The Sabbath vs Atheism's doctrine on orgins found in Evolution

[BobRyan]

Darwin, Huxley, Dawkins and many others have affirmed that the doctrine on origins found in belief in evolution - is far better suited to Atheism than the Bible statement on creation.

No question that we can see how they might have that POV strongly confirmed.

It is not too surprising that a great many atheist evolutionists have strong antagonism against the POV held by the Bible believing Christian, who expresses full acceptance of the Genesis historic account of creation.

What is more - full acceptance of the Sabbath doctrine requires full acceptance of Genesis as a real historic account.
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And we can easily see how an atheist evolutionist like Colin Patterson whose atheism predisposes him to be fully opposed to the Bible believing Christian's affirmation of creation in Genesis, would not want anything he says on the subject to be "useful" to the competing doctrine on origins found in the Bible.

But such scientists are sometimes open/objective enough to state what they see as defects/flaws/gaps in their own doctrine on origins and so will at times make appeals to fellow evolutionists about admitting to the gaps and correcting or closing the gaps.

We can all imagine how such frank statements by Patterson (for example) would be very useful to a POV not at all chained to the atheist world-view. Every time atheists try to condemn those who hold to the Bible believing Christians POV that accepts Genesis as a historic account, they often do so as if their own doctrine on origins had no glaring flaws - so large that even their own atheist evolutionists admit to them.

What would happen then if we should remind them of the facts in such cases?

Well received?

=========================
What do you think?

1. Would you "expect" an atheist evolutionist to have antagonism against the Bible's Creationist statement on origins and any POV that affirms it?
2 Would you "expect" an atheist evolutionist - scientist to ever make an honest statement about any gaps he/she finds in the stories promoting evolution?
3. If they did openly critique their own belief in evolution (as some have done) - would you expect them to "affirm" any Bible Believing Christian using those statements as "proof" that evolution has flaws?
4. Are those holding to these opposing points of view - "expected to object" in some fashion to the opposing POV being promoted, affirmed, supported when that support appears to come from the opposing side?

If POV based objection is "expected" -- should it ever surprise us?

 

[BobRyan]

Suppose you were to find out that an atheist who admitted to gaps in evolution - was not in favor of creationists noticing that statement and using it to prove that not all atheists see evolution as a "fully solved" solution with no gaps in it?

Would that surprise you even a little bit? Or is it instead - a much-expected reaction?

Here is one example of someone "admitting" to a serious flaw - a defect that is at the very core of the salient point in the argument for belief in evolution.

They used that "evidence" to construct a false ancestry sequence for the horse fossil series still on display at the Smithsonian for which they now publically admit to being an ancestry sequence "that never happened in nature".

That which "never happened in nature" is neither history nor science fact.. as it turns out.

Maybe you should remember that .




to put this as gently as I can

No air tight claim for transitional forms.
==========================

Collin Patterson - Paleontologist British Museum of Natural history
On April 10, 1979, Patterson replied to the author (Sunderland) in a most candid letter as follows:

April 10, 1979 Letter from Colin Patterson to Sunderland

“ I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.

You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?

I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it.

Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.

You say that I should at least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived. I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.[The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. So, much as I should like to oblige you by jumping to the defence of gradualism, and fleshing out the transitions between the major types of animals and plants, I find myself a bit short of the intellectual justification necessary for the job “

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so much for 160 years of an air tight argument.
.

 

[BobRyan]

Some will say that there exist theistic evolutionists who embrace the half way position between the two groups in the form of Intelligent Design ... and that they too might also oppose the Sabbath POV on Genesis as a trusted historic account.

Granted - that is also a 3rd possibility.

But this conversation begins with the proposition of an evolutionist admitting to flaws in their own belief in evolution --

for example: ==========================

Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Palaeontologist; British Museum of Natural History, London, Discussion at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, 5 November, 1981

full text of his lecture/talk is in this PDF -
https://origins.swau.edu/temp/classes/patterson.pdf

Page 4 has the "evolution Conveys no knowledge" statement

Page 6 - "anti-theory" and "Anti-knowledge" statements

Page 4 -
"So I think many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years if you had thought about it at all, you've experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge, to evolution as faith. I know that's true of me and I think it's true of good many of you in here."

