MyChristianForumID said:
Hi gluadys,
Not true. Not for no reason at all. Scientific evidence is very important to me otherwise I would not seek out AiG to backup my beliefs.
If science was truly important to you, you would go to genuine scientific sources. AiG is not a scientific source. It is a secondary, popular source. Moreover it is a biased source that states frankly that it will ignore any evidence that does not concur with its statement of faith.
AiG may back up your beliefs, but it does so by contradicting science.
And don't use phrases like "no evidence at all". That is a stretch when one uses absolutes.
Usually, yes. In this case, it is a fact.
It sounds more like anger. I could just as easily say "there is no evidence of evolution" and I would be correct as well.
No, you would not be correct.
But we are talking in circles. The real issue is faith.
Indeed. Do you have faith that God created a real physical world?
Do you have faith that God gave us the capability to know the real physical world?
How do you think that capacity is exercised? For example, how do you know that when you plant tulip bulbs or carrot seeds that, in the normal course of events, you will find tulips or carrots growing in your garden?
Do you think God's creation contains false information about itself?
Which came first the belief or the evidence?
In science, observations come first. The observations give rise to questions. The questions lead to a tentative answer (hypothesis). The hypothesis leads to predictions which can be tested. The testing either falsifies or fails to falsify the hypothesis. Note that wording carefully: falsifies or fails to falsify. The testing cannot prove the hypothesis, but if it fails to falsify the hypothesis, one can go on to make other predictions and other tests. When many tests fail to falsify a hypothesis, one can tentatively draw the conclusion that it is true. At this point it becomes a theory, and is used as the basis for constructing explanatory models of reality. Every successful prediction of a hypothesis becomes supporting evidence for the hypothesis/theory.
In religion belief comes first because most of us begin to learn religion as pre-schoolers, before we think of questioning the adults around us. So we come of age to question, already holding beliefs.
At some point evidence sways your belief and your faith (belief) changes.
It should anyway. But many people are very adept at avoiding/denying evidence in order not to change their belief.
This is because they believe in a young earth and a literal interpretation of Genesis 1. So it appears to be a lie if you have a different belief(faith).
Sorry, but if God made a real world, and gave us the capacity to know it, then the observations of the real world are the same for everyone. They don't change because people change their beliefs. Or because two people have different beliefs. It is wishful thinking to assume that we can change reality by changing our beliefs.
But evolution science does the same thing. Because their original belief (pre-chosen conclusion) is different they interpret evidence to support their belief.
This is another AiG/creationist lie. Study the history of how scientists came to the conclusion that the earth is old. Who were these scientists who in the 18th and 19th century began a serious study of the earth, (inventing modern geology). What bias did they bring to their study? That is easily ascertained. They brought a Christian bias to their study of the earth. They brought a biblical bias to their study. They assumed, on the basis of their faith and Bishop Ussher's calculations, that not more than 4000 years ago, the whole globe had been covered by a deluge. They assumed, on the same basis, that humans were created no more than 6000 years ago.
Yet, by 1835, they had concluded that the earth had to be several hundreds of millions years old. (Billions came later with radiometric dating, but that makes little difference. From a young earth perspective, millions is just as bad as billions.) And that the biblical flood must have been, from our global perspective, a regional flood.
It was not easy for these Christians (some of them clergy) to come to these conclusions. They had no desire to contradict scripture. They had no desire to eliminate God. However, unlike AiG, they were honest enough to accept what creation tells us about itself and to still have faith that God created it. They took the only other avenue faith can take. They concluded that they had read into scripture interpretations that were not valid, and that, in the light of incontrovertible evidence of the antiquity of the earth, they must re-think their so-far unquestioned assumptions about scripture.
As you said above, evidence changes belief. But if you make an
a priori decision, as AiG does, not to accept any evidence which might change your belief, then you cannot be swayed by the evidence.
AiG does not believe in evolution. In fact they believe evolution is not true. Did they say something about evolution that is not true?
Not believing in evolution is no reason to lie about it. Yes, they say many things about evolution which are not true.
You turned it around. I am saying that the evolution hypothesis is an act of faith. You need alot of faith to believe a theory like this.
Another AiG lie. Check out the basic scientific method I outlined above. The theory of evolution is based on evidence derived from observation and experiment. If you have checked out the observations, the experiments and their results, you need no faith to accept that evolution is the best explanation we have for the diversity of species.
This being the case, the results of the tests are not conclusive. The results of a test are dictated by the faith of the scientist based on the assumptions made. And there are always assumptions based on the original hypothesis or faith.
Do you not know that the scientific community does not accept as conclusive test results which cannot be replicated by scientists other than the original experimenter? Have you ever read a scientific paper? Often most of the paper is devoted to the method the scientist or scientific team used. It is required to recount the method in some detail so that other scientists can make the same study or repeat the same experiment.
