Evolution, Science, Creation

[gluadys]

Man is special by design. God created MAN in his own image. Apes are irrefutably animals. What sets humans apart from animals? Self awareness. Animals act on instinct to preserve themselves. They have no concept of what death is. Man on the other hand are completely aware of themselves. What causes this? The soul. God created MAN in His image and gave MAN dominion over all the earth. Bottom line, there is no room for evolutionary thought.

Self-awareness does not set humans apart from animals. It makes them unique among animals. Every animal is marked by some kind of uniqueness. Self-awareness is an aspect of that uniqueness in humans.

That God gave us a soul, so that we could be self-aware makes us unique, but it does not make us not animals.

 

[Metaphor]

Self-awareness does not set humans apart from animals. It makes them unique among animals. Every animal is marked by some kind of uniqueness. Self-awareness is an aspect of that uniqueness in humans.

That God gave us a soul, so that we could be self-aware makes us unique, but it does not make us not animals.

May this makes us different from all animals: A] We know the difference between right and wrong. B] We have a mind that can think about, and debate things beyond the physical, literal ryelm. C] We understand death, life, faith, existence, authority, and conceive that of supernatural powers. D] God clearly gave us dominion over all else.. We are not of them if we have dominion over them. E] We have a choice to sin, a choice to follow God, a choice to follow satan, a choice to do wrong; we understand what 'taking responsibility for our actions. We have thousands of ways we can communicate [langugages]. Satan doesnt bother tempting animals with sexual desires; they are not expected to follow Gods word because they do not understand it.

I don't see how you can think that we are just intellengent animals.

-John

 

[gluadys]

May this makes us different from all animals:

Every animal is different from all other animals. The fact that a flea is different from a cat doesn't mean that either the flea or the cat is not an animal.

The fact that we are endowed with souls and made in the image of God does not mean we are not biologically animals.

I don't see how you can think that we are just intellengent animals.

-John

Given our biology, I don't see how you can come to any other conclusion. When I nursed my children I was very aware of being a mammal. I would add "spiritual" as well as "intellectual", though.

To me any other conclusion suggests that we are not truly physical beings--that our physicality doesn't matter. And that leads into gnostic dualism and heresy.

 

[shernren]

D] God clearly gave us dominion over all else.. We are not of them if we have dominion over them.

Now I agree somewhat with the idea that God directly and supernaturally intervened in the creation / physical evolution of humans, but I don't agree with this particular argument. We are not told that if we have dominion over nature we are not part of nature. After all, a father who has dominion over his family is still part of his family. A king or queen who has dominion over a country is still part of the country. And God, who certainly has dominion over the physical universe and mankind, actually joined the physical universe and joined the ranks of mankind in the Incarnation to validate His rule and to show that He was only fair in allowing suffering to happen - by undergoing suffering Himself.

This sort of thinking ("We have dominion ... therefore we are outside") may be seen as an overreacting backlash to New Age monism ("We are one with nature") and does have some merit. There is also an element of Western conqueror mentality that comes with it. I think the better way to approach our dominion over nature is as a prime minister over his country. The prime minister may have dominion of a sort over the country but he is still a citizen and if the country falls so does he. The main distinction between us and nature is that ultimately we are to give an account of our actions.

 

[gluadys]

Now I agree somewhat with the idea that God directly and supernaturally intervened in the creation / physical evolution of humans, but I don't agree with this particular argument. We are not told that if we have dominion over nature we are not part of nature.


I think the better way to approach our dominion over nature is as a prime minister over his country. The prime minister may have dominion of a sort over the country but he is still a citizen and if the country falls so does he. The main distinction between us and nature is that ultimately we are to give an account of our actions.

Good point.

 

[Metaphor]

Now I agree somewhat with the idea that God directly and supernaturally intervened in the creation / physical evolution of humans, but I don't agree with this particular argument. We are not told that if we have dominion over nature we are not part of nature. After all, a father who has dominion over his family is still part of his family. A king or queen who has dominion over a country is still part of the country. And God, who certainly has dominion over the physical universe and mankind, actually joined the physical universe and joined the ranks of mankind in the Incarnation to validate His rule and to show that He was only fair in allowing suffering to happen - by undergoing suffering Himself.

This sort of thinking ("We have dominion ... therefore we are outside") may be seen as an overreacting backlash to New Age monism ("We are one with nature") and does have some merit. There is also an element of Western conqueror mentality that comes with it. I think the better way to approach our dominion over nature is as a prime minister over his country. The prime minister may have dominion of a sort over the country but he is still a citizen and if the country falls so does he. The main distinction between us and nature is that ultimately we are to give an account of our actions.

