Help! need help debating an evolutionist!

Calypsis4 said:

The kid asks for someone to help him against an evolutionist and the troublemaker Mallon (among other heretics) steps in and answers. How typical.

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Heh heh heh. "Troublemaker". "Heretic". You know, Luther called Copernicus the same thing!

I'll give you some help, young person.

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You didn't actually address his problem at all. His problem is trying to defend the position that creationism should be taught in the science classroom. Just saying evolution is a lie and its adherents are servants of the devil, blah, blah, blah, doesn't actually help. You need to demonstrate that creationism is science.

Mallon said:

Heh heh heh. "Troublemaker". "Heretic". You know, Luther called Copernicus the same thing!

You didn't actually address his problem at all. His problem is trying to defend the position that creationism should be taught in the science classroom. Just saying evolution is a lie and its adherents are servants of the devil, blah, blah, blah, doesn't actually help. You need to demonstrate that creationism is science.

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Yea, but that can't be done.

pgp_protector said:

Yea, but that can't be done.

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True, I admit to being vaguely curious. Although I'm really not sure if this poster is sincere or not.

Mallon said:

You need to demonstrate that creationism is science.

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pgp_protector said:

Yea, but that can't be done.

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Behe managed it in the Dover trial. Problem was, when he redefined science to make Intelligent Design fit, astrology fits too.

outdoor_engineer said:

I have an ongoing debate with a kid at school about evolution.

He's presenting some pretty good arguments and he's kicking my butt, can anyone help?!

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You might wanna crib some lines from Fred Reed. He's not religious, but if creationists had the ability to argue like him, they might get somewhere. But they don't, so they're doomed.

The Metaphysics of Evolution by Fred Reed

pgp_protector said:

Yea, but that can't be done.

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Can't be done?

I see. So the readers are expected to believe your word over the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female." Mark 10:6.

"For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be." Mark 13:19

Secondly, if Adam was the first in Jesus family tree according to Luke (3:38) then the Genesis account is true and evolution is a total myth. If that is not true then Jesus family tree as mentioned by Luke is worthless and we can't trust the gospel.

Those of you who have accepted 'evolution' as truth need to consider this. You can't have it both ways.

Calypsis4 said:

He needed to be given reasons why creationism is a legitimate topic of scientific discussion to begin with. I gave him some solid reasons.

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No, you didn't. Your argument was twofold:
(1) evolution is false because of various strawmen arguments, each of which are refuted here:
CB000: Law of Biogenesis
CF001: Second Law of Thermodynamics
CC200: Transitional fossils
(2) the Bible teaches a literal, 6-day creation.
Neither of these points support creationism as a valid scientific topic. As outdoor_engineer said, if creationism is to be science, it must make falsifiable hypotheses. You haven't provided any examples in support of such.

Don't give me your baloney. Your problem is with Jesus. You don't like what He taught about the creation.

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False. My problem is not with Jesus. My problem is with your interpretation of his words. I do not subscribe to your fundamentalist, concordist approach to Scripture. I understand Jesus' words within an accommodationist hermeneutic, just as when he spoke of the mustard seed as being "the smallest of all seeds". So please don't disparage my faith -- it isn't allowed on these forums because it's unChristian.

Calypsis4 said:

Can't be done?

I see. So the readers are expected to believe your word over the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female." Mark 10:6.

"For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be." Mark 13:19

Secondly, if Adam was the first in Jesus family tree according to Luke (3:38) then the Genesis account is true and evolution is a total myth. If that is not true then Jesus family tree as mentioned by Luke is worthless and we can't trust the gospel.

Those of you who have accepted 'evolution' as truth need to consider this. You can't have it both ways.

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Aren't you calling Jesus a liar because scripture plainly says that male and female were created on the sixth day, and not at "the beginning of creation"?

crawfish said:

Aren't you calling Jesus a liar because scripture plainly says that male and female were created on the sixth day, and not at "the beginning of creation"?

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Maybe he had Genesis 2 in mind, not Genesis 1.

You don't have to take a literal approach to Genesis to believe that Adam existed.

Consider this, outdoor_engineer: If it were possible to validate God's existence with science, would you still need faith? If not, would it still be possible to please God (Heb 11:6)? God demands faith from us, so should we really expect to be able to validate Him with science?