==============================

Colin Patterson (Senior paleontologist at the British Natural History Museum and author of the Museum’s general text on evolution) in a talk given at the American Museum of Natural History 1981

--------------------- Patterson said -

“Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing…that is true?

I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural history and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said “I know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school”



"...I'm speaking on two subjects, evolution and creationism, and I believe it's true to say that I know nothing whatever about either...One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, let's call it non-evolutionary , was last year I had a sudden realization.

"For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. "That was quite a shock that one could be misled for so long...

It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is remarkably shallow. We know it ought not to be taught in high school, and perhaps that's all we know about it...

about eighteen months ago...I woke up and I realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolution as revealed truth in some way."

 

[Gary K]

Darwin, Huxley, Dawkins and many others have affirmed that the doctrine on origins found in belief in evolution - is far better suited to Atheism than the Bible statement on creation.

No question that we can see how they might have that POV strongly confirmed.

It is not too surprising that a great many atheist evolutionists have strong antagonism against the POV held by the Bible believing Christian, who expresses full acceptance of the Genesis historic account of creation.

What is more - full acceptance of the Sabbath doctrine requires full acceptance of Genesis as a real historic account.
=====================================

And we can easily see how an atheist evolutionist like Colin Patterson whose atheism predisposes him to be fully opposed to the Bible believing Christian's affirmation of creation in Genesis, would not want anything he says on the subject to be "useful" to the competing doctrine on origins found in the Bible.

But such scientists are sometimes open/objective enough to state what they see as defects/flaws/gaps in their own doctrine on origins and so will at times make appeals to fellow evolutionists about admitting to the gaps and correcting or closing the gaps.

We can all imagine how such frank statements by Patterson (for example) would be very useful to a POV not at all chained to the atheist world-view. Every time atheists try to condemn those who hold to the Bible believing Christians POV that accepts Genesis as a historic account, they often do so as if their own doctrine on origins had no glaring flaws - so large that even their own atheist evolutionists admit to them.

What would happen then if we should remind them of the facts in such cases?

Well received?

What do you think?

I think it is pretty much impossible for an evolutionist and a Christian to have a meaningful conversation about evolution. And there is a perfectly logical explanation for this. A person who believes in evolution has a basic world view that denies the existence of the supernatural in his core assumptions about life. A Christian bases his core assumptions about life on the existence of the supernatural and that it is the basis for his reality.

The opposite assumptions about life and the universe therefore lead each us to the opposite interpretation of the evidence. With such deep seated differences how can any real communication happen? Nothing in my world view leads me to believe in evolution and nothing in the evolutionist's world view leads him to see anything from the supernatural point of view. Our core assumptions about life are so different that only the Holy Spirit can prepare the mind of an evolutionist to accept the creation story. It's like Paul said, spiritual things are spiritually discerned and nothing I can say can change the other person's mind. It's the job of the Holy Spirit to change his mind so that he is willing to listen because he is listening to the Holy Spirit. Argumentation is therefore meaningless because the different world views makes the evidence out there interpreted to exactly opposite conclusions by both sides.

I've read so many of these debates that end up in accomplishing nothing that I don't see much ever coming from them. I think the only thing that can reach the other side, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, is personal testimony about how God has changed our lives for that is impossible to debate. Our experience can be denied, but it cannot be debated.

The theistic evolutionist falls into the trap of trying to meld two polar opposite world views into a single point of view, but two mutually exclusive ideas cannot be successfully melded into a coherent point of view. One point of view or the other must be given up, and, sadly, the theistic evolutionist surrenders the spiritual point of view.

 

[BobRyan]

I think it is pretty much impossible for an evolutionist and a Christian to have a meaningful conversation about evolution. And there is a perfectly logical explanation for this. A person who believes in evolution has a basic world view that denies the existence of the supernatural in his core assumptions about life.

I agree that the difficulties there are pretty large when talking about that topic. But remember a very large percent of Christian denomination are pro-evolution.

