of the things you could do but don't. You elect your leaders in one of the most unreflective possible processes ever imaginable, who go on to control the world's most technological armies and most powerful economies, and then wonder why everyone else hates you.

Then you lounge in your living rooms complaining about the senseless garbage that's always on the TV and about the secularization of your culture. How many people around the world even own TVs? You complain about abortion and the people, surely Satan's minions, who would find it ethically permissible. The millions of girls finding themselves in sexual slavery around the world, either by choice or by force, would find your foibles laughable to say the least. You complain that the lax morality of a post-Christian society stops people from coming to church. I bet more young people would find the Church more convincing if it stopped trying to moralize people into their half-century-old molds and started actually trying to care and help, to see what sin has actually done to the world and to see what its God-given mandate might be to oppose both the cause and the effects of man's rebellion.

Is creationism vs. evolutionism really going to be your yardstick for how well people know the Bible? Less than a percent of the Bible is about special creation; if we shrink the field of view to the specific issues creationists harp on about I doubt you could find two dozen chapters that they can be contentious about. And how many creationists who so blithely quote Romans 5:12 at knowing evolutionists even know what the rest of the letter is about? As far as I'm concerned the creationist who isn't concerned about creation and the oppressed knows his or her Bible less than the evolutionist who actively pursues both righteousness and justice in all spheres.

Are abortion and same sex marriage really going to be the issues that help you sift between God's elect and Satan's minions? I wonder how many pro-lifers know the extensive Biblical proof for the Trinity as well as they do the marginal Biblical evidence for the human status of the conceptus. I wonder if anti-gay protesters would not have been the first to pick up stones when the Pharisees brought the prostitute before Jesus in John 8, or the first to drop them and walk away shame-faced.

You want to talk about fruits? If we ever find a biotechnological remedy for world hunger, you can bet it would have been discovered by evolutionists. And even then creationism, if it still has life in it, will have nothing to its name besides a cheesy animatronic museum, a few dozen propaganda videos and thousands of followers whose worldview has been thoroughly corrupted by scientism without even realizing it.

 

[shernren]

I understand, but to tell you the truth I don't understand why TEs always get in such an uproar about things we say in the Creationist forum. I could care less what TEs say in their forum, it's only on rare occasion that I even look to see what might be going on in there and then only for informational purposes.

On a grammatical quibble: if you could care less what we TEs say in our forum, then you should. Surely you mean that you couldn't care less. ^^

Anyways. I'll answer that question with another one: When was the last time a TE misquoted, libelled, or labeled a creationist as an agent of Satan in the TE forum?

I hope the answer is obvious.

People who say "I expected exchange to be fruitless" after many days and posts of participation in a thread also interest me.

The simple fact is that normally, we actually are not too concerned about what goes on in Creationism. If we were going over the forum with a fine-toothed comb every other day, i'm sure every other thread would have either a friendly TE asking "Can I take this to OT?" or an overfriendly TE waging war right on the thread itself.

I'm not even sure how Markus6 came across it. When I'd seen it in Creationism (before Markus crossposted) I'd actually thought to myself "Hmm, more creationist knee-jerk theories about how all evolutionists are Satan's puppets" and not felt like taking it to OT. I thought it just wouldn't be worth the while. But since Markus6 did, I felt entirely able to jump on and give my two cents.

=========

This reminds me of a similar project I undertook nearly two years ago by now: The scientific myth of creationism, and the attitude I had back then:

... I need more time to think through and figure out just how creationists think. That is the whole purpose of this thread. Creationists are complex, and their thinking quite often seems counterintuitive to us who disagree. And yet their thinking must seem intuitive to them, for otherwise why would they believe it? Don't assume that all I am doing is "debunking" creationism. I also want to understand it. I know that in my Christian walk I will meet many creationists, and as a brother in Christ I must understand as much about them as possible, in order to be able to edify and uplift them as a brother without stepping on their toes too much. That is partly the purpose of my postings: by identifying what is unique to creationism, perhaps indirectly I can figure out what common ground we have and how I can strengthen them.
​

I hope that as this thread continues we may have similar sentiments about aiding our brothers and sisters.