Calypsis4 said:

Stop arguing with me, heretic.

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YouTube - Spanish inquisition

"Nobody expects"...a poser poster!

The difficulty I have in accepting T.E. as it's generally understood is the picture painted in my mind of Adam and Eve's "parents". For T.E. "theory" to be true some type of female ape-like hominid would have been chased down and bred by a dominant male ape-like hominid of the same species. I watch enough discovery channel to connect the dots and the picture I end up with is difficult, at best, to sync with the Christian faith.

I would think that God can do anything and if anything, some aspects of T.E. would elevate God in my view, not lower. In the end, whereas the creation of man is concerned the view that our first parents were the result of a beast being stump busted is at this point "another religion". There is no doubt that "Theological Evolution" is a fact and mans concept of God has evolved from an almost ape-like understanding to the full Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Calypsis4 brings up a good fact that I will certainly look into that of "life does not generate from non-living matter. Darklite has posted much in this area and also has excellent points in favor of T.E. and it's a difficult subject to get ones mind around.

My suggestion is to find the most solid "proof" for both sides and put them against each other and if it comes down to a matter of faith stick with the one that elevates Christ the most.

Pythons said:

The difficulty I have in accepting T.E. as it's generally understood is the picture painted in my mind of Adam and Eve's "parents". For T.E. "theory" to be true some type of female ape-like hominid would have been chased down and bred by a dominant male ape-like hominid of the same species. I watch enough discovery channel to connect the dots and the picture I end up with is difficult, at best to sync with the Christian faith.

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I'm confused by what you mean here. Could you please elaborate?

Oh JOY, the wonders of being completely ignored.

Did you even read what I read, Calypsis4?

Well, I’m going to respond, even if you didn’t, and don’t, for outdoor_engineer’s benefit.

He needed to be given reasons why creationism is a legitimate topic of scientific discussion to begin with. I gave him some solid reasons.

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No, you didn’t. What you gave him were 3 reasons, only one remotely dealing with evolution, that science is wrong. Your three reasons were all wrong. This includes the one that dealt with evolution.

You gave him 3 anti-science incorrect statements. This shows NOTHING about creationism being a legit science topic. Even if evolution were shown to be 100% utterly totally completely wrong, it would not endorse creationism ONE BIT.

To show creationism to be scientific, you need to showcase positive claims with evidence that creationism has made. Attacking evolution is a negative claim. Negative claims to one topic are not positive claims to another.

I would say us ‘heretics’, ‘skeptics’, and ‘troublemakers’ have done him more of a service by telling him what would need to be done rather than feeding him false information and telling him it’s what he needs.

Secondly, if Adam was the first in Jesus family tree according to Luke (3:38) then the Genesis account is true and evolution is a total myth. If that is not true then Jesus family tree as mentioned by Luke is worthless and we can't trust the gospel.

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Yes, because if something can’t be read with the significance YOU expect it to have, it’s completely wrong and so is the entirety of Christ’s message.

No, those who read the plain spoken words of the Savior about the creation (in fact ALL that Moses wrote is true, according to Him) are guilty of heresy and unbelief.

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Wait a sec, so if we read the plain spoken words we are guilty of heresy and unbelief? What? So how are we supposed to read the Gospel without reading His plain spoken words...? I think you wrote that sentence wrong.

He was not ambiguous about the creation. THere is no evolution in scripture and those who believe it defy the living God and His written account of what happened.

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The two Genesis accounts were written by MOSES, a MAN. He was inspired by God, he was probably even told what to write, but nowhere does it say it needed to be interpreted LITERALLY. Sorry.


As I said before (and you roundly ignored) there is no internet, DNA, gunpowder, controllable electricity, quantum mechanics, Christian Forums, World War II, nylon, or a host of other things in the Bible. Does that mean they are untrue? After all, they aren’t in Scripture, now, are they?

The truth is you believe neither Moses nor Jesus.

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Well, as long as you say ‘believing’ ACTUALLY mean ‘literally interpreting’, then yes. But believing DOESN”T mean ‘literally interpreting’, sorry.

