If evolution is not valid science, somebody should tell the scientists.

[shernren]

Well I stand amazed at the dulpicitiousness of your comments. To intentionally tell someone something that is factually untrue and pass it off as true is a lie no matter how fancy you wish to dress it up. And this is a lie straight from God according to you as God told Adam He created not evolved all life and made them all within six days! Not only is it factually untrue, it is theologically, morally, ethically, philosophically untrue or lies as well. If God said He was spinning a yarn then fine but there is nothing at all within Scripture that says God was just making a parable of the first 2 chapters of Genesis to get a message across. This concept didn't occur until the late 1800's when sophists thought they knew better than God.

Duplicitous? That's a strong word. In any case, I disagree with you completely. If God wanted to tell a scientific thesis, Genesis 1 does not cut it. But if God wanted to tell a bunch of prescientific nomads that He made Heaven and Earth and He expected them to not worship the sun and to rest every 7 days and to think of themselves as His representatives on earth He did a fantastic job and no human has ever done better. A lie must involve an intent to deceive, an intent to pass off something that is false as something that is true. Genesis 1 is not false. It is simply true in a different way, a way which is not immediately apparent to the Western post-Enlightenment thought paradigm.

People as far back as Augustine and St. Basil were already quite convinced that God couldn't possibly have created in 6 days. The irony is that Augustine thought it must be shorter! 6 days, he argued, must seem like forever to be creating things to a God who is omnipotent. He said that God had put everything together in a flash and then when He needed to explain things to the Israelites He stretched out the time to six days in order to speak to them Israelites on terms they would understand. So much for allegorism of Genesis 1 being a modern sophist lie.

What about, say, The Phantom of the Opera? Gaston Leroux certainly appeared to be passing off everything as true, as something personally researched. He alludes to documents, to places, even claims to have found the skeleton of the Phantom. And yet his work was political fiction. Does that make him a liar?

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Dannager again.

Dude, thanks for a moment of laughter. [now, was that bit about the soda indicative-historical, or metaphorical-allegorical?]

 

[artybloke]

most of whom I ahve heard these supposed enlightened arguments from are unbeleivers anyway),

How do you know? You asked 'em? Or just assumed?

 

[nolidad]

How do you know? You asked 'em? Or just assumed?

nope read their beliefs about who Jesus is and his work at Calvary and the tomb. They stand against the gospel deliverd to the church.

Now before you think 10 miles ahead-- I am not speaking ofr everysingle one just thseveral I have read from who hold these fanciful personal opinions.

 

[nolidad]

What about, say, The Phantom of the Opera? Gaston Leroux certainly appeared to be passing off everything as true, as something personally researched. He alludes to documents, to places, even claims to have found the skeleton of the Phantom. And yet his work was political fiction. Does that make him a liar?

No it makes him a playwrite. And it matters not what Leroux says or doesn't about a phantom.

People as far back as Augustine and St. Basil were already quite convinced that God couldn't possibly have created in 6 days. The irony is that Augustine thought it must be shorter! 6 days, he argued, must seem like forever to be creating things to a God who is omnipotent. He said that God had put everything together in a flash and then when He needed to explain things to the Israelites He stretched out the time to six days in order to speak to them Israelites on terms they would understand. So much for allegorism of Genesis 1 being a modern sophist lie.

Well once again Basil and Augustine are entitled to their opinions--but their opinons are not the Wor dof God-they are their opinions. And allegorism of Genesis 1, I never said that was a modern sophist lie-- I specifically said the attempted marriage of atheistic evolutoin with Christianity is a modern sophis lie with Asa Grey as the first very outspoken proponent.

Duplicitous? That's a strong word. In any case, I disagree with you completely. If God wanted to tell a scientific thesis, Genesis 1 does not cut it. But if God wanted to tell a bunch of prescientific nomads that He made Heaven and Earth and He expected them to not worship the sun and to rest every 7 days and to think of themselves as His representatives on earth He did a fantastic job and no human has ever done better. A lie must involve an intent to deceive, an intent to pass off something that is false as something that is true. Genesis 1 is not false. It is simply true in a different way, a way which is not immediately apparent to the Western post-Enlightenment thought paradigm.

A skunk by any other name still smells shernren! Maybe you should spend some time reading scientific teatises of Genesis 1 and 2 and see how they predict the discovery of many of todays proven scientific laws! How God ordered life in Genesis is what we can see, test and observe today.