 

[busterdog]

Maybe you like being talked about behind your back and having the entire reason for your existence (ie., one's faith in Christ) being called into question and dragged through the mud, but most of us here don't. You see, despite your conjectures to the opposite, a lot of us take our faith in Christ (not in science) seriously.

Oh please!

You can post anything you want in OT. What the heck back is anything behind? You can see everything that happens in Creationism.

As for your faith being called into question, what of it? This is message board not an inquisition. For the most part you do get the benefit of the doubt here and people are not challenging your salvation.

The latter has come up from time to time with others, but in a pretty limited basis and often in the context of folks who let slip that they think Jesus is A way, A truth and/or A life, not the way, the truth, the life.

When a TE says Jesus didnt know what a mustard seed was or essentially who Adam was, yes, I think SOME of their faith in Jesus should be called into question. That is not judging salvation. Quite frankly I am not judging anyone here as saved or unsaved. I do see the authority for doing either. So getting hung up on questions is a bit of a tempest in a teapot.

Its funny how Christian can talk about being more loving or having more hope. Everyong admits they need more. But suggest that they need more faith and its like you have to choose weapons, seconds and duel at dawn.

 

[vossler]

Maybe you like being talked about behind your back and having the entire reason for your existence (ie., one's faith in Christ) being called into question and dragged through the mud, but most of us here don't. You see, despite your conjectures to the opposite, a lot of us take our faith in Christ (not in science) seriously.

I certainly hope you take your faith in Christ seriously because if you didn't I would be wasting my time here. As it is I probably am anyways. I hate to say it but this really seems a bit childish, no one has mentioned you or anyone else by name and so therefore there is no cause for concern. If anything you should look at from the perspective of what God says about things like this. There's the part where Jesus says for us to turn the other cheek. I think if you truly feel as though someone struck you at the core of who you are, this would be an appropriate response. All I can say is that if it is necessary for me to take into consideration how you or anyone else may feel about everything I say then nothing critical would ever be said. Having said that I'm sure my use of the word childish probably offended you.

I personally have no problem if TEs wish to 'talk behind creationists' backs in their forum or any other forum. It wouldn't matter to me what was said because all that matters to me is what God and His Word says. Now if you were to single out a specific brother without notifying him first then I think a potential problem exists. However, nothing even remotely like that has occurred here.

 

[vossler]

So why not start your own thread?

Because as I've said before, I see no point in it. Previous attempts were without fruit and a poor investment of time. This thread is an example of such.

It's because of all the blatant misrepresentation that goes on in there. Looking at just the last few threads in that forum, we've had people:
1) Accuse evolutionary creationists of scientism (that was you).
2) Accuse evolutionists of creating frauds because "they are NOT confident in their own beliefs and theories" (conveniently ignoring (a) the fact that it was evolutionists who exposed these frauds and (b) those other frauds espoused by neocreationists).
3) Question the sincerity of the faith of anyone who thinks God didn't use a magic wand to bring life into existence.

I could never have another life if I responded to every blatant misrepresentation I ever came across here at CF. C'mon you can't be serious about that? The Christian faith is continuously misrepresented all over CF, am I or anyone else who calls themselves Christians called to respond to each one? Is that what Jesus would do?

If the neocreationists want a private forum of their own, then fine. But don't abuse that privacy by talking smack behind peoples' backs where they're not allowed to stand up for themselves and respond in kind.

I must admit I find this rather amusing, you state it is a private forum but you're not allowed to speak freely. Just how private is that?

 

[Mallon]

When a TE says Jesus didnt know what a mustard seed was or essentially who Adam was, yes, I think SOME of their faith in Jesus should be called into question.

But they DON'T say that. You're making things up. And if you still think otherwise, I defy you to support your accusations.

 

[Mallon]

Because as I've said before, I see no point in it. Previous attempts were without fruit and a poor investment of time. This thread is an example of such.

So why post here at all if you're not enjoying yourself?

I must admit I find this rather amusing, you state it is a private forum but you're not allowed to speak freely. Just how private is that?

I don't understand what you're getting at.

