Some Reasons I Don't Believe in Evolution

[brinny]

Originally Posted by brinny
And this was so before the fall? How would one test it or what would one compare it to? Our only basis for testing is what is present now.

To test it, one has first to test there was a Fall.

How might one do so? How does one test dimensions? Are there some things you would give examples of testing, those things that cannot be explained, that are inexplicable? ARE there inexplicable things beyond our understanding? CAN we understand ALL things? Is it possible? Are we finite? What does it mean to be infinite? Is there such a thing (to be infinite)?

 

[brinny]

Originally Posted by brinny
And this was so before the fall? How would one test it or what would one compare it to? Our only basis for testing is what is present now.

I don't believe in a fall. But you do. So if you believe Adam and Eve were humans, they would have needed Vitamin B12. Not to mention the fact that every ecosystem known on this planet requires bacteria (they decompose, after all).

If your theology insists that bacteria were not there before the fall, you have to believe some increasingly absurd things. Maybe God personally supplied the B12? Well, then he must have envisioned that the fall was going to happen and bacteria were magically going to appear. Or before the fall could humans synthesize B12? Well, why not now? Did God personally shut down that gene so we'd be reliant on bacterial byproducts? Plants also need B12, so did he do something similar for them? Or maybe they didn't need B12? So why do we need it now? People with B12 deficiencies in diseases such as Pernicious Anemia have a terrible time with it, but if humans used to not need B12 before the fall, why do we need it now? God apparently likes to micro-manage his punishments on the molecular level.

If you also believe there was no such thing as death before the fall, wow, well, that has even more problems.

My point is this -- the people who wrote Genesis and the rest of the Bible were not as informed about the nature of biology and reality for the most part. They didn't know what bacteria are. They didn't know what cells are. Maybe the moral of the Garden story is more important than insisting that it actually happened like that.

If there WAS a time before the fall, there was no decay. In that present state there was no need for anything to balance anything else. It was perfect, and all worked perfectly. No decay, no disease, no death. The question then becomes, why would any bacteria be necessary?

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

If there WAS a time before the fall, there was no decay. In that present state there was no need for anything to balance anything else. It was perfect, and all worked perfectly. No decay, no disease, no death. The question then becomes, why would any bacteria be necessary?

I'm sorry, but this is a very ignorant idea. Death and decay are 100% necessary and required for living things.

We are organisms that cannot produce our own energy from sunlight, thus we require plants to convert the sun's energy into compounds that we can break down to get our own energy. We piggy-back on plants and need them. Plants also piggy-back on bacteria, as we do as well.

Cellular death is essential to our survival. Here are some basic examples:

• The way we excrete iron is by exfoliating the cells in our gut lining. These cells die with excess iron so the body does not become iron overloaded (which leads to liver and heart failure).
• In embryonic development, the process of cellular apoptosis (programmed cell death) is utilized in forming many organs, and that is why we aren't born with webbed fingers.
• Apoptosis checks unnecessary cell growth. If you don't have apoptosis, you will develop cancer because DNA mutations occur at random, and apoptosis helps combat this.

We do need bacteria for more than just Vitamin B12. Here are more reasons:

• Vitamin K is not produced by humans, and our gut flora (bacteria) makes it for us. Our coagulation system absolutely requires Vitamin K for the synthesis of factors 2, 7, 9, 10, C, and S. Hard to see how you would be able to live if you were bleeding into every joint and muscle in our body because you couldn't form blood clots.
• Bacteria in the gut break down a lot of complex polysaccharides that our enzymes cannot, freeing metabolites for us to absorb that we otherwise couldn't.
• Bacteria detoxify micronutrient carcinogens that are ingested in the everyday diet.
• Small molecules secreted by bacteria help in the absorption of cations necessary for life.
• The interplay between bacteria and the immune system is extremely complex and could fill the dissertations of hundreds of PhD students.

The moral of the story is this: when we actually look at the biochemistry, genetics, and physiology of human life it becomes abundantly clear that we are fine-tuned for the environment that we live in. This is, of course, because we evolved in this environment. We depend heavily on bacteria, plants, and other animals in this world because we are part of this world and nothing else.

Frankly, I find your argument about the Fall to be rather infantile and ignorant. You clearly don't know anything about human biology, and seek to make your theology trump it.

 

[brinny]

I'm sorry, but this is a very ignorant idea. Death and decay are 100% necessary and required for living things.

We are organisms that cannot produce our own energy from sunlight, thus we require plants to convert the sun's energy into compounds that we can break down to get our own energy. We piggy-back on plants and need them. Plants also piggy-back on bacteria, as we do as well.