As for resting oint he seventh day--that didn't happen by God till almost 2 millenia after He spoke into existence all things. God referenced to Genesis as to why He wanted Israel to rest on the seventh--cause He called everything into existence in 6 solar days and rested on the seventh. If you beleive in the eterrnalness of God I do not see how in any liberal stretch of the imagination you say God did not intentionally decieve all beleivers from Adam till Darwin published his finds.

I could spend 2 pages philosophically rip[ping apart your argument as nonsensical, but top what point? As for the post enlightened paradigm? Does that mean you are an eastener who immigrated here to the West? Does that mean that all western beleivers misunderstand when God says He creatred everything from nothing in 6 24 hours days- but He knew that that was not the truth we misunderstand that that is not a lie??

If I can I will see if I can go to the Christian Academy that is a ministry of my church and I will have a second grader post on this web site a nonscientific language summation of how God di dnot have to say something that is diamtetrically opposite of evolution (for your talk origin buddies freely admit that) and write how God could have declared Himself ruler of the universe and tell Adam the basic prescientific understanding of long ages and slow steady change over long ages to produce the different varieties of life on earth. I hope you are intelligent enough to see that evolution and biblical creation are opposite ends of the origin spectrum!

And a second grader is definitely a prescientific mindset.

 

[nolidad]

Question: Is Dante's Inferno a lie?

Well seeing as Dante did not write it as scripture it is irrelevant.




And when did God tell any of this to Adam?

UHH--during his life! Genesis 2:4 is the declaration of God to Adam of Genesis 1:1 to 2:3

Genesis 5:1 is Adams autobiography from 2: 5 through 5:1



Nothing at all says he wasn't making a parable of Genesis either.

Well nearly 6,000 years of human history and we have been duped by God! Praise to Darwin and the rest of hose unbeleivers for letting Gods people know what God was trying to say to us!!



Oh, let me guess... Darwin, right?

Uh nope --Asa Grey and those believers who caved in to secular non Christian thought and sought to marry the bible with nontheistic thought in modern times.





I'd say his editorship declined sharply in the passages after his death.

Of course, some evidence for your claim might be nice. Perhaps those liberal theologians know something you don't?

I would agree, and the liberasl theologians I read while verey intelligent offer just conjecture based on hypothesis. But thanks anyway.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

And a second grader is definitely a prescientific mindset.

what a neat statement.
fully false.
reference to the standard joke:

old lady is having trouble putting in her new VCR, tell her to call her grandson to come and do it.

i worked in a electronics shop, i can't even count how many times i did this.


the young in our society are FULLY technological in fact, they assume it at an extraordinarily deep level where adults who encounter the technology never do integrate to.

i have tons of examples just from my lifetime.

but what is interesting is the thought that our young are like "primitive" people. or more accurately pre-scientific people. when in fact they are the complete opposite.....

thanks for the deep hearty chuckle.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

No it makes him a playwrite. And it matters not what Leroux says or doesn't about a phantom.



loss of imagination.
inability to see the commonality between different things.

is this the result of reading the Bible "literally" or do you read the Bible this way because you lack imagination?

i found this analogy to Phantom extraordinarily fruitful and spent nearly an hour working on an essay to describe what i found...yet you dismiss it without even a thought.
curious.

 

[nolidad]

Willtor writes:

This notion of a scientifically accurate Genesis has only arisen along with science. You assume so readily that the ancient Israelites interpreted it as a literal historical account. It could not have been so. Nobody was misled. Nobody could have been misled. The only reason you're saying these things is because you were born in the 20th century, when myths are equated with untruths. It was not always so. You have to step into the ancient perspective in order to understand.

Well it was accurate before modern science and still is. And yes the ancient Israelites did interpret it as a literal historical account just as they did nOah and the Tower of Babel and the dispersal of the nations from the Tower! The Jews and the descendants of Adam did not know this as myth. You insert mythology only because the rest of the world which was unrtighteous corrupted the truth and birthed the ancient myths.

As for stepping in to the ancient perspective; before I tell you of my education in the "ancient perspectives" why don't you elucidate your steps in ancient perspective.

Seriously, read this thread (or the multitude of other, related threads in this sub-forum).

Ihave been on this thread since almost the o9nset of it so I think I have read it.


Random guy writes:

So that bit about the smallest seed grows to be the biggest plant is a lie by Jeus?

Well go look upi the greek and you will find out Jesus did not speak with forked tongue!

Shernren writes:

The Oak Ridge article itself says that there was contamination by known radioactive elements. Ask the friend who is wiser in the ways of physics what would happen if the lead had been chemically isolated from all the other isotopes to produce elemental pure lead.