And now to Pythons

The difficulty I have in accepting T.E. as it's generally understood is the picture painted in my mind of Adam and Eve's "parents". For T.E. "theory" to be true some type of female ape-like hominid would have been chased down and bred by a dominant male ape-like hominid of the same species. I watch enough discovery channel to connect the dots and the picture I end up with is difficult, at best to sync with the Christian faith.

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I think I get what you mean. You are saying something along the lines of:

I have a hard time reconciling TE because, as evolution says, the parents of Adam and Eve would be so closely related to them there would be effectively no perceptible difference, so we would have Adam and Eve with a soul and four parent hominids that are almost indistinguishable from them without a soul.

Is that right?

If it is, well, I don’t have an answer for you. But God being omnipotent means He could surely do it. And His ways are high above our ways. And perhaps it wasn’t just Adam and Eve, perhaps it was their ‘group’ (clan/tribe/whatever). After all, IIRC, Adam means simply either ‘man’ or ‘a man’. And we must remember the entire thing is one huge theological lesson, so the idea of ONLY two humans existing at one time that we get from the literal words may not be correct.

My suggestion is to find the most solid "proof" for both sides and put them against each other and if it comes down to a matter of faith stick with the one that elevates Christ the most.

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Yes, take the scientific predictions and evidences of each and see which explains more of the evidence, is in tune with more of the evidence, etc.

EXCEPT. Creationism doesn’t have anything. Calypsis4 tried to give some earlier, but all it was was attacks on evolution. *shrug* Well, actually, only one even remotely dealt with evolution, it was just attacks on SCIENCE.


Metherion

Melethiel said:

You don't have to take a literal approach to Genesis to believe that Adam existed.

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You're missing the point. IF Adam existed literally/historically then why not believe the rest of what Moses, Jesus, and the authors of the New Testament taught about him, Eve, the six days of creation, the fall of man, the entrance of sin, and the great flood of Noah?

If Jesus is truly the son of David and will sit upon the throne of David in the coming kingdom then that family tree I mentioned as found in Luke must be correct. That alone shoots down the evolutionist long ages theory...unless one forces the idea of the antediluvians mentioned in Genesis 5 as having lived for thousands of years each.

No way.

Theistic evolutionists surrender God's Word to vile skeptics who deliberately misinterpret evidence about how our world originated.

I am an ex-evolutionist. I no longer believe them.

Best wishes.

Calypsis4 said:

You're missing the point. IF Adam existed literally/historically then why not believe the rest of what Moses, Jesus, and the authors of the New Testament taught about him, Eve, the six days of creation, the fall of man, the entrance of sin, and the great flood of Noah?

If Jesus is truly the son of David and will sit upon the throne of David in the coming kingdom then that family tree I mentioned as found in Luke must be correct. That alone shoots down the evolutionist long ages theory...unless one forces the idea of the antediluvians mentioned in Genesis 5 as having lived for thousands of years each.

No way.

Theistic evolutionists surrender God's Word to vile skeptics who deliberately misinterpret evidence about how our world originated.

I am an ex-evolutionist. I no longer believe them.

Best wishes.

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Some of the people in the lineage represent people groups and not individuals.

The very fact that the genealogies in Genesis, in Matthew, and in Luke do not match up should suggest that they are not meant to be taken literally. The Jews were simply more interested in numerology and symbolism than in "literal history". We can't read ancient literature from a modern mindset.

That does NOT mean that we simply discard it, or that we don't believe it. It means we're reading it as it's meant to be read, not reading our own ideas into it. If Adam didn't literally live 6000 years ago and didn't literally eat from a tree, does that change the fact that sometime in the past, humanity fell, necessitating the need for Jesus to come and save us? I don't think so.

Are the parables of Jesus not to be taken seriously because they didn't really happen?

Calypsis4 said:

Stop arguing with me, heretic.

The point is that he asked for help from a fellow creationist, not a skeptic like you.

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What an adorable ad hominem. When you can't actually refute the arguments of the other side, order them to be silent so your unquestioned blind belief won't be shaken.

Calypsis4 said:

Theistic evolutionists surrender God's Word to vile skeptics who deliberately misinterpret evidence about how our world originated.

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You haven't cited any, however. Your missing the point. A literal interpretation contradicts physical evidence. Theistic Evolution is the only mechanism that could possibly allow for the Bible to still be true in light of that evidence.