Why Do Evolutionist Debate?

[Chris†opher Paul]

Start by trying to throw out geocentrism and not the Bible; it's much easier, and you've probably done it all your life without thinking about it.

What? Give me the verse and the argument you are making please. Thanks!

 

[Warrior FC]

Originally posted by wildernesse
I'm angered at the doctrine that they believed made God so small that if he didn't fit into their pre-conceived box, then he didn't exist at all. I'm angry at the Christianity that doesn't allow for differing interpretations of the Bible or that denies reality. If all you ever learned was falsity from the pulpit about the natural world, why should you take their word about spiritual things? I'm angry at the anti-intellectualism that some Christianity falls into. I'm angry at the idea that Christianity is a religion for simple-minded people or for people who have to deny their senses and turn their brains off.

I appreciate your warning not to lose my faith in God. I doubt I need it though--however, I'm glad that my salvation does not depend in my faith in fellow Christians for I would never be saved.

I see no reason why we shouldn't strive to understand all that we can. I do not accept ignorance as part of being a Christian.

--tibac

It's not about ignorance at all....

The question is, Is your studying evolution going to benfit those that hear your knowledge and be a tool used to bring them into the kingdom of God, then that is awesome!

 

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by s0uljah
What? Give me the verse and the argument you are making please. Thanks!

Look up the Galileo thing - once upon a time, the general consensus among Christians was that the Bible clearly states:

* That the earth does not move
* That the sun and moon move around the earth
* That God "stopped the sun in the sky" - thus showing that the sun moves around the earth.

This consensus of what the Bible said contradicted some apparent scientific results. For quite a while, people felt this meant they *HAD* to throw out the science, because otherwise they would be admitting flaws in the Bible.

Eventually, a new consensus formed: The Bible isn't a science textbook, and does not pretend to address the physical structure of the world. It's a story about Man and God as people, not a story about the sun and the moon as physical objects.

This reconciliation is, I believe, applicable just as well to things like "demons infesting people" vs. "germ theory of disease", or "literal genesis" vs. "evolution".

I would like to recommend once again Saint Augustine's warning against taking the Bible against science; all it does is miss the point and make us look silly.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by Warrior FC
It's not about ignorance at all....

The question is, Is your studying evolution going to benfit those that hear your knowledge and be a tool used to bring them into the kingdom of God, then that is awesome!

I believe that truth, for its own sake, is a Godly goal. Furthermore, knowing the truth about God's creation brings us closer to Him. As we progress from a child's view of God to an adult's view of Him, we become better able to understand His will.

 

[Annabel Lee]

"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere."

-Isaac Asimov

 

[kern]

Originally posted by seebs

This reconciliation is, I believe, applicable just as well to things like "demons infesting people" vs. "germ theory of disease", or "literal genesis" vs. "evolution".

I would like to recommend once again Saint Augustine's warning against taking the Bible against science; all it does is miss the point and make us look silly.

This same thing has happened with a number of other scientific developments as well. When Gravity was first proposed, people said that it denied the power of God, and that it basically invalidated Christianity. They were especially resistant to using gravity to explain the rotation of the planets around the sun.

Of course, now we "know" that *of course* Gravity doesn't contradict the Bible, and that everyone was just misinterpreting the scriptures before.

-Chris

 

[Mechanical Bliss]

Originally posted by Warrior FC
It's not about ignorance at all....

The question is, Is your studying evolution going to benfit those that hear your knowledge and be a tool used to bring them into the kingdom of God, then that is awesome!

 

AGAIN: Your question is not relavent to the veracity of evolution.

By your "logic," since plate tectonics theory is not a tool used to bring people "into the kingdom of God," then it must be automatically rejected just like you automatically reject another scientific theory for the very same reason.

Furthermore, souljah's point about (something like) his Bible stating animals were created first, then humans does leave the door open to evolution still being valid in a Biblical context. After all, there are Christians who accept the theory of evolution and their religion.

The theory of evolution is not equivalent to atheism.

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Originally posted by kern
This same thing has happened with a number of other scientific developments as well. When Gravity was first proposed, people said that it denied the power of God, and that it basically invalidated Christianity. They were especially resistant to using gravity to explain the rotation of the planets around the sun.

Of course, now we "know" that *of course* Gravity doesn't contradict the Bible, and that everyone was just misinterpreting the scriptures before.

-Chris

Did the Catholic Church misinterpret these scriptures?

 

[wildernesse]

Originally posted by Warrior FC
Then if evolution is true nd the bible is also true, what is the first thing that God created before it started to evolve?

I don't know. What I do know that once life as we know it began, it began changing as its environment changed.

--tibac

 

[kern]

Originally posted by s0uljah
Did the Catholic Church misinterpret these scriptures?

Probably, although I'm not sure. Obviously there were no ex cathedra statements or any sort of infallible declaration that said "gravity is false".

-Chris

 

[wildernesse]

Originally posted by s0uljah
My Bible reads...animals first, then mankind.

As far as why they have fangs, and certain digestive systems, I could just say it was part of the curse.

