Why do some Christian's dismiss evolution?

Mikecpking said:

Quantumflux,
You are an enigma! I have noted your replies to various posts and some of the more tricky points for you, you choose to ignore.

So, I will ask you this question.

How do you explain in the fossil record differing species appearing and dissapearing throught geological time. EG: Why don't you find trilobite fossils which are relatively common in late Cambrian rock, but nothing in lets say the Cretaceous or Quaternary?

In the Jurasic, why do you find different species appearing and dissapearing, but never repeating, ammonites all through the sequence?

Click to expand...

These are interesting questions like if Darwin's "the little eyeball that could" story is true then why does trilobite fossils have evidence of complex eyes? How is it we still have these fossil around after 100 million of years of erosion? Why is most of these layers lay flat as pancakes on top of one another? Also as you noted these animals suddenly appear then later suddenly disappear while remain unchanged for millions of year so it seems evolution never happen. Explain the sudden appearance of fully formed animals?

Smidlee makes a great point. In some cases it seems that evolution worked backwards. Showing the insects with complicated eyes and then later less complex.

I never heard any reply to why there is a jump from what was described as a worm with legs to a crustatia with multiple legs, arms, head and eyes. Thats a big jump if you ask me. It would be like a human giving birth to a baby with wings, gills, and fins. That's not evolution, that's a freak.

A buried fossil of a distinct hominid that is CLEARLY not a fossil of a modern human is: (drumroll please) EVIDENCE. There is plenty of evidence that does not line up with YEC.

Click to expand...

The problem is that they are not CLEARLY fossils of modern human or some other animal.

am almost convinced that if Jesus came back today and confirmed that we arrived via evolution you would continue to point out all the flaws of our current understanding of the world.

Quantum Flux: "But, no Jesus. Look the fossils may not go together. Also, this species was once more complex and then became less."

Click to expand...

yeah, this makes a good point, I'm just as convinced that if jesus came back today and confirmed that we arrived VIA creation you would continue to point out all the flaws in the creation theory.

stumpjumper: "But, no Jesus. Thoses genesis stories are clearly myths and we know that evolution is a fact. All those fossils can't be wrong. And what Mark wrote in 10:6, was not your godly oppinion of the beginning of creation."

Jesus: "But I told you man was created in the beginning and thought I made it clear that the earth looked old like everything else I made in the beginning. By the way, have you cared for the poor today and the least of these my children?"

stumpjumper: "Yes, I do care for the poor and am working on my Operation Christmas Child shoebox and give money to the local foodbank. But, I still think you're wrong on this creation thing. Here look at what TalkOrigins.com has to say on this website.

Jesus: "Okey Dokey. Maybe I'll come back later."

QuantumFlux: "who the heck is this Ken Hamm guy anyway"

Genesis is completely silent on several major things in our past. I mentioned Dinosaurs and you said well the Bible mentions Dragons (it also mentions giants).

Click to expand...

Actually what I said was throughout history, not just the bible but many other cultures from early history to the medival ages have different stories of what is described as large lizards.

I suppose you are going to tell me that you believe that The Book of Enoch is inspired:

Click to expand...

why would i say that, even the hebrews left it out of thier canon so they obviously didn't consider it inspired either.

The fact is the Bible contains many kinds of writings some of which were never intended as literal history.

Click to expand...

you only wish you could prove which was which.

Even if macro-evolution is disproven you still do not have a literal reading of Genesis. It is a creation story with some profound truths about God and our emergence from chaos but that's it.

Click to expand...

chaos? we came from perfection to the fall, hardly what evolution shows.

If Jesus came and told me it was literal history, I would say OK dude now I'm really confused.

Click to expand...

and i would say the same thing if he told me evolution and a billion year old earth was true as well.

And there are also fish with vestigal eyes that do not work in their environment. So what? Not all mutations are beneficial and sometimes a less complex feature is actually more fit.

Click to expand...

oh, btw, thanx for compeletely ignoring the question on how the worm with legs suddenly popped out a crustatian with multiple legs, arms and a head...

QuantumFlux said:

oh, btw, thanx for compeletely ignoring the question on how the worm with legs suddenly popped out a crustatian with multiple legs, arms and a head...

Click to expand...

You are really out of your depth Quantum. Your summaries of what you feel is the scientific method on the last few pages is testament to this.