 

[Gary K]

I agree that the difficulties there are pretty large when talking about that topic. But remember a very large percent of Christian denomination are pro-evolution.

In response to that I would recommend Ellen White's comments in SDA Bible Commentaries on Genesis 6 beginning at the last paragraph on verse 5 and the comments on verse 11. Also page 95 from Patriarchs and Prophets. I think after you read that you'll understand my point of view.

I'd also point out what Paul had to say about those who once knew the truth and then turned away from it to accept fables.

Edit: I forgot to add the comments on verses 12 and 13 from Genesis 6.

 

[Gary K]

I agree that the difficulties there are pretty large when talking about that topic. But remember a very large percent of Christian denomination are pro-evolution.

Just one more point on theistic evolutionists and the so-called Christian evolutionists. Both have rejected the Christian world view for they have accepted the materialistic vision of life and the universe that denies the supernatural. Once a person does that they soon stop believing in all miracles and that God can, and is longing to, recreate them back into His image. That causes them to toss out the law of God for without the miracle of the new birth no one can keep the law of God and they deny the ability of God's word to speak life into existence.

 

[BobRyan]

In response to that I would recommend Ellen White's comments in SDA Bible Commentaries on Genesis 6 beginning at the last paragraph on verse 5 and the comments on verse 11. Also page 95 from Patriarchs and Prophets. I think after you read that you'll understand my point of view.

I'd also point out what Paul had to say about those who once knew the truth and then turned away from it to accept fables.

Edit: I forgot to add the comments on verses 12 and 13 from Genesis 6.

This is in regard to your statement that an evolutionist and a christian cannot have a meaningful conversation - I was just pointing out that a lot of Christians today consider themselves evolutionists.

The Sabbath does not allow for evolution "by definition" -- so it is not reasonable for Seventh-day Adventists or any other group that truly keeps the Sabbath to be an evolutionist because without a real 7 day week - there is no 7 day week to memorialize.

 

[BobRyan]

There is something called "saving face" and it is possible that an evolutionist confronted with those statements I listed - might respond like this --

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from:
Colin Patterson Revisits His Famous Question about Evolution. Origins & Design 17:1. Nelson, Paul A.

1993 statements of Patterson trying smooth over his bombshell 1979 statement to Sunderland and 1981 statements made to fellow scientists about the lack of good science in evolution.

------------------
"But despite the inaccuracies, Patterson's central question about evolution came through unmistakably:

But one sentence from the talk was accurately reproduced, and was perhaps quoted more than any other. The sentence was a rhetorical question; I quote it from a creationist source (Johnson 1991, p.10): 'Can you tell me anything about evolution, any one thing that is true?'3

The question still matters, Patterson argues, because evolution is still assumed to be the primary determinant of phylogenetic reasoning"
...
"At first, he notes, he thought he had found answers to his own question:

In 1981, I knew of no sensible answer to the question, but in the ensuing decade I came to believe that there were two things I knew about evolution. First, that transitions [purines, adenine (A) and guanine (G), mutating to purines, e.g., A --> G; or pyrimidines, cytosine (C) and thymine (T), mutating to pyrimidines, e.g., T --> C] are more frequently fixed than transversions [where a purine mutates to a pyrimidine, or vice versa] and second, that at the level of DNA, the great majority of substitutions take place despite natural selection rather than because of it. 4

However, as Patterson continues, he came to doubt whether in seeing these patterns he was grasping the process of evolution:

...do transition bias and neutral substitution represent knowledge about evolution, or something else? Further, and more generally, why should I, a morphologist, claim to know something about molecular evolution but nothing of morphological evolution? 5

We must distinguish between patterns to be explained, Patterson urges, and the process theories"
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No doubt the POV of one affirming evolution needs to in some way discredit the POV of any creationist who finds the bombshell statements of Patterson to be "instructive" in affirming/confirming weak points in the storyline of evolution.

But isn't that ability to "notice those weaknesses" only enhanced rather than diminished by one who accepts the Bible Sabbath POV on creation?