 

[vossler]

I've given my reasoning; what reasoning do you have to say that your different view is valid and mine not?

If I were to give you additional reasoning I would be attempting to do something I've already stated I wasn't interested in. Persuading you to change your mind.

Can you quote a few? Some that actually make the point you're trying to make?

When two people have travelled as often around the same mulberry bush as we have I just don't see the point in taking another trip.

If it should make you feel better I will declare you the victor in this discussion. You are, as many here have already acknowledged, supreme.

What? I talk about evolution outside CF all the time. I led a study on Genesis last year, as a matter of fact, and you can be sure I brought it up there. But I certainly don't feel the need to convince people that evolution is true.

Ahh...caught up in false hope again.

How many Christians do you know who would be the first person their neighbors would run to if they had a need? (How many Christians do you know whose neighbors even know they're Christian, or even know them?)

Actually quite a few.

How many Christians do you know who actively participate in community programs?

Again, quite a few.

How many Christians do you know who carefully consider the impacts of their lifestyles on the environment?

Once again quite a few.

How many do their best to take public transport and don't drive gas-guzzling SUVs?

You got me here, probably very few.

How many Christians do you know who are concerned about the ethical issues surrounding poverty in the non-Western world and regularly take active steps to confront it?

More than you probably could imagine.

How many of those aren't creationists?

None that I know of.

Forgive me for blunt, and for wielding a stereotype which may well be wrong in your particular social circle. But here it is: you Western Christians are so happy in your economically-insulated, socially comfortable bubbles, never starving, never thirsting (for justice even, let alone for food), blissfully unaware that the entire planet and two thirds of its human population are going to hell in a handbasket either directly because of the things you're doing or indirectly because of the things you could do but don't. You elect your leaders in one of the most unreflective possible processes ever imaginable, who go on to control the world's most technological armies and most powerful economies, and then wonder why everyone else hates you.

Then you lounge in your living rooms complaining about the senseless garbage that's always on the TV and about the secularization of your culture. How many people around the world even own TVs? You complain about abortion and the people, surely Satan's minions, who would find it ethically permissible. The millions of girls finding themselves in sexual slavery around the world, either by choice or by force, would find your foibles laughable to say the least. You complain that the lax morality of a post-Christian society stops people from coming to church. I bet more young people would find the Church more convincing if it stopped trying to moralize people into their half-century-old molds and started actually trying to care and help, to see what sin has actually done to the world and to see what its God-given mandate might be to oppose both the cause and the effects of man's rebellion.

You'll probably be surprised to know that I don't disagree with a single thing you said here.

Is creationism vs. evolutionism really going to be your yardstick for how well people know the Bible? Less than a percent of the Bible is about special creation; if we shrink the field of view to the specific issues creationists harp on about I doubt you could find two dozen chapters that they can be contentious about.

The harping, at least from me, is because I see it as foundational to the rest of the book.

As far as I'm concerned the creationist who isn't concerned about creation and the oppressed knows his or her Bible less than the evolutionist who actively pursues both righteousness and justice in all spheres.

I agree!

On a grammatical quibble: if you could care less what we TEs say in our forum, then you should. Surely you mean that you couldn't care less. ^^

See now if I just quite posting I would no longer give the TE the opportunity to win so many points.

Anyways. I'll answer that question with another one: When was the last time a TE misquoted, libelled, or labeled a creationist as an agent of Satan in the TE forum?

I hope the answer is obvious.

I can't say, I don't visit much. I don't recall a person being misquoted, libelled, or accused of being an agent of Satan. Who was so charged?

This reminds me of a similar project I undertook nearly two years ago by now: The scientific myth of creationism, and the attitude I had back then:

... I need more time to think through and figure out just how creationists think. That is the whole purpose of this thread. Creationists are complex, and their thinking quite often seems counterintuitive to us who disagree. And yet their thinking must seem intuitive to them, for otherwise why would they believe it? Don't assume that all I am doing is "debunking" creationism. I also want to understand it. I know that in my Christian walk I will meet many creationists, and as a brother in Christ I must understand as much about them as possible, in order to be able to edify and uplift them as a brother without stepping on their toes too much. That is partly the purpose of my postings: by identifying what is unique to creationism, perhaps indirectly I can figure out what common ground we have and how I can strengthen them.
​

I hope that as this thread continues we may have similar sentiments about aiding our brothers and sisters.

