Why do Christians have trouble with accepting Evolution?

BobRyan said:

So here is the question - have you seen even ONE T.E. posting here with concern for anything faced by that poor T.E. who started his own thread in that example -- other than much-predicted atheist POV "trash the Bible and add more praise for evolutionism"???

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No.

Extraneous said:

When i speak of separation, i dont mean that we dont love unbelievers, i just mean that we separate ourselves from things that divide us believers.

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I agree, if we immerse ourselves in the contentions and confusion of the world, we risk being overcome by it and losing our focus on Christ and His Righteousness. Stay strong in faith.

Convincing evolutionists of the folly of their theory does not bring them to Christ, which should be our goal. I know it may be a step towards that goal but we need to know when to step out of the way and allow the Spirit to do His work on men's hearts.

EastCoastRemnant said:

I agree, if we immerse ourselves in the contentions and confusion of the world, we risk being overcome by it and losing our focus on Christ and His Righteousness. Stay strong in faith.

Convincing evolutionists of the folly of their theory does not bring them to Christ, which should be our goal. I know it may be a step towards that goal but we need to know when to step out of the way and allow the Spirit to do His work on men's hearts.

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I agree. I dont think however that we can convince people that the Gospel is true. I believe that God must draw them into truth. That however does require preaching the Word.

Hieronymus said:

Yes, but it seems they prefer to be deceived, or at least, they choose to subscribe to ear tickling teachings.Don't forget the big monopolistic media, the provide the platform to spread ideas.

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John 3 "men loved darkness rather than light" -- this is a long standing issue.

But as the Bible says, less and less people even want to hear it...
This hurts me.
Weŕe not gonna win this.

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There is another way to view it - every time even ONE T.E. sees the hogshead, and atheist conclusion for the argument for "believing in" evolutionism - they risk be 'disabused' of their faith in evolutionism and "we win".

Every time a non-Evol Christian who would otherwise be leaning toward evolutionism - reads the comparison and chooses the Gospel over faith in evolutionism -- "we win". One soul at a time. one objective unbiased reader at a time.

The fact that the posters themselves who have bought the hook-line-and-sinker will not allow themselves to see the starkly contrasted case - is not too surprising. The question is ... how best to present "the contrast" for those readers who are not so determined to reject the truth.

Extraneous said:

I agree. I dont think however that we can convince people that the Gospel is true. I believe that God must draw them into truth. That however does require preaching the Word.

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On a totally atheist - or mostly-atheist board - you would have that problem. But T.E.'s are stuck-in-the-middle because most of them HAVE to claim to accept the Gospel! They are utterly dismayed at things that hogshead claims and tend to be disabused when they see atheist views and their own views - so fully in line... so fully opposed to the Bible.

BobRyan said:

No catholic priest first proposed "the big bang" rather it was Fred Hoyle's Steady State theory opponents of the "Big Bang" that proposed that term -- because they thought it the theory sounded too much like Genesis 1:1 and they never wanted to miss the opportunity to denegrade the Bible at the same time they were opposing the "expanding universe" model for the cosmology.

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I wasn't talking about the TERM "Big Bang", I explicitly said "postulated the theory".

Now, your post shows me you're not without knowledge in this area, so why do you insist on using strawman tactics that I am quite sure you know are built on falsehood?

EastCoastRemnant said:

You'll have your evidence soon enough...

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Oh goody! Another prediction! I wonder if you can keep up your flawless record?

Extraneous said:

I let scientific minds argue science, but i will cite their opinions sometimes.

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Science actually disproves evolution.

The Miller-Urey experiment showed that even under perfectly controlled conditions which never existed in the earth, by controlled manipulation, scientists could make a single protein. The problem, of course, is that in their great discovery they demonstrated that the odds against 200 left handed proteins assembling themselves in the proper sequence to create the simplest of living things made abiogenesis a statistical impossibility.

Radiating fruit flies for tens of thousands of generations was supposed to force evolution via mutation. It demonstrated that mutations are almost always deleterious or neutral. After 30 years, the fruit flies remained fruit flies. When the radiation was removed, subsequent generations returned to normal.

