Evolution is NOT atheism

[wblastyn]

thanks, I hadn't heard this one. It is pretty plain it was just a theological point, as it would be somewhat pointless (indeed impossible, since it wouldn't have a name) for him to name a seed that hadn't even been discovered at the time.


incidentally, there is debate as to whether pluto is a planet, or just the largest member of the Kupier Belt.

See my point, Pluto might not even be a planet, but you still get the point of the example

 

[Jet Black]

yeap I get it. personally I have never seen why people take the Bible as a Book of Absolute Truth, sunce apparently we can't even understand the Truth here anyway. I have always seen it more as a guide to what God wants you to do, and one (easy) step to get into heaven.

 

[lucaspa]

Nobody ever said that evolution is atheism, well at least i dont say it is, but theres a fine line between believing the bible as the word of God. It says pretty plainly that God made humans, not evolved them. And theres plently of scientific evidence to back it up, its just not mainstream or taught in the schools as a second opinion. I think people on this site know a bit about evolution, science, ect, but unfortantly most dont and never question it.

OK, God made humans. HOW did God make humans? Evolution is just as much God making humans as either speaking them into existence (Genesis 1:27) or forming them from dust (Genesis 2). See? The "word of God" has two different ways of making humans.

Also, the amount of scientific evidence to "back it up" is not as important as the evidence that falsifies. And there is incontrovertible evidence that falsifies that humans were made in a short time in their present form.

Your final sentence is a judgement based on no data. Science is all about questioning, and evolution has been questioned and tested more than any other scientific theory in history. That we accept common ancestry and natural selection is because we have no choice. Every time either has been questioned the data show the questioning to be wrong.

 

[lucaspa]

Arikay, i agree, the bible isnt a science book, BUT when it refences science it's always correct, man just hasnt caught up with it yet. And you are like the third person to tell me the bible said the earth was flat. I could spit off verses to tell you your not correct. I understand the bible used "four corners of the earth, ect (north, south, east, west), not a box or square" yet you must understand the bible is taken literally but is used in a language not of this day in age. Theres pently of words that Hebrews could have used, yet the bible always talks about the circle of the earth, and it being light and day at 2 different places at the time time, being like the sun and moon, all these references indicate a circle earth

1. The Bible is often wrong about science. Rabbits chewing their cud, for example. Also the Bible says in plain Hebrew that the earth does not move several times. Yet the earth does move.

2. A circle is still flat. If you want a round earth, you have to say "sphere".

3. The picture of the how the universe looks in the Bible is the Babylonian cosmology. This has a flat earth with a dome above it (firmament), above which are the stars and reservoirs of water. Below the earth are caverns, some filled with water, others with air and housing the underworld. The Biblical authors set their theological messages in the best "science" of the time.

4. Why don't you use your own statement "yet you must understand the bible is taken literally but is used in a language not of this day in age. " and understand that the creation stories (3 of them) in Genesis are using the language not of this day but theirs? You insist on using our language of science and saying the Bible fits. Why the inconsistency?

 

[LaserCool]

Ok, I'm confused. First akscience says:

Until i read in the bible (THE WORD OF GOD) that humans evolved from a single cell, i wont believe, plus theres plently of supporting scientific evidence to back up intelligent design, read post above

But then says:

Arikay, i agree, the bible isnt a science book, BUT when it refences science it's always correct, man just hasnt caught up with it yet.

So, do you believe the Bible or not? You can't say "This book is 100% accurate" and then say "Well, the rabbit chewing its cud, the mustard seed thing, and the stars as pinpoints - That stuff is just allegory". Either it's 100% or it's not. You can't pick and choose.

And clearly, there are things on which the Bible is wrong. Dead wrong. Don't gloss over it, since it absolutely undermines your 100% position.

Anyway, back on subject.

Evolution is a scientific explaination, based upon physical evidence, on how diversity of life-forms established themselves.

Atheism is a philosophical standpoint (not a full philosphy itself) that rejects the argument of the existence of a special-case being called God, who is exempt from Natural laws and causality, and dictates either directly or indirectly the events on Earth.

Therefore, evolution does not equal atheism.

 

[Jet Black]

Until i read in the bible (THE WORD OF GOD) that humans evolved from a single cell, i wont believe, plus theres plently of supporting scientific evidence to back up intelligent design, read post above

the bible doesn't mention microevolution, GR or QM either. are they wrong?