We were not talking about whethter isolated lead is radioactive, but whether lead could emit radioactrivity and I showed you yes lead can emit radioactivity if still contaminated by radioactive particles. This was in response to a rebut in the website where they wrote about lead that emits radioactivity (the uproar several pages ago between radiogenic and radioactive). He spoke the truth, he just did not go into a multi page eloboration on how lead could emit radioactivity. Haven't you ever synopsied something and wrote the summation without going into elaboration??

Both! God used evolution to create man!

(Now I'm really messing with your brains. )

Can't do that!! I am the poster child for no brain no pain!!!!!

I see "futility" in the passage. You are reading "sin" and "death" in by your own whims and fancies. They are not equivalent. Jesus died, and yet He was not subject to futility. On the other hand if Adam had eaten of the tree of life, He would have lived forever, and yet be subject to sin all his eternal life. We can see that you can have death without futility and futility without death. So why do you assume that "futility" automatically means "death"?

You rebutted your self! Jesus was not subject to futility-- death and corruption! Corruption in the ancient mindset was part and parcel of death. That is why people balked at Jesus raising Lazarus on the fourth day! He became futile (the silver cord had been cut after three days in ancient tradition)

Btw. It is precisely because animals do not sin that the death of animals is entirely amoral.

Oh I agree it is amoral--death was imposed on creation as a result of mans fall. Masn was given authority over the planet (erets) and when man fell God cursed the planet and then we are told by Paul that all of creation was made subject to futility because of mans sin and God placing it inder futility until the sons of God are fully revealed.

Sigh. [URL="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html"]http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html[/URL]

I was waiting for this one to show up! Would you like me to go and past all the "possibley" "could be" "suggests" "might be" "not a direct ancesotr" et al. qoutes in these articles???? Would you like me to show where they directly infuse their own opinion without fact because of things declared thast cannot be possibly determined from fossils?

I especially love the transitional articel on archyoptryx. They sight many supposed links that were around after archy was on thescene!!! But thanks for the article and reminding me again of how they use interpretation more than YEC scientists do!

 

[The Lady Kate]

Well seeing as Dante did not write it as scripture it is irrelevant.

Conpletely relevent... if you're claiming that anything not literally true, but an allegory to express a spiritual truth, is the same as a lie... which you did.

UHH--during his life! Genesis 2:4 is the declaration of God to Adam of Genesis 1:1 to 2:3

UHH -- God speaks to Adam in Genesis 2:4, even though God doesn't create Adam until Genesis 2:7?

Well nearly 6,000 years of human history and we have been duped by God!

Not at all... you've been "duped" by your own pride, thinking that you had God all figured out.

Praise to Darwin and the rest of hose unbeleivers for letting Gods people know what God was trying to say to us!!

Well, someone had to point you in the right direction... for 6,000 years, you weren't getting it right.

Fortunately for all concerned, it's apparantly a nonessential issue, since God in His wisdom waited some time to correct our misunderstanding.

Now, I'm obviously not serious here, but is there any reason why God wouldn't use someone like Darwin as an instrument to help us reconcile His word with His creation?

If God, in His infinite wisdom, chose to use Darwin as His instument to show that the miracle of life on Earth is even moreinvolved and wonderous than what the writers of Genesis portrayed, then good for him... and Him.

(P.S. Darwin was not an unbeliever)

Uh nope --Asa Grey and those believers who caved in to secular non Christian thought and sought to marry the bible with nontheistic thought in modern times.

perhaps realizing that maybe that "nontheistic" thought was on to something?

I would agree, and the liberasl theologians I read while verey intelligent offer just conjecture based on hypothesis. But thanks anyway.

You're very welcome.

 

[nolidad]

Before I forget: On the concept of teaching theistic evolution (or the theory that God started and guided the process of evolution through the millions of years) LISTEN TO WHAT SCIENCE ITSELF SAYS ABOUT THE IDEA OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN (THEISTIC EVOLUTION):

The most prestigious scientific association, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, in its official journal, define intelligent design1 as "the idea that a higher intelligence played a role in creating life on Earth" (Bhattacharjee, 2005, p. 627). This theistic evolution view, Bhattacharjee con-cludes, "sends chills down the spines of most Kansas scientists and educators." He then argues that merely teaching about Intelligent Design in the schools "will make Kansas an undesirable location for high-tech companies, academics, and other knowledge-based workers." The reason is that University of Kansas biologist Steve Case, chairman of the Board's 26-member science standards writing committee, concludes we "need to turn K-12 education in Kansas into a powerhouse producer of science-literate students" and teaching "intelligent design would do the opposite" (2005, p. 627).