And if there was no death prior to the fall, then those animals did not eat--so I guess that does leave the door open for fungi and scavengers. Are you saying that all life existed and was just inert prior to the Fall?

Or if you use carnivores as evidence of the curse then some animals evolved/changed into quite different animals. Why exactly would the curse cause carnivores?

--tibac

 

[wildernesse]

Originally posted by Warrior FC
It's not about ignorance at all....

The question is, Is your studying evolution going to benfit those that hear your knowledge and be a tool used to bring them into the kingdom of God, then that is awesome!

 

Using the intelligence that I was blessed with to learn complex information about the world around me brings glory to God as I use the gifts I feel he has given me.

Is studying accounting going to bring people into the kingdom of God? Or aerospace engineering? Most likely not. But accountants and engineers can--it's not about the knowledge you have, but about the person you are and more specifically about using the gifts God has given you.

The pursuit of knowledge and truth is worthy in and of its self.

--tibac

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by s0uljah
Did the Catholic Church misinterpret these scriptures?

In the Galileo case, the answer is a firm "yes and no". People representing the Church claimed that Galileo was teaching heresy. Arguably, the heresy was that Galileo himself, if memory serves, argued that this "disproved" the Bible. The Church did not make any official statement of dogma or doctrine on the physical layout of the solar system, that I am aware of. The issue was more political than scientific; at the same time, it is very clear that a straightforward, literal, reading of the Old Testament teaches that the world is fixed and things move around it.

Even in the early Church, Augustine and others taught that the Bible's descriptions of the world are there to give us examples and analogies by which to understand the spiritual, not to actually describe the world. God speaks to us in terms of the way we understand the world when He speaks to us; this doesn't mean our understanding is correct, only that He has to use our limited knowledge and understanding as a context in which to tell us things.

I see the "science" in Genesis as being like the word "dial" used to describe the use of a phone; most phones don't have actual rotary mechanisms any more, but we still use the word because we have a feel for it.

The only alternative I see would be for God to have spent five or six hundred years teaching us physics, during which time we would still have been perishing spiritually; better that He should tell us the important stuff, and let us explore the world on our own time.

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Why exactly would the curse cause carnivores?

Because I dont think that lions eating a gazelle alive is "very good."

Do you?

Thanks!

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by s0uljah
Because I dont think that lions eating a gazelle alive is "very good."

Do you?

Thanks!

It seems weird to me, but I have to have some level of faith on things like that. A "good predator" would, probably, look a lot like a lion or tiger. I don't know why we need predators, but I am not about to say they're a "bad idea".

Animals are not moral. They do not have moral culpability for causing suffering. So, it's fine with me if some of the things they do are things I wouldn't do; they're *animals*. They're not supposed to be like me!

God's standards of "Good", while presumably correct, are not always the same as "everything is happy and clean". God seems to like a slightly gritty world.

 

[Stormy]

Originally posted by s0uljah
Because I dont think that lions eating a gazelle alive is "very good."

Do you?

Thanks!

It is not something that I would care to watch, but I do not look upon it as bad.

Sorry, I do not buy this idea. I think that natural predators were always a part of God's plan. It doesn't make too much sense any other way.

 

[wildernesse]

Originally posted by s0uljah
Because I dont think that lions eating a gazelle alive is "very good."

Do you?

Thanks!

Yes, I think that a lion being fully the lion it was created to be is very good. This includes preying on gazelles. I don't really see why you're more sympathetic to a gazelle than you are to the grass that the gazelle eats.

Why isn't this very good?

(Regarding my earlier post, what do you think animals ate before the Fall? Is this consistent with there being no physical death--even of cells?)

--tibac

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Originally posted by wildernesse
Yes, I think that a lion being fully the lion it was created to be is very good. This includes preying on gazelles. I don't really see why you're more sympathetic to a gazelle than you are to the grass that the gazelle eats.

Why isn't this very good?

--tibac

Because grass doesnt feel anything.

 

[wildernesse]

Originally posted by s0uljah
Because grass doesnt feel anything.

So? If the lion has broken the gazelle's back, it probably isn't feeling much either. The lion is feeling hunger pains--why should its pain not be relieved?

Anyway, gazelles wouldn't even be gazelles without their predators--that influence is a significant enviromental factor that forces them to evolve. The only problem is that lions are evolving too! Perpetual arms race in the biological world.

--tibac

 

[Warrior FC]

Originally posted by wildernesse
Using the intelligence that I was blessed with to learn complex information about the world around me brings glory to God as I use the gifts I feel he has given me.

Is studying accounting going to bring people into the kingdom of God? Or aerospace engineering? Most likely not. But accountants and engineers can--it's not about the knowledge you have, but about the person you are and more specifically about using the gifts God has given you.

The pursuit of knowledge and truth is worthy in and of its self.

--tibac

How is God using you through the study of evolution?... Just curious, not trying to belittle you here!

God is the only "truth" that we are to pursue!

Jesus is the Way, THE TRUTH, and the life!