How an Evangelical Creationist Accepted Evolution

[lesliedellow]

That would be 200%. Good fence-sitter math.

Christ is fully God and fully man.

Is that good fence sitter math?

 

[-57]

Once again, natural selection is not random. When you combine a random event with a nonrandom force the result is not random. There will be some order from those actions. And we know how new information enters the genome. Perhaps you could ask politely.

Just what part of where I said "mutations are random" didn't you get?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

1) Evolution isn't mysterious. It can be explained very easily.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

2) The ToE is a scientific theory. It doesn't requires faith. Just some time to study it. You are right about creationism though. That can only be accepted on faith.

3) A scientific theory is not accepted by some vague notion as "comfort in the mind", neither on the warm fuzzies it gives. It is acepted based on what the evidence says.

In a nutshell, OlWiseGuy, you have given the best post possible about why creationism and science are complete opposite.

I perused the link. What it calls 'simple' masks a very complex theory. It seems to want to draw you in with simple examples that really have little to do with the real theory.

 

[Tree of Life]

After college, Kramer went to seminary to study ways to read Genesis through a different lens, taking the view that you can reconcile faith and science without forcing the two to cohere line by line. By 2009, he had done a complete reversal: “[W]e should proceed with extreme caution when trying to understand science through the writings of an ancient culture that looked at life poetically, not scientifically,” he wrote in an op-ed supporting evolution from a Christian perspective. In 2014, Kramer became managing editor at BioLogos. This year, he started a blog called “The Evolving Evangelical.” Today he still considers himself a creationist—just one who happens to embrace evolution and who helps others do the same.

“We call ourselves creationists, and we’re stubborn about that,” says Kramer of BioLogos. “We purposely live between the cultural categories, because we disagree with the way in which the lines are drawn.” If you asked Kramer whether he believes in the words of Genesis or the words of Origin of Species, in the biblical God or the science of evolution, he knows what he would choose. It’s the same answer he’d give if you asked him whether the recent Homo naledi discovery is scientific or divine, or whether his 2-year-old daughter Josephine is a gift from God or nature. “I’d say both,” he says. “One hundred percent both.”

Serious study of Scripture has an elegant way of disrupting our little theologies.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Just what part of where I said "mutations are random" didn't you get?

I understood that just fine.

What part of "A nonrandom force on a random event give predictable results" didn't you understand?

Have you ever seen the game pachinko? It works on the principle that if a rolling ball hits enough pins it will follow a totally random path. But then, to that random motion they add a nonrandom force, gravity. They know that no matter how many times the ball bounces around it will eventually land back in the receptacle with all of the other balls. So let's look at our analogy. We have a pachinko board with pins (random mutations), gravity (a known directional force the represents natural selection) and a receptacle for the balls (or in the evolution case positive changes that result in a new species).

Don't worry, you are not the first creationist to make this foolish mistake, nor will you be the last. Creationists quite often try to argue against evolution by focusing only on random mutation. Or by focusing only on natural selection. This is a very wrong way to look at evolution and will always get you the wrong answer. You need to consider the action of both forces, not just one.

And the "what part don't you get" game does not work when you are the one making ignorant mistakes. In fact it really makes you look bad when you do that.

 

[-57]

I understood that just fine.

What part of "A nonrandom force on a random event give predictable results" didn't you understand?

Have you ever seen the game pachinko? It works on the principle that if a rolling ball hits enough pins it will follow a totally random path. But then, to that random motion they add a nonrandom force, gravity. They know that no matter how many times the ball bounces around it will eventually land back in the receptacle with all of the other balls. So let's look at our analogy. We have a pachinko board with pins (random mutations), gravity (a known directional force the represents natural selection) and a receptacle for the balls (or in the evolution case positive changes that result in a new species).

Don't worry, you are not the first creationist to make this foolish mistake, nor will you be the last. Creationists quite often try to argue against evolution by focusing only on random mutation. Or by focusing only on natural selection. This is a very wrong way to look at evolution and will always get you the wrong answer. You need to consider the action of both forces, not just one.

And the "what part don't you get" game does not work when you are the one making ignorant mistakes. In fact it really makes you look bad when you do that.

Mutations really can't create a change big enough to be naturally selected.

 

[lesliedellow]

Mutations really can't create a change big enough to be naturally selected.

So says our world famous biologist.

 

[SkyWriting]

After college, Kramer went to seminary to study ways to read Genesis through a different lens,
taking the view that you can reconcile faith and science without forcing the two to cohere line by line.
By 2009, he had done a complete reversal:

So he now feels that you can reconcile them by forcing them together line by line?

 

[lesliedellow]

So he now feels that you can reconcile them by forcing them together line by line?

He reconciles them by realising that they are answering different questions.

 

[expos4ever]

If we cannot observe or test something, it is by definition, imaginary.

I share many of your critiques of the "creationists", but I think this one is misleading. Perhaps you are technically correct in your use of the word "imaginary" here, but, to me at least, the word implies that you are claiming that what cannot be observed or tested does not actually exist.

And that certainly seems wrong: we can postulate the existence of other universes, entirely inaccessible to us and therefore not subject to "testing" or observation. Yet these universes certainly could actually exist.