Cellular death is essential to our survival. Here are some basic examples:

• The way we excrete iron is by exfoliating the cells in our gut lining. These cells die with excess iron so the body does not become iron overloaded (which leads to liver and heart failure).
• In embryonic development, the process of cellular apoptosis (programmed cell death) is utilized in forming many organs, and that is why we aren't born with webbed fingers.
• Apoptosis checks unnecessary cell growth. If you don't have apoptosis, you will develop cancer because DNA mutations occur at random, and apoptosis helps combat this.

We do need bacteria for more than just Vitamin B12. Here are more reasons:

• Vitamin K is not produced by humans, and our gut flora (bacteria) makes it for us. Our coagulation system absolutely requires Vitamin K for the synthesis of factors 2, 7, 9, 10, C, and S. Hard to see how you would be able to live if you were bleeding into every joint and muscle in our body because you couldn't form blood clots.
• Bacteria in the gut break down a lot of complex polysaccharides that our enzymes cannot, freeing metabolites for us to absorb that we otherwise couldn't.
• Bacteria detoxify micronutrient carcinogens that are ingested in the everyday diet.
• Small molecules secreted by bacteria help in the absorption of cations necessary for life.
• The interplay between bacteria and the immune system is extremely complex and could fill the dissertations of hundreds of PhD students.

The moral of the story is this: when we actually look at the biochemistry, genetics, and physiology of human life it becomes abundantly clear that we are fine-tuned for the environment that we live in. This is, of course, because we evolved in this environment. We depend heavily on bacteria, plants, and other animals in this world because we are part of this world and nothing else.

Frankly, I find your argument about the Fall to be rather infantile and ignorant. You clearly don't know anything about human biology, and seek to make your theology trump it.

You are right. It's not complicated at all. If there was such a thing as "before the fall", none of what you can test, observe in this present state of decay, disease, and death, applies to a state of perfection.

 

[AV1611VET]

I'm sorry, but this is a very ignorant idea. Death and decay are 100% necessary and required for living things.

Sounds like a judgement from God.

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

You say "necessary", but God says "surely".

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

Sounds like a judgement from God.

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

You say "necessary", but God says "surely".

The idea that we must consume to survive has been around way before your scriptures were penned.

Now if your scriptures said "microscopic creatures smaller than you can see live in your colon usually harmoniously, helping you digest food and making nutrients for you, but they can sometimes cause disease" I'd be far more impressed. Took the human race a loooong time to formulate the germ theory of disease, and we'd have been better off with it the earlier we'd had it.

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

You are right. It's not complicated at all. If there was such a thing as "before the fall", none of what you can test, observe in this present state of decay, disease, and death, applies to a state of perfection.

I'm saying that the whole notion of a "state of perfection" before "the Fall" runs counter to everything we know about our own existence and is a rather ignorant idea that was made up by people who don't know how reality actually works.

No Christian that I know who actually has had a decent education would ever put forth the idea that there was no death or decay before "the Fall". Most of them consider the idea of the Fall allegorical anyway.

 

[brinny]

Originally Posted by brinny
You are right. It's not complicated at all. If there was such a thing as "before the fall", none of what you can test, observe in this present state of decay, disease, and death, applies to a state of perfection.

I'm saying that the whole notion of a "state of perfection" before "the Fall" runs counter to everything we know about our own existence and is a rather ignorant idea that was made up by people who don't know how reality actually works.

No Christian that I know who actually has had a decent education would ever put forth the idea that there was no death or decay before "the Fall". Most of them consider the idea of the Fall allegorical anyway.

A "Christian's" education in the gifts of wisdom and discernment are from God, imparted by the Holy Spirit. Education by man is limited. It does not answer all questions, for it is limited, finite, based on this present dimension, this present state. "Christians" are flawed, prone to be as human as anyone else. God is not flawed. It is HE a Christian should be looking to, not man. God has the bigger, infinately larger picture. Man does not. Man lives and dies. *Poof* he is gone. God does not die. He is not gone. It's simple, really. Man is flawed, and his studies, and tests, research, observations are limited, and over time crumble, get corrected because they were flawed, and disappear with man, who is here one day and gone the next.

 

[Huram Abi]

?
Deshe = "the FIRST sprouts of life" on the planet earth?"

Please, stop claiming that deshe means the first life. Your concordance does not say "of life." This is another of your additions that you have decided to include of your own liberty.

Deshe= "First sprouts of the land"

 

[AV1611VET]

The idea that we must consume to survive has been around way before your scriptures were penned.

But not before the Fall.

Now if your scriptures said "microscopic creatures smaller than you can see live in your colon usually harmoniously, helping you digest food and making nutrients for you, but they can sometimes cause disease" I'd be far more impressed.