Ah, you are correct. I cannot disagree to that. I admit that I did not a little too far with that statement.

Gluadys, do you not think that we were created for porpose different from that of all animals? Don't you think we have a special relashionship with God? That differs from all animals?

-John

 

[Metaphor]

The fact that we are endowed with souls and made in the image of God does not mean we are not biologically animals.

oohh..wait I think I see what your saying. Yes, I have no problem that biologically we are in fact, animals. I have no problem in the sence that we are animals because of our sexual reproduction methods and that we can respond to the changes in our environment. I do have a problem with saying that we are JUST an animal and theres nothing more special about an ape then their is me. I belive God created us very different for a purpose.

 

[gluadys]

Gluadys, do you not think that we were created for porpose different from that of all animals? Don't you think we have a special relashionship with God? That differs from all animals?

-John

Certainly. But we are still also animals.

 

[Metaphor]

Certainly. But we are still also animals.

As I saw and stated in my second post.

-John

 

[gluadys]

As I saw and stated in my second post.

-John

Yes, we must have been posting at the same time as it wasn't up yet when I responded.

One of my pet peeves are people who read the statement "humans are animals" as "humans are just animals." The first is fact, but it does not imply the second.

I also think it is theologically important that we are animals, and a part of nature, and that we acknowledge that our relationship to the rest of nature is not as simplistic as dominion, although it includes that.

Sometimes I think we get more spiritually minded than God is.

 

[shernren]

Ultimately (to be crude) if you chop up a human and you chop up an ape you get the same basic bits left over, at almost every level. For me the greatest borderline you can draw between the two is the essence of love. And not as in romantic love - love in the widest sense, the kind that includes Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity (to use C.S. Lewis' Four Loves). Humans routinely show love on every level of society - although they certainly show a lot of hate too - while the apes and anything lower down only show "affection", if it may be called such, for each other.

So humans are animals and yet more than animals.

 

[TK2005]

It seems we have found some common ground here. Yes I do believe that biologically man can be classified as an animal. An animal that was created on day 6. But if we say that all creatures on earth are descended from one organism, then we are negating the fact that God said He made every creature after it's "kind". We were created "as-is". We never hunched our backs and grunted. Well, some of us never grunted, my wife would say that I grunt to this day.

 

[gluadys]

But if we say that all creatures on earth are descended from one organism, then we are negating the fact that God said He made every creature after it's "kind". We were created "as-is". We never hunched our backs and grunted. Well, some of us never grunted, my wife would say that I grunt to this day.

But is that the meaning of "after its kind"?

Look at the creation of vegetation.

And God said: Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth, and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself,after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Gen 1:11-12

To me, this linkage of "after his kind" with seed and fruit speaks of reproduction after its kind, not of separate creations.

The other occurrences of the phrase v. 21, v. vv 24-25 are not so explicit, but given vv. 11-12, it seems to me they should be thought of in the same way.

God wills for many kinds of creatures to inhabit the earth, but God also wills for orderly relationships among them. Like must reproduce like. Yet they are not precise clones of each other (even asexual reproduction shows some variation).

Those are also the conditions which produce evolution. And evolution, over time, produces new kinds. (Note that evolution never changes one kind to another; rather it produces new kinds from within older kinds. The newer kinds are still part of the older kind.)

 

[TK2005]

But evolution also says that we all came from the same goo. If God created all creatures after their kind, then we can't all be from the same pool.

Scripture just does not support evolutionary theory. We should not attempt to put limitations on God. Just because it doesn't make sense to us, doesn't mean it is not possible. "God's ways are not our ways".

 

[gluadys]

But evolution also says that we all came from the same goo. If God created all creatures after their kind, then we can't all be from the same pool.

Scripture just does not support evolutionary theory. We should not attempt to put limitations on God. Just because it doesn't make sense to us, doesn't mean it is not possible. "God's ways are not our ways".

You missed my point. If "after its kind" refers primarily to reproduction rather than creation, then all kinds can come from the same pool, dividing into diverse groups (kinds) as they speciate. Just as water from the same mountain spring can divide into separate rivers at the height of a watershed.

And it is not a matter of what makes sense. It is a matter of what is supported by the evidence. Evolution makes no more sense than separate creations. But it is what the evidence supports.

No one is disputing that God can do as God pleases. But by the evidence we infer what God actually did. If that seems to contradict scripture, it is an indication that one's understanding of scripture is faulty.

 

[TK2005]

I adhere to what Luther taught. Grace alone, Faith alone, Scripture alone. I believe what the Bible tells me. And as far as creation goes there is no room for debate. It clearly says what God did. If you can't trust the Bible and God, then what can you trust?