 

[random_guy]

Before I forget: On the concept of teaching theistic evolution (or the theory that God started and guided the process of evolution through the millions of years) LISTEN TO WHAT SCIENCE ITSELF SAYS ABOUT THE IDEA OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN (THEISTIC EVOLUTION):

The most prestigious scientific association, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, in its official journal, define intelligent design1 as "the idea that a higher intelligence played a role in creating life on Earth" (Bhattacharjee, 2005, p. 627). This theistic evolution view, Bhattacharjee con-cludes, "sends chills down the spines of most Kansas scientists and educators." He then argues that merely teaching about Intelligent Design in the schools "will make Kansas an undesirable location for high-tech companies, academics, and other knowledge-based workers." The reason is that University of Kansas biologist Steve Case, chairman of the Board's 26-member science standards writing committee, concludes we "need to turn K-12 education in Kansas into a powerhouse producer of science-literate students" and teaching "intelligent design would do the opposite" (2005, p. 627).

I don't know of any TEists that advocates including God into science by actually teaching it as such. TEists are not IDers. IDers believe that God is active in constructing all the parts of the animals, even the bad parts. TEists usually believe that God set up the rules and let it go. There may be intervention, but we don't declare where it is.

Again, don't lump TEists with IDers, and especially don't lump us with Creationists. I agree completely with the scientists' statement that we should not include supernatural into science.

Finally, is this a lie?

Mt 13:31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying,
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of
mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in
his field:
32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but
when it is grown, it is the greatest amoung
herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds
of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

 

[Willtor]

I don't know of any TEists that advocates including God into science by actually teaching it as such. TEists are not IDers. IDers believe that God is active in constructing all the parts of the animals, even the bad parts. TEists usually believe that God set up the rules and let it go. There may be intervention, but we don't declare where it is.

Again, don't lump TEists with IDers, and especially don't lump us with Creationists. I agree completely with the scientists' statement that we should not include supernatural into science.

Finally, is this a lie?

Well, Aquinas argued that nature didn't have autonomy as such. Nature is never isolated from God, but God moves it even as it moves itself.

 

[nolidad]

I don't know of any TEists that advocates including God into science by actually teaching it as such. TEists are not IDers. IDers believe that God is active in constructing all the parts of the animals, even the bad parts. TEists usually believe that God set up the rules and let it go. There may be intervention, but we don't declare where it is.

My bad. You beleive in a clockwork God then. To put it colloquially--He wound it up then took off to let things work themselves out and came back from time to time to see how things were doing and stirred the pot a little but you just aren't sure where??

Again, don't lump TEists with IDers, and especially don't lump us with Creationists. I agree completely with the scientists' statement that we should not include supernatural into science.

Do not worry, I wouldn't dare associate you with YEC folk.

So God is cool in philosophy but let us keep him out of the universe--that belongs for us to decide how it came about?? God is God and all powerful and omniscient and eternal and all that cool stuff- but we shouldn't l;ook for him or talk about Him in the realm of scientific research?? Wow that guy needs divine viagra!! He seems to be suffering from divine disfunction!! I like the God I know and discover HIm through His word-- He is in control!

Finally, is this a lie?

Matthew 13:31 is very true!!

Let us look why!

31Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
32Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.


First let us look at its context--which is key. Of all seeds sown in a garden for herbs and vegetables-- Yes the mustard seed is the tiniest. But let us look at t the word tiny:

μικρός, μικρότερος
mikros mikroteros
mik-ros', mik-rot'-er-os
Apparently a primary word, including the comparative (second form); small (in size, quantity, number or (figuratively) dignity): - least, less, little, small.
It is the smallest herb seed sown and grows to the largest of herb plants, reaching and even exceeding 15 feet. After harvesting the branches harden and birds nest there. So Jesus was precisely accurate in the use of a mustard seed and its descritpion in the parable.

Coupl;e of websites for you:

http://www.bibletexts.com/qa/qa081.htm

http://www.ccel.org/contrib/exec_outlines/pa/pa_05.htm

 

[Marshall Janzen]

My bad. You beleive in a clockwork God then. To put it colloquially--He wound it up then took off to let things work themselves out and came back from time to time to see how things were doing and stirred the pot a little but you just aren't sure where??