Much of what you said is how I have felt, but with each and every post such feelings simply are lessened. Understanding rarely occurs, even in threads that have no creation/evolution underpinnings. I hate to admit it, but today I'm far less optimistic than I was even yesterday that anything good can come of this. I pray that I am wrong.

When people are as diametrically different as TEs and Creationists, it's very rare for either to come to any better understanding of the other. This thread, at least for me, is a case in point.

 

[vossler]

So why post here at all if you're not enjoying yourself?

I truly haven't a clue. I had no intention of posting here, hence my thread in the Creationist subforum. I only came here to clarify something and the next thing you know...

I don't understand what you're getting at.

You said:

If the neocreationists want a private forum of their own, then fine. But don't abuse that privacy by talking smack behind peoples' backs where they're not allowed to stand up for themselves and respond in kind.

If something is private how is it that one can abuse it? Specifically to those whom it wasn't created for. I would think a private forum was a place where one is encouraged to speak freely. It's rather funny, at least for me, to think that in a private area one isn't free to speak as one desires.

I hope this isn't a cleverly disguised ENDA charge being levied a Canadien.

 

[Mallon]

If something is private how is it that one can abuse it? Specifically to those whom it wasn't created for. I would think a private forum was a place where one is encouraged to speak freely.

You're free to say whatever you like. But if you're going to misrepresent the position of evolutionary creationists, please don't complain when you're corrected.

 

[busterdog]

But they DON'T say that. You're making things up. And if you still think otherwise, I defy you to support your accusations.

My view is that the surface text on who Adam was is clear. He is a historical man and Jesus said so. Jesus said the mustard seed is the smallest sown in the earth. Clearly. Surface text. I believe Jesus said it, otherwise, it wouldnt be in the divinely breathed Gospels.

It doesnt matter that the list of I believes predicates my view. It makes no sense to address TEs as if I didnt have them. If I have them, they suggest something: that TEs dont have complete faith in Jesus.

And, TEs contradict the plain text as I understand it. The issue is not whether plain text is correct. The issue is whether one buries one's light under a bushel or not, or perhaps whether one should pretend that one has not deeply held beliefs and simply keeps silent.

I completely accept that there are differing views about the significance of whether there is a surface text at all and what it means. I accept that this issue is itself resolved by faith. There is no reason why this fact should preclude "questioning" another's faith. Nor should it preclude saying the TE view is wrong based upon my reading of what the text says. The fair implication of what I believe is that you think Jesus was mistaken. I neednt make all of your assumptions about the text in order to characterize your views.

Judging salvation is the problem. Being hateful is the other problem. Inability to see the merits of another is a third problem, notwithstanding their shortcomings.

It isnt the questioning.

 

[Willtor]

I appreciate that!
At one time I looked forward to debating TEs, but I truly have no such desire anymore. Hermeneutical studies are things I enjoy immensely, yet they are so incredibly rare here that I can't remember the last one I saw. The ones I do remember didn't produce anything productive either.

Productivity is not always measured in persuasion. Sometimes it's enough that the level of discussion is raised or the direction of discussion is set in a particular way that is conducive to persuasion (or at the very least mutual understanding and charity).

I understand, but to tell you the truth I don't understand why TEs always get in such an uproar about things we say in the Creationist forum. I could care less what TEs say in their forum, it's only on rare occasion that I even look to see what might be going on in there and then only for informational purposes.

I suspect that TEs read the Creationist subforum because it is the only place where most YECs post, and also many of the things that are said in there would never be said out here. I don't think that anybody thinks that you or anybody else has two faces. Rather, it seems like for many people who post in there but not out here, the things they believe are so delicate that they can't withstand the light of day. This is the very definition of "profane myths and old wives' tales." (I Tim 4:7) Now, this could be a totally mistaken analysis. Perhaps things are not what they appear to be from the outside. But you can see why some TEs would be tempted to go into the subforum and pull things out.