Bacteria; the garbage eating simple life form, is said to have evolved because it became able to eat a different form of garbage. However, they are still bacteria doing what they were designed to do; eat garbage.
Breeders have been able to breed certain characteristics into or out of species, but they never change significantly. Dogs still have the same features, but in different proportions. You can cross a horse with a donkey and make a mule, but sterility is a result of any such breeding.

Adaptation is observed in the real world, but it is a conservative process where traits are enhanced or extinguished but never created. Repeated subtraction never equals addition. Adaptation is the opposite of evolution.

ViaCrucis said:

Without Christians who existed prior to you you would not have a Bible to read.
-CryptoLutheran

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Not true, God can preserve His Word regardless of man's input... as Jesus said, even the rocks would cry out the glory of God.

Armoured said:

Oh goody! Another prediction! I wonder if you can keep up your flawless record?

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Do you not believe in the coming of Christ to redeem His people and to destroy the wicked? Most Christians can see the signs of the times and that His appearing is soon to come...

Evolution is a non scientific religion forced upon the young and demanded adherrance to by their older generation of gutless materialists that have succumbed to indocrination. Simple study and facts and true science proves design and a DESIGNER, straight forward and simple but it takes study, and a God given brain to decipher these truths

BobRyan said:

There is no doubt that evolutionism has not only a zillion exposed, frauds and hoaxes - but it has a zillion+1 "stories" -- a rich pile of source material from which will come "tomorrows list of confirmed frauds and hoaxes" - plus tomorrows "list of bad ideas that were accepted at first". It is an endless game "Chasing down EVERY story" -

So then - better to step back and look at the BIG picture -- contrast real SCIENCE to the exposed junk-science "Tells" in evolutionism's "wall of stories" (Wall of weird).

Notice that every time a discussion about blind faith evolutionism is started up - evolutionists blast out a bevy of 'stories' -- "proof by puzzle" where "extreme quesswork and inference" is used to "imagine strained conclusion" for observations "they do not have".

The LAST thing they want to do is learn from the evidence - the confirmed findings -- contrasting the Bible doctrine to their own doctrine on origins -- or contrasting real science to their exposed confirmed junk-science methods lamented by their OWN atheist evolutionist professors like Patterson.

We can be thankful for two evolutionist contributors here - Hogshead and stephen583 ...

They both fully demonstrate the logical end-point for belief in evolutionism.

Just when the other T.E.s want to claim 'no such thing is possible' -- these two posters are present to remind us that this is exactly where evolutionism leads as compared to accepting the Bible, the Gospel, Christianity.

They prove Darwin's own statement on the subject - over and over again.

Notice that the other T.E.s will not touch this subject -- even though it comes up on page 1 of this thread and on almost every other page of it.

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The thing with this theory is that when it's proven to be wrong, as it has been over the years it has existed since Darwin, the theory isn't abandoned but the theory shifts and contorts itself to stay relevant. If it has not been posited by the evolutionists yet, you can expect a statement soon that they now have evidence that the evolutionary process has ceased, except for minor speciation changes. Reason and truth will never catch these fraud artists as they are changing the goal posts as the folly of their hypothesis become apparent... it's what they have done since Darwin's time so we shouldn't expect any less going forward.

David Jay Jordan said:

Evolution is a non scientific religion forced upon the young and demanded adherrance to by their older generation of gutless materialists that have succumbed to indocrination. Simple study and facts and true science proves design and a DESIGNER, straight forward and simple but it takes study, and a God given brain to decipher these truths

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Yes sadly our kids are being force fed this bile and accepting it as irrevocable truth...

A couple of neighbor girls were coming and visiting with my wife a few years ago and we were able to start to share with them the stories of the Bible and a basic understanding of Jesus. One day after school they came running into our place challenging us very adamantly that we evolved from apes and that there was no God... my wife and I were shocked and tried to assure them this wasn't so but they said to us, "why would our teacher lie to us?" They stopped coming to visit.... broke our hearts to know that Satan was exulting in this and that they may never give their hearts to Christ because of this evil.

But, of course, the evolution believing Christians on here don't look at this aspect, do they?