 

[lucaspa]

Just a quick attempt to get the thread back on track. Here are some quotes from theologians that view evolution as very Christian:

"The scientific evidence in favour of evolution, as a theory is infinitely more Christian than the theory of 'special creation'. For it implies the immanence of God in nature, and the omnipresence of His creative power. Those who oppose the doctrine of evolution in defence of a 'continued intervention' of God, seem to have failed to notice that a theory of occasional intervention implies as its correlative a theory of ordinary absence." AL Moore, Science and Faith, 1889, pg 184.

"The one absolutely impossible conception of God, in the present day, is that which represents him as an occasional visitor. Science has pushed the deist's God further and further away, and at the moment when it seemed as if He would be thrust out all together, Darwinism appeared, and, under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend. ... Either God is everywhere present in nature, or He is nowhere." AL Moore, Lex Mundi, 12th edition, 1891, pg 73.

"The last few years have witnessed the gradual acceptance by Christians of the great scientific generalisation of our age, which is briefly if somewhat vaguely described as the Theory of Evolution. ... It is an advance in our theological thinking; a definite increase of insight; a fresher and fuller appreciation of those 'many ways' in which 'God fulfills Himself'. JR Ilingsworth, Lex Mundi, 12th edition,

 

[lucaspa]

troodon: "I interpret Genesis to be symbolic" Sir, thats your first and biggest mistake.

Then it is a "mistake" shared by virtually all the great thinkers within Christianity: St. Paul, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, virtually all contemporay Biblical scholars.

Go to Barnes and Nobles sometime and look at commentaries on Genesis or translations of the Bible. NONE of them advocate a literal Genesis and ALL of them acknowledge that Genesis 1 and 2 are entirely different and contradictory creation stories from two separate traditions.

 

[Meatros]

the bible doesn't mention microevolution, GR or QM either. are they wrong?

For that matter, it doesn't mention computers either....

...


What is this thing that sits in front of me??

 

[lucaspa]

For that matter, it doesn't mention computers either....

...


What is this thing that sits in front of me??

The Bible doesn't mention chemistry and electron shells, nor atoms, protons, neutrons, or electrons. It doesn't mention fission or fusion or antibiotics or atherosclerosis. In fact, there is very little of the physical universe that the Bible does talk about in detail.

The point we are all trying to make, of course, is that the criteria to only accept what the Bible says is an invalid criteria, because the poster accepts many things the Bible does not mention.

This is one way to test criteria: take them out of the narrow area they are used for and apply them to similar areas to see if they still work. If they don't, then they aren't valid.

 

[gladiatrix]

Arikay, i agree, the bible isnt a science book, BUT when it refences science it's always correct, man just hasnt caught up with it yet. And you are like the third person to tell me the bible said the earth was flat. I could spit off verses to tell you your not correct. I understand the bible used "four corners of the earth, ect (north, south, east, west), not a box or square" yet you must understand the bible is taken literally but is used in a language not of this day in age. Theres pently of words that Hebrews could have used, yet the bible always talks about the circle of the earth, and it being light and day at 2 different places at the time time, being like the sun and moon, all these references indicate a circle earth

A circle is a FLAT, 2 dimensional shape. I going to recycle an old post,destroyed by the server crash, that makes it very plain that the men who wrote the Bible thought the Earth was flat........

First, many Christians just quote the first part of Isaiah 40:22 where it reads, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth. . ." as proof that the Bible advocates a spherical earth? The full verse, however, reads as follows:

"He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in."


The original Hebrew word for "circle" is "gwx", which is transliterated to "chuwg". The phonetic spelling is "khoog" or "klug".

Isaiah is actually describing the earth as flat and circular, with a dome-shaped tent (sky) covering the land (the Babylonian model). The only people who try to claim that it translates a "roundness", hence "roundness" equates to spherical are creationists in a desperate attempt to rescue their claim that the Bible is also accurate in it's scientific details. Incidentally, there is nothing about "roundness" that limits it as a description for a 3-dimensional object as opposed to a 2-dimensional one. A sphere such as a ball is described as "round", but then so is a circle.

In addition, there is no doubt that they meant it as a "circle". This Hebrew word for "circle" is described elsewhere in Job 26:10, Proverbs 8:27 (the NIV substitutes the word "circle" for "horizon."), and HERE in this English/Hebrew Bible-study link.

The earth is not a circle but a sphere. The truth is that if Isaiah had wished to imply that the Earth was spherical he could easily have done so and left no doubt about it. He did so earlier he when stated that God will "roll you up tightly like a ball and throw you into another country." (Isaiah 22:18). (Balls are spherical).