You'd be impressed alright. You'd be whining that it was inserted after-the-fact, retconned, or an anachronism, or too vague to be useful, or whatever you guys do concerning the prophecies about the Jews returning to the Promised Land.

Took the human race a loooong time to formulate the germ theory of disease, and we'd have been better off with it the earlier we'd had it.

Is that why Israel burned their utensils in fire and scrapped their walls when leprosy was involved?

 

[AV1611VET]

A "Christian's" education in the gifts of wisdom and discernment are from God, imparted by the Holy Spirit. Education by man is limited.

Yup --

Another one of the spiritual gifts is knowledge; but if scientists prefer to work it out on their own, then the Holy Spirit won't do His work to full potential.

He will be "quenched".

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

A "Christian's" education in the gifts of wisdom and discernment are from God, imparted by the Holy Spirit. Education by man is limited. It does not answer all questions, for it is limited, finite, based on this present dimension, this present state. "Christians" are flawed, prone to be as human as anyone else. God is not flawed. It is HE a Christian should be looking to, not man. God has the bigger, infinately larger picture. Man does not. Man lives and dies. *Poof* he is gone. God does not die. He is not gone. It's simple, really. Man is flawed, and his studies, and tests, research, observations are limited, and over time crumble, get corrected because they were flawed, and disappear with man, who is here one day and gone the next.

If that's all you got, so be it. At least the scientific method improves quality of life and life expectancy

You'd be impressed alright. You'd be whining that it was inserted after-the-fact, retconned, or an anachronism, or too vague to be useful, or whatever you guys do concerning the prophecies about the Jews returning to the Promised Land.

Considering the relative importance of science, mathematics, and technology compared to the "prophecies" in the Bible, I'd say God could have been more wise in his revelations if he actually wanted to help us or inspire the belief of the more skeptical.

Is that why Israel burned their utensils in fire and scrapped their walls when leprosy was involved?

Not sure if serious.

Leprosy is caused by a bacterium, and the Israelites did not know this else they wouldn't have spoken incantations or spread rabbit blood on their walls as their defense against it. Leprosy does not contaminate walls either or stay in the environment long, so scrapping your walls is a dumb idea.

If God was worried about leprosy infecting his people, he could have put instructions on how to make sulfa drugs in the Bible. They're pretty easy to make.

 

[Nostromo]

You'd be impressed alright. You'd be whining that it was inserted after-the-fact, retconned, or an anachronism, or too vague to be useful, or whatever you guys do concerning the prophecies about the Jews returning to the Promised Land.

Go AV! You tell him his opinion.

Is that why Israel burned their utensils in fire and scrapped their walls when leprosy was involved?

Well, is it?

 

[Zaius137]

And evolution did not invent eternal life, did it?

Leprosy was a judgment against man for his sin. God did cause death to enter his creation because of man’s disobedience, which no man will be allowed to live for eternity in his sin. Will God remove the curse of death? No law or ritual will save a man or cleanse him. This marvelous creation is God’s so is the atonement; can you live forever? Yes on his terms not man’s; accept his atonement for sin “Jesus Christ”. Go ahead and say that God should have given us medicine instead of forgiveness… but we shall surly still die because we cannot live for eternity in our sin… God’s discussion not ours.

 

[Greg1234]

Louis Pasteur Vs Antoine Béchamp and The Germ Theory of Disease Causation - 1 - La Leva di Archimede (ENG)

 

[Jazer]

At least the scientific method improves quality of life and life expectancy

They are making progress, they are not killing people off nearly as fast as they use to. If WW3 comes around they may make up for it though.

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

And evolution did not invent eternal life, did it?

Leprosy was a judgment against man for his sin. God did cause death to enter his creation because of man’s disobedience, which no man will be allowed to live for eternity in his sin. Will God remove the curse of death? No law or ritual will save a man or cleanse him. This marvelous creation is God’s so is the atonement; can you live forever? Yes on his terms not man’s; accept his atonement for sin “Jesus Christ”. Go ahead and say that God should have given us medicine instead of forgiveness… but we shall surly still die because we cannot live for eternity in our sin… God’s discussion not ours.

Funny how God's judgement can be defeated with some rifampin and dapsone

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

They are making progress, they are not killing people off nearly as fast as they use to. If WW3 comes around they may make up for it though.

Science and technology are the only reasons you've lived to 59.

 

[Greg1234]

Science and technology are the only reasons you've lived to 59.

Just so you know, the life expectancy has not risen. http://unlocked-wordhoard.blogspot.com/2009/03/medieval-life-expectancy.html

 

[Greg1234]

Funny how God's judgement can be defeated with some rifampin and dapsone

Due to the patient and God. Or else you'd be playing Whac-A-Mole with a placebo.