 

[busterdog]

But you can see why some TEs would be tempted to go into the subforum and pull things out.

Which is exactly why the mocking of the creationist forum is so absurd. You can pull out anything you want and post it in OT.

 

[Mallon]

The fair implication of what I believe is that you think Jesus was mistaken.

But you KNOW that's not what we believe. Rather than stepping outside your box by trying to understand what evolutionary creationists actually think, you're more interested in trying to pigeonhole us into your own paradigm and judge us from there, even if that means misrepresenting our beliefs. You're forced to contort the truth of the situation in order to fit it into your little box, when you should be reexamining just what it is you believe that forces you act this way in the first place.

It's as though you were standing atop a mountain and thought to yourself that all the people below you look like ants. Even if it could somehow be relayed to you that those people are, in fact, several feet tall, you would continue to say, "The fair implication from my vantage point is that you're all ants", even when you've been told otherwise.

Hopefully you can understand why evolutionary creationists might be a little upset about this.

 

[busterdog]

But you KNOW that's not what we believe. Rather than stepping outside your box by trying to understand what evolutionary creationists actually think, you're more interested in trying to pigeonhole us into your own paradigm and judge us from there, even if that means misrepresenting our beliefs. You're forced to contort the truth of the situation in order to fit it into your little box, when you should be reexamining just what it is you believe that forces you act this way in the first place.

It's as though you were standing atop a mountain and thought to yourself that all the people below you look like ants. Even if it could somehow be relayed to you that those people are, in fact, several feet tall, you would continue to say, "The fair implication from my vantage point is that you're all ants", even when you've been told otherwise.

Hopefully you can understand why evolutionary creationists might be a little upset about this.

I can understand why you would be upset about it. I would also think you would understand that at some point there is no other way to say some things and that there is authority for them being said. Paul enjoins the body to rebuke error. A CF post is not much of a rebuke.

But, my beliefs compel me to conclude that you dont have enough faith in Jesus because we don't agree about the surface text and the inerrant word. You will probably say this "unbelief" is not what you believe about yourself. But, my rebuke is not intended to be a recitation of your self-assessment, but rather a response to it.

 

[Markus6]

But, my beliefs compel me to conclude that you dont have enough faith in Jesus because we don't agree about the surface text and the inerrant word.

Faith in Jesus isn't the same as faith in biblical inerrancy (Jesus was the inerrant Word). It's more like if he asks you to get out of the boat and walk to him - would you? I see nothing in our differences that would affect that faith.

 

[Tinker Grey]

One has no authority to rebuke what one fails to understand.

 

[Mallon]

But, my beliefs compel me to conclude that you dont have enough faith in Jesus because we don't agree about the surface text and the inerrant word.

How much is "enough faith", busterdog? Do I have "enough faith" in Jesus to be saved? How can I be sure? Who's standards do I have to live up to? Yours or God's?

Once again, the conversation has degraded into a belittling of the faith of evolutionary creationists. Saved by the skin of our teeth because we're not all concordists like yourself.

 

[crawfish]

But, my beliefs compel me to conclude that you dont have enough faith in Jesus because we don't agree about the surface text and the inerrant word. You will probably say this "unbelief" is not what you believe about yourself. But, my rebuke is not intended to be a recitation of your self-assessment, but rather a response to it.

Perhaps you don't have enough faith to accept the fact that reality may conflict with your accepted view of bible interpretation, and that lack of faith forces you into a state of denial.

 

[Assyrian]

My view is that the surface text on who Adam was is clear. He is a historical man and Jesus said so.

Where did Jesus say Adam was a historical man? Where did Jesus even mention the name Adam?

Jesus said the mustard seed is the smallest sown in the earth. Clearly. Surface text. I believe Jesus said it, otherwise, it wouldnt be in the divinely breathed Gospels.

No Jesus didn't say that either.
For someone who places such emphasis on the surface text, you sure play fast and lose with what it says.

But this is just an attempt tp dig up old discussion and distract from the fact the YECs have been called on gossiping nastily about TEs in a subforum we cannot reply in.