God created the clock and he sustains the clock and he will accomplish his purposes for the clock. As for coming back from time to time, in general TEs focus more on God's continuing activity in creation than YECs. Many YECs insist that creation stopped about 6,000 years ago, while TEs see it continuing into the present, since what nature does describes some of what God is doing.

 

[random_guy]

Well, Aquinas argued that nature didn't have autonomy as such. Nature is never isolated from God, but God moves it even as it moves itself.

I agree, but most TEists don't point out how God actively intervened. For example, TEists believed that the flagella evolved. What role God played it in, we don't know. However, IDers will point out that God somehow actively constructed the flagella piece by piece.

 

[Willtor]

I agree, but most TEists don't point out how God actively intervened. For example, TEists believed that the flagella evolved. What role God played it in, we don't know. However, IDers will point out that God somehow actively constructed the flagella piece by piece.

I think I agree, but it's always hard to tell in "off the cuff" discussions. Certainly, a generic TE doesn't point out any point of contact in particular. But TE's after the Aquinas sort point to God in every natural process at any level as its active sustainer and mover. It rules out any God-of-the-gaps argument because it argues specifically that there is no point (except for the miraculous) in which anything occurs that stands apart from the laws of nature. Thus, in exploring natural law, whatever it may be, God's active handiwork is further revealed, not pushed back.

The ancients saw the gods/God in all of the rain, and in every sunrise. It wasn't because they didn't see things happening consistently. It was because the gods/God never left. YECs and IDists, by my understanding, do not share this view. As far as I can tell, they only see Him at the fringes of what is known to them. Knowing the Word (through whom the world was created, and in whom the world is sustained) brings this transcendent God to immanence, and it becomes clear that there is no need to fight science. There is no conflict. The only conflict is between a metaphysical god who operates at the fringes of understanding and the continued expansion of understanding.

So, again, I think I agree. I just want to be precise.

 

[Marshall Janzen]

I agree, but most TEists don't point out how God actively intervened.

I think I agree, but it's always hard to tell in "off the cuff" discussions. Certainly, a generic TE doesn't point out any point of contact in particular.

Just another small clarification, in case this is misunderstood. I would say any particular point of contact in nature. I'd point to the incarnation as a definite point of contact and active intervention, for instance. The emergence of tails on bacteria? Not so certain.

 

[Willtor]

Just another small clarification, in case this is misunderstood. I would say any particular point of contact in nature. I'd point to the incarnation as a definite point of contact and active intervention, for instance. The emergence of tails on bacteria? Not so certain.

When I said generic TE, this wasn't limited to Christians. I should have been more specific. Yeah, the Incarnation of Christ is a (the?) prime example of contact. But a Deist TE might suspect that the "hand of God" in nature is somewhere beyond human capacity to uncover. It is not epistemologically visible. Traditional interpretation of Scripture, however, indicates that God is present in all natural activity.

In this sense, although we could never point at God's actions in the emergence of tails on bacteria, we are aware that He is the mover, and we still hold that nature is almost certainly a seamless whole. Methodological naturalism is the obvious choice of tools when one doesn't expect to find a "seam" in natural processes. Nature evolved tails on bacteria even as God did.

 

[shernren]

If God said He was spinning a yarn then fine but there is nothing at all within Scripture that says God was just making a parable of the first 2 chapters of Genesis to get a message across. This concept didn't occur until the late 1800's when sophists thought they knew better than God.

Well once again Basil and Augustine are entitled to their opinions--but their opinons are not the Wor dof God-they are their opinions. And allegorism of Genesis 1, I never said that was a modern sophist lie-- I specifically said the attempted marriage of atheistic evolutoin with Christianity is a modern sophis lie with Asa Grey as the first very outspoken proponent.

Nope, you said parabolic reading of Genesis 1 and 2 only started in the 1800s. As I have shown parabolic reading of Genesis 1 and 2 started long before then, long before there was "evolution" as any motive, and within the minds of fully Christian thinkers.

I could spend 2 pages philosophically rip[ping apart your argument as nonsensical, but top what point? As for the post enlightened paradigm? Does that mean you are an eastener who immigrated here to the West? Does that mean that all western beleivers misunderstand when God says He creatred everything from nothing in 6 24 hours days- but He knew that that was not the truth we misunderstand that that is not a lie??

Go on. Two pages? If my argument is as unsound as you claim it is it shouldn't even need that long.

Actually, I am an easterner, a Chinese to be precise, who lives in Malaysia. Folklore and fables are very powerful communicative tools in my culture and I can fully appreciate the deep and powerful level of truth Genesis 1 and 2 would have communicated even as a fable. Stop, look, listen, learn.