The Flat Earth Bible explains and lists a number of such flat earth/geocentric model verses.

The people who translated the Bible used "circle" instead of sphere because that is exactly what Isaiah meant. It is only now, in light of the movement to "knight" creationism with the honorific as "science" that we see all of this game of apologetic excuse-making from creationists called "But-they-got-the-translation-wrong!". The "wrong" translation seems to have been acceptable for hundreds of years. If the words of the Bible are really the words of God, it seems that He could have come up with words that left no doubt about something as simple as a shape. Is God delibrately trying to deceive us by crafting a book whose words are that ambiguous?

The Biblical "universe" is really Babylonian in origin. This consisted of a flat earth with a vault for "heaven", a cosmology that can be seen in several
passages from the Old Testament(listed again):

• Genesis 1:2-8
• Genesis 7:12
• Isaiah 40:21-22,
• Job 22:14
• Job 37:18
• Daniel 4:11 (the "view" in Daniel is impossible on a spherical Earth).
• Last, but not least there are sections in the non-canonical, but oft-quoted, Book of Enoch that refer to the earth as flat.

Christians like Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, etc. all used these verses as "proof" that the Earth was flat. Evidence for this attitude can be found in The Christian Topography,(Cosmas Indicopleustes), published around 550 CE, which describes a flat earth.

There are still people today who use the verses from the Bible as proof that the Earth is flat:
A. The Flat-Out Truth
and the center of the universe:
B. The Geocentricity Website
C. The Scriptural Basis for a Geocentric Cosmology

 

[ikester7579]

We have to say this so often, I thought it also deserved to be posted again. And I have posted the Darwin quotes several times, so here they are in an opening post so people can see that evolution was NEVER atheism. And is not atheism now.

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450.

Also: "To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." pg. 449.

You can't very well speak of "the Creator" and be atheistic.

Yes you can! You see Darwin was bringing up a theory that was being introduced into a mainly christian society. Being that it would bring major problems because of this, he had to soften the blow somewhat by mentioning a creator. So when the subject came up, it could be said that this was in his book. Very ingenious actually. But actually how many references to a creator are there? And why did he not base his theory on how God started evolution instead of leaving "The Creator" out of his theory? A mere mention of something proves nothing!

 

[Freodin]

How many times does "the creator" has to be mentioned so that you would accept? Two times? Four? Twenty?

What you do now is again ignoring the evidence to keep your own preconcieved idea.

I think you are an atheist troll. The fact that you state otherwise is no evidence for anything. I will not change my mind, regardless what you say.

 

[troodon]

I think you are an atheist troll.

I concur.

 

[ReUsAbLePhEoNiX]

Darwin Vader was a christian, wasnt he schooling to be a pastor, almost finished?
Or maybe catholic clergy.

Ikster, I have read a few of Darwins Books and personal letters he wrote to personal friends...HE WAS A CHRISTIAN

 

[ikester7579]

How many times does "the creator" has to be mentioned so that you would accept? Two times? Four? Twenty?

What you do now is again ignoring the evidence to keep your own preconcieved idea.

I think you are an atheist troll. The fact that you state otherwise is no evidence for anything. I will not change my mind, regardless what you say.

That's very funny. Troll? And how fast did you and others respond after me? 3 posts that were almost automatic, and I'm the troll? You guys crack me up.

 

[Arikay]

Quick responses in Not the definition of Troll.

 

[troodon]

That's very funny. Troll? And how fast did you and others respond after me? 3 posts that were almost automatic, and I'm the troll? You guys crack me up.

21 minutes between your post and the last of the 3. Not very automatic, IMO

 

[ReUsAbLePhEoNiX]

Yes you can! You see Darwin was bringing up a theory that was being introduced into a mainly christian society. Being that it would bring major problems because of this, he had to soften the blow somewhat by mentioning a creator. So when the subject came up, it could be said that this was in his book. Very ingenious actually. But actually how many references to a creator are there? And why did he not base his theory on how God started evolution instead of leaving "The Creator" out of his theory? A mere mention of something proves nothing!

IKESTER, have you read any of Darwins writings?
you could probably find them on the net. His personal letters are very enlightening in finding out his personalilty and character traits...he was definately not an athiest.

 

[Siliconaut]

Interesting. Quick, logical responses are the definition of troll? No, under these premises, ikester cannot be considered a troll.