 

[-57]

So says our world famous biologist.

Then provide me with an example.

 

[SnowyMacie]

After college, Kramer went to seminary to study ways to read Genesis through a different lens, taking the view that you can reconcile faith and science without forcing the two to cohere line by line. By 2009, he had done a complete reversal: “[W]e should proceed with extreme caution when trying to understand science through the writings of an ancient culture that looked at life poetically, not scientifically,” he wrote in an op-ed supporting evolution from a Christian perspective. In 2014, Kramer became managing editor at BioLogos. This year, he started a blog called “The Evolving Evangelical.” Today he still considers himself a creationist—just one who happens to embrace evolution and who helps others do the same.

“We call ourselves creationists, and we’re stubborn about that,” says Kramer of BioLogos. “We purposely live between the cultural categories, because we disagree with the way in which the lines are drawn.” If you asked Kramer whether he believes in the words of Genesis or the words of Origin of Species, in the biblical God or the science of evolution, he knows what he would choose. It’s the same answer he’d give if you asked him whether the recent Homo naledi discovery is scientific or divine, or whether his 2-year-old daughter Josephine is a gift from God or nature. “I’d say both,” he says. “One hundred percent both.”

That's a pretty similar story to me as well, though, looking back on it, I was never really a good Young Earth Creationist, if I ever in fact was one. I wholeheartedly thought evolution was evil, and believed that God created everything the way it was, though I was always more of a Old Earth Creationist. Then I went to college and was taught something besides "Sunday School Theology", and learned about biology and evolution, and that they evolution was not at opposition with Christianity. To this day, I embrace evolution as my creation story, if you will. Like him, it's both. Human evolution is both divine and natural, like everything else.

 

[lesliedellow]

Then provide me with an example.

A mutation in the LCT gene allows Europeans, and the renegade colonials across the water, to digest the lactose in milk. Because it was a beneficial mutation, it spread throughout the European population in an evolutionary blink of an eye (about 10,000 years).

 

[-57]

A mutation in the LCT gene allows Europeans, and the renegade colonials across the water, to digest the lactose in milk. Because it was a beneficial mutation, it spread throughout the European population in an evolutionary blink of an eye (about 10,000 years).

I would think it worked the other way around....it was a mutation that caused humans to lose the ability to digest the lactose in milk rather than establish the ability.

But, I do understand the need for you to have it your way.

 

[lesliedellow]

I would think it worked the other way around....it was a mutation that caused humans to lose the ability to digest the lactose in milk rather than establish the ability.

But, I do understand the need for you to have it your way.

So, according to you, the mutation managed to spread throughout disparate groups, all over the globe, and across oceans, but somehow managing to miss out Europeans.

 

[-57]

That's a pretty similar story to me as well, though, looking back on it, I was never really a good Young Earth Creationist, if I ever in fact was one. I wholeheartedly thought evolution was evil, and believed that God created everything the way it was, though I was always more of a Old Earth Creationist. Then I went to college and was taught something besides "Sunday School Theology", and learned about biology and evolution, and that they evolution was not at opposition with Christianity. To this day, I embrace evolution as my creation story, if you will. Like him, it's both. Human evolution is both divine and natural, like everything else.

It seems as if you are willing to change biblical scripture.
In another thread I posted "Luke when he wrote the book of Acts tells us in Acts 17:26 "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place".......Common sense tells us if the Theo-Evos are correct then Luke is incorrect."

When Paul said sin and death spread because of one man.....Paul was wrong.

When Paul based instruction to women in a letter to Timothy on the order of creation and the fall as recorded in Genesis..Paul was wrong again.

....that is according to the Theo-Evo sect.

 

[-57]

So, according to you, the mutation managed to spread throughout disparate groups, all over the globe, but somehow managing to miss out Europeans.

There are many people with European descent...who are lactose intolerant. But then again you already knew that.

 

[lesliedellow]

There are many people with European descent...who are lactose intolerant. But then again you already knew that.

Yes there are, but that does not alter the fact that Europeans, as a whole, carry a mutant gene which enables them to digest lactose.

 

[SnowyMacie]

It seems as if you are willing to change biblical scripture.
In another thread I posted "Luke when he wrote the book of Acts tells us in Acts 17:26 "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place".......Common sense tells us if the Theo-Evos are correct then Luke is incorrect."

I don't really see how that verse disproves theistic evolution in any way. There is still a genetic Eve and a genetic Adam.

When Paul said sin and death spread because of one man.....Paul was wrong.

Again, this really doesn't disprove my view in anyway. There is part of me that believes mankind was created to be physical immortal, and the other part, which is likely, that Paul is talking about spiritual death. I don't believe in the traditional view of Hell as a place of eternal torment, but that people Hell will result in complete and total non-existance (spiritual death).

When Paul based instruction to women in a letter to Timothy on the order of creation and the fall as recorded in Genesis..Paul was wrong again.

He cited symbolic scripture to prove a point, I cite Genesis 1-3 all the time to prove points, that doesn't mean theistic evolution is wrong.

 

[-57]

Yes there are, but that does not alter the fact that Europeans, as a whole, carry a mutant gene which enables them to digest lactose.

You do realize it is your bias and speculative assumption that labels it as a mutant gene.