And not all western believers are stuck with a modernist postEnlightenment understanding of the Bible, thank God.

If I can I will see if I can go to the Christian Academy that is a ministry of my church and I will have a second grader post on this web site a nonscientific language summation of how God di dnot have to say something that is diamtetrically opposite of evolution (for your talk origin buddies freely admit that) and write how God could have declared Himself ruler of the universe and tell Adam the basic prescientific understanding of long ages and slow steady change over long ages to produce the different varieties of life on earth. I hope you are intelligent enough to see that evolution and biblical creation are opposite ends of the origin spectrum!

I fully expect an inclusion of the non-locality of the Big Bang, the Copernican hypothesis, the symmetry-breaking of the GUTforce, the inflation theories, nucleosynthesis, the CMB, galaxies, stars complete with fusion processes, Hubble's Law, redshift, the Cambrian explosion, the first vertebrates, the amphibian-landreptile transition, the dinosaur-bird transition, the reptile-mammal transition, and the ape-man transition, supernatural or not. And you will have to explain all of that to someone who believes that the sun goes around the earth, that the stars are holes in a hard elevated firmament, and who has never experienced electricity and electronics.

Eight-year-old? Seriously. Even I can't fulfill all my criteria here.

You rebutted your self! Jesus was not subject to futility-- death and corruption! Corruption in the ancient mindset was part and parcel of death. That is why people balked at Jesus raising Lazarus on the fourth day! He became futile (the silver cord had been cut after three days in ancient tradition)

Sorry, different time. Guess what "futility" meant in contemporary literature.

For the creation was subjected to futility (mataiotetis), not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope...
(Romans 8:20 ESV)

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility (mataiotetis) of their minds.
(Ephesians 4:17 ESV)

For, speaking loud boasts of folly (mataiotetos), they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.
(2 Peter 2:18 ESV)

Funny, I don't see anything to do with death here in "futility". Sin, maybe. Death? Are foolish minds "dead", and how does that correspond to bodies being "dead" as well? The futility is a futility of mind. The meaning is clear enough: creation was mandated to be under the supervision and stewardship of man as God's image, but when man fell the supervision and stewardship remained so that creation instead of being supervised and stewarded by divine wisdom was now ... brought subject to men's futile minds. We can see that coming to pass in the ecological destruction man has been wreaking on creation from the beginning of civilization until now.

I was waiting for this one to show up! Would you like me to go and past all the "possibley" "could be" "suggests" "might be" "not a direct ancesotr" et al. qoutes in these articles???? Would you like me to show where they directly infuse their own opinion without fact because of things declared thast cannot be possibly determined from fossils?

I especially love the transitional articel on archyoptryx. They sight many supposed links that were around after archy was on thescene!!! But thanks for the article and reminding me again of how they use interpretation more than YEC scientists do!

And YEC articles aren't full of escape clauses either? By your standard of evidential demand, the only thing that should satisfy critics is if you can find them a fossil man with a rib missing.

Before I forget: On the concept of teaching theistic evolution (or the theory that God started and guided the process of evolution through the millions of years) LISTEN TO WHAT SCIENCE ITSELF SAYS ABOUT THE IDEA OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN (THEISTIC EVOLUTION):

Well, intelligent design is NOT theistic evolution and it is NOT the idea that God guided evolution, but that an intelligent designer bypassed evolution altogether. Stop, listen, look, learn.

My bad. You beleive in a clockwork God then. To put it colloquially--He wound it up then took off to let things work themselves out and came back from time to time to see how things were doing and stirred the pot a little but you just aren't sure where??

Actually, that's YECism. TEism believes that God can work through science. Most YECism believes that God can't work through science but whenever He intervenes He has to go supernatural and bust up the rules of science. Guess which theory gives God "divine dysfunction", as you so irreverently put it.

I agree, but most TEists don't point out how God actively intervened. For example, TEists believed that the flagella evolved. What role God played it in, we don't know. However, IDers will point out that God somehow actively constructed the flagella piece by piece.

Why does God have to break laws to intervene? If God wants something done by natural means, what stops Him from using the laws of nature to achieve what He wants? And can you take a particular natural process, draw a line in the sand around it and say "Gee, God wasn't here"?

 

[Marshall Janzen]

When I said generic TE, this wasn't limited to Christians.

Of course. I should have noticed that.

Methodological naturalism is the obvious choice of tools when one doesn't expect to find a "seam" in natural processes.

Indeed.