And speaking of interpretations.......dating methods are so flawed they are far from reliable.

What it boils down to is not different interpretations of scripture, it is different interpretations of the evidence at hand. All sides see and examine the same evidence, but draw different conclusions. That doesn't make one any smarter than the other. And to infer just because one believes what the Bible tells them does not make them inferior nor superior. Both sides go into the investigation with presuppostions. The question is, what are the sides wanting to accomplish by exposing their thoughts.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

Personally, I don't care where PHYSICAL evidence stands at all.

Good enough.

Read Genesis...it really makes the thought of us being apes weird.

-John

A literal interpretation of Genesis, as with a literal interpretation of Joshua 10, makes a lot physical reality look weird.

OTOH an interpretation rooted in an understanding that the surrounding cultures worshipped the Sun, moon, stars, earth, animals ...
an interpretation that accepts that perhaps the inspired authors of Genesis borrowed stories from surrounding cultures and altered them to make the point of what God was about and what our relationship with God should be about ...

 

[gluadys]

I adhere to what Luther taught. Grace alone, Faith alone, Scripture alone. I believe what the Bible tells me. And as far as creation goes there is no room for debate. It clearly says what God did. If you can't trust the Bible and God, then what can you trust?

Well, Luther never spoke about evolution. And when he did speak on the science of his day, it was to denounce Copernicus and Galileo for their new-fangled, anti-scriptural notion that the earth goes round the sun. As he saw it, the bible clearly states that the earth does not move and the sun does. When Joshua needed more daylight it was, as scripture clearly states, the sun that stopped in its course.

Do you agree with Luther and the scripture on this point? Or do you not trust the Bible and God when they say the sun moves and the earth does not.


I have noted this question on trust before. May I remind you that you are posting in the Christian Only section of this forum? You may take for granted that all Christians here trust the bible and God.

And speaking of interpretations.......dating methods are so flawed they are far from reliable.

Irrelevant, non-sequitor and a statement which displays your ignorance of dating methods.

What it boils down to is not different interpretations of scripture, it is different interpretations of the evidence at hand.

It most certainly is a question of what you believe about scripture and how you interpret it in relation to non-biblical sources of information. As far as the scientific evidence goes, the alternative explanations put forward by creationists/IDers have been tested and found not to account for the observations made, and incapable of correct prediction of future discoveries.

If you honestly believe a different interpretation of the evidence is possible, provide an example and show how it can be interpreted differently using scientific method.

All sides see and examine the same evidence, but draw different conclusions.

But only one draws their conclusions strictly from the evidence and from all the evidence.

That doesn't make one any smarter than the other. And to infer just because one believes what the Bible tells them does not make them inferior nor superior.

Hold on. Are you implying that no one who accepts the scientific explanation of the evidence believes the Bible? Where does that put TEs?

I agree, different beliefs do not make anyone inferior or superior as a person. But many who disagree with evolution do show through their posts that they have little knowledge of either the theory or the evidence which supports it. That does not make the person either inferior or stupid. But it does mean they are trying to argue a case when they have insufficient or incorrect information about the issue.

Both sides go into the investigation with presuppostions.

However, creationists all seem to use the same basic set of presuppositions, while scientists are much more diverse. The presuppositions of one scientist can be very different from the presuppositions of another. Getting down to the basis evidence and what it means--without anyone's presuppositions influencing the results--is the purpose of scientific method, the public nature of science and peer review. When creationists can meet the test of presenting their scientific results and showing that they are correct no matter what pre-suppositions they or others have, then they will be doing science, and interpreting evidence scientifically.

The question is, what are the sides wanting to accomplish by exposing their thoughts.

Scientists are basically curious about nature and want to know what makes nature tick. I'll let you tell me what the motives of creationists are.

 

[TK2005]

Oh that is simple.................Creationists want to uphold the word of God.

 

[lazarus2005]

Hi everyone,

This my first time on the forum. Here's my take on this issue. Both evolution and creationism are scientific theories trying to validate their ultimate goals. Evolution is pro-atheistic while creationism is pro-theistic. What we must realise is that science in itself is not absolute in it's nature. Theories come and go based on our limited observation of the observable universe.

However, from my personal convictions I can tell you that there is a GOD and his name is JESUS.

Also, I like to validate the existent of a supreme being by using simple mathematics. Take 0 and do anything you would like to it and it is still 0. However, add 1 to it and you get "something". Out of nothing comes nothing.

Just my $.02

Merry Christmas and all the best for '06