Hoghead1 said:

Again, the problem I have with your post, KW, is that it in not an ob3jctive exegesis of Scripture. You are not just presenting Scripture and that's it. You are presenting Scripture as understood and interpreted by right-wing Christianity. OK, fine. Nothing wrong with that. Right-wing Christianity is a very traditional dimension of Christianity. Only thing is, right-wing Christianity is not the only Christian church and not the only possible interpretation of Scripture. I wish to explore these other possibilities. Now, if some of you on this forum have trouble accepting the plurality of Christianity, then that's your problem, your failure to come to grips with your intolerance and narrow-mindedness.

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No one knows who you are responding to.

Perhaps hit the quote or reply button.

redleghunter said:

No one knows who you are responding to.
Perhaps hit the quote or reply button.

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He was responding to me. He has a problem with the fact that I represent the Scriptures with the actual Scriptures, and not with modernized interpretations of those who twist the Scriptures to try and make them conform to the lie of evolution. I'm narrow minded because I believe in the word of God as written, not as interpreted by those who do not believe it to be true.

Deleted

EastCoastRemnant said:

Not true, God can preserve His Word regardless of man's input... as Jesus said, even the rocks would cry out the glory of God.

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And yet the only example of the Bible, preserved as a library of sacred literature, is by the Christian Church. The same Christian Church being regularly accused as false, "denominations", worthless, etc.

God can do many things. What God can do, is a very different thing than what God will do or has done.

-CryptoLutheran

Hoghead1 said:

That isn't accurate, Extraneous. He is simply failing to give your image or model of God glory. So, too, do I. It comes from Hellenic philosophy and rests on the dubious assumption that God cannot change. Also, it rests on the unchecked imaginations of fundamentalist Christians, who believe they can read the mind of God and so know that he intended Scripture to be an accurate geophysical witness. Now, the fundies cannot read God's mind and neither can anyone else either. However, it is equally plausible that God did not intend Scripture to be a scientific witness.

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Two things (maybe it's really three)

In what ways can God change and in what ways can He not change? Clearly the Bible says God is unchangeable. But the meaning of that is deeper than a surface look IMO.

The use of the word "fundies" is pejorative and should be avoided. I have used labels myself but it's just a rhetorical jab and a bit inflammatory.

respectfully PapaZoom

Here's a thought: Christians believe a lot of different things when it comes to the Christian faith. Some are worth a strong debate and others not worth the time. We see through a glass dimly and with so many views, we could all be wrong or only one view be right. I trust God more than I trust myself so I am cautious about some claims made by Christians (including myself).

I believe in a very old universe. I don't believe in a 10,000 or whatever age of the earth. I believe it's likely that there was death before the fall. Plants lived, they died. Of course I could be wrong but I'd have to fake an alternative view. But so what? I'm not all knowing and have to go with what makes sense to me at the time. I used to believe in a young earth. I'm still open to that but it would take a lot to bring me there.

Do I believe in Evolution? I don't even know what is meant by that question anymore. To me it's a meaningless question unless I know exactly what is being asked. Evolution means different things even to scientists.

The bottom line is that as Christians, we ought to have a set of core beliefs that are clearly taught in Scripture and that we share.

"In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity"

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From the following article: "Often attributed to great theologians such as Augustine, it comes from an otherwise undistinguished German Lutheran theologian of the early seventeenth century, Rupertus Meldenius."

http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/essentials-unity-non-essentials-liberty-all-things/
This is worth reading and chewing on a bit.

Christians (not all) fight too much over silly things. We often don't discern the difference between what's important and what's not. I'm told I don't honor God's word because I believe the universe is billions of years old. That I'm told this by fellow Christians. They are wrong to say that. I don't think it's that important of a view. I hold it because it makes sense.

If someone believes in the Darwinian model of Evolution (there are other models) and they claim to be a Christian, who am I to say they are not? Can they be a Christian and also be wrong about things that perhaps only God knows? That would be all of us. I chiefly among them.

Hieronymus said:

NoThat's true, and there's evidence of us being in (or near) the centre of the universe.

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Some Christians believe exactly that: That the Bible teaches a flat earth. They offer proof texts to back them up and even scientific explanations. Honestly I was surprised at this. I thought it was a joke but they are, apparently, serious.

Are they Christians then? Being wrong about the shape of the earth has zero to do with being a follower of Christ. It is a measure of nothing important IMO.