Now it may come as a surprise to you, but not all scientists share the same basic faith assumptions. Some are materialists, some are pantheists, some are Buddhist, some are Jewish, some are Baptist and some are Catholic. If the results of a test vary according to initial faith assumptions, all of these should get different results from the same tests. But if they did, the scientific community would not accept the results as science. Only results which are consistent in spite of differences in the faith assumptions of scientists are considered acceptable as science.
The whole point of the scientific method is to eliminate, as far as possible, the personal bias of the scientist.
Furthermore, if the results of testing a hypothesis are influenced by initial assumptions, no hypothesis would ever prove wrong. For no one tests one's own hypothesis with the intention of proving it false. Yet, hypotheses are eliminated again and again in scientific work because the test results showed that the hypothesis did not concur with observation. Its predictions failed to describe what is actually seen in nature.
I know you do. My point is you have no more reason--in fact less reason--to hold that it is literal than I have to hold it is not. Also my point is that to read it literally is a human decision. It is not something forced by the text itself. Hence, it is a fallible decision and can be an error. In short, to dispute the literal nature of the text is not to quarrel with divine revelation, but with possible human error about the nature of the text.
The giraffe had know way of knowing that a longer neck would enable it to reach the tops of trees unless it was designed that way from the beginning. No intermediate species would know that taller is better.
I don't know why you raise this, or why you think it is relevant. Of course they wouldn't know.
Long held beliefs and traditions are not a proof of truth.
My point was not that the history of non-literal interpretation was necessarily true, but that it existed. People often assume that a non-literal interpretation of Genesis is recent and motivated solely by modern scientific theory.
In fact I believe the devil has a hay-day with this belief. The devil has turned many good bible believing christians away from God by this belief because it casts doubt on the scriptural teaching of death caused by the fall into sin and the need for salvation.
What can I say? You are entitled to your belief. I can only say that I see no basis for it.
It is a dangerous and incorrect footing. Allowing for death and dying prior to the fall of man into sin has the potential to cause reason for many to doubt about our need for salvation and Jesus. Death and dying were caused by our sin. No intermediate species of man or ape died prior to the fall because there was no death.
So how do you explain the fact that Christian TEs, who accept that natural death did occur prior to human existence, also accept that we are fallen and sinful beings in need of redemption?
Seems to me that you are setting out a hypothesis which is falsified by the evidence.
It is falsified scientifically by the fossil record which shows that many plants and animals died before any human walked on earth.
It is falsified theologically by the fact that TEs do not reject such basic doctrines as the fall, original sin and the need for redemption.
I assume you are talking about the crazy man in the gospels who called himself Legion and was sent into the herd of pigs. He was possessed by a very large number of demons not some mis-diagnosed illness. When Jesus was man he was also God. He would know the difference between illness and demons.
My point is that people of Jesus' time did not distinguish between an illness and demon possession. They held demons responsible for illness as we hold germs responsible for illness. An example is the father of the epileptic boy whom Jesus healed when he descended from the Mount of Transfiguration. The father describes his son's epileptic fits as provoked by a demon.
Incorrect statement. And I definately do not see it.
You only think it is incorrect because you have not seen the evidence. But it is true. Evolution is an observed fact. All stages of the evolutionary process: mutations, variation, selection, speciation have been directly observed, studied and replicated in experiments.
I see only the great and wonderful design of creation that is groaning because of the fall into sin.
I see that too. It is not a vision incompatible with evolution. In fact, IMO evolution is part of the design.
It is not just one proof. It is many many many different successes of many many different hypotheses in many biological fields. It is the accumulation of so much evidence in so many different lines that makes the argument for evolution so scientifically compelling. Here is a place to begin.
http://www.christianforums.com/t197...mon-conclusion-evolution-aint-going-away.html
Not true. This is much evidence for a literal Genesis if you accept the truth of the fall of man into death and the global flood.
There is no scientific evidence for the fall, as that is a spiritual matter which science does not deal with. There is a great deal of evidence that the flood could not have been global. So there is no evidence for a literal Genesis on these bases.
AiG believes in the 6 days of creation and that God rested on the 7th day. This is scriptural. It may appear to you to be lying but this is because your original belief is different.
It is not the Genesis story I disagree with. It is AiGs statements about evolution. I do not think it is possible to uphold scripture on a foundation of misinformation, suppression of information and false information about evolution. If that is the only way to uphold the authority of scripture, my honest reaction is that scripture is a tissue of lies.
I don't believe that. I believe scripture is a gift of God for our good. And it doesn't need its defenders to deny any truth, including the discoveries of science.
But my original point of this thread is that God is outside of the space-time realm. He is spirit with no matter or heat or body. Time is a thing he created. He is outside of it. See my original discussion. This thread is not about creation versus evolution. This is the topic of my thread and my belief. I am putting it out there to test it among other believers and seek the truth.
I agree with you about God and space-time. But you also made reference to evolution in the OP. So it is legitimate to discuss it.