You are really out of your depth Quantum. Your summaries of what you feel is the scientific method on the last few pages is testament to this.

Click to expand...

I know that in science when you don't have proof you dont make stuff up. That seems to be exactly what the evolutionary theory does.

I know that dispite all of the fossils we have from the cambrian era we have nothing that would hint at anything that would transition between the "worm with legs" and something with legs, arms and a head.

Where you lack proof you make stuff up and call it fact and science. You can believe it if you want, but im not buying it.

I'll give you that you probably know more about evolution than I do. I've lacked motivation to dive to deep into this fiction. However, may lack in this area is made up with my biblical studies. All context points to a literal genesis, the only way you can say otherwise is to say evolution is true.

Jesus backs up the creation in Mark 10:6. Yes he is talking about marriage but he clearly shows his belief that man was created in the beginning.

Make no mistake, science will never explain everything in the bible, they will always be in conflict in some areas.

Where science and the bible conflict, I will always side with the God's word and I pity the Christian that put's man's wisdom above God's "foolishness".

Our God is not one of half truths and deception. If he is to allow this book to represent him, why allow such a blatant deception to provail throughout hebrew history? It wasn't other cultures taking them away from the truth, it would have been his word. The hebrews did not believe this to be a myth, I'm sorry, there is just no evidence to suggest that they did.

Evolution be true, how deceptive the Word of God is.

Smidlee said:

More story-telling nonsense like Darwin's "the little eyeball that could" story.

Click to expand...

I really liked how you handwaved away the evidence. Anything that doesn't fit, it's just story-telling nonsense. No need to explain why. Of course, I've seen it happen quite often in this thread.

QuantumFlux said:

I'll explain the other hominids for you... they never existed!

Click to expand...

I wish I could employ this method at my university studies. I doubt my advisor would allow it, though. Good thing, too. At least good universities will always be free from pseudoscience and Creationism.

My RANDOM thoughts on this...


1. I totally believe that God is the Creator...

2. HOW God did it, I'm just not sure and frankly don't care.

3. I doubt the Creation Account (or are there TWO of them?) is to be intepreted in terms of 21st Century science and world view. I think it should be interpreted in terms ancient Jewish worldview that is clearly prescience - as RELIGION and not SCIENCE.

4. My older sis is working on her Ph.D. in biology at the University of California at San Diego. Even she doesn't feel qualified to address such issues of evolution (not her exact field) so I - a junior majoring in Physics - feel much, much less qualified to address this, or even express a personal opinion.

Bottom line: God created the world. Soli Deo Gloria!!!!!!
How He did it? Ask a biologist, geologist and geophysicist. They're working on it.


MY view...


Keep the faith! Share the love!


- Josiah



.

random_guy said:

I really liked how you handwaved away the evidence. Anything that doesn't fit, it's just story-telling nonsense. No need to explain why. Of course, I've seen it happen quite often in this thread.

Click to expand...

what evidence? They don't even go as far as show any bones in the article. It easy to dismiss something built by human imagination.
The fossil record has never supported evolution so scientist has to rely on their story-telling as evidence.Like Darwin's "the little eyeball that could" story most of evolution claims is build upon human imagination.

QuantumFlux said:

I'll give you that you probably know more about evolution than I do. I've lacked motivation to dive to deep into this fiction. However, may lack in this area is made up with my biblical studies.

Click to expand...

In other words you don't know what you are talking about and aren't likely to remedy this. The Bible is not a textbook and is useless as such - in fact worse than useless in this realm it genuinely misleads and states falsehoods.

Mikecpking said:

Quantumflux,
You are an enigma! I have noted your replies to various posts and some of the more tricky points for you, you choose to ignore.

So, I will ask you this question.

How do you explain in the fossil record differing species appearing and dissapearing throught geological time. EG: Why don't you find trilobite fossils which are relatively common in late Cambrian rock, but nothing in lets say the Cretaceous or Quaternary?

In the Jurasic, why do you find different species appearing and dissapearing, but never repeating, ammonites all through the sequence?

Click to expand...

Hi Quantumflux,
I noticed how you ignored this question. What is your answer?

QuantumFlux said:

I know that in science when you don't have proof you dont make stuff up. That seems to be exactly what the evolutionary theory does.

I know that dispite all of the fossils we have from the cambrian era we have nothing that would hint at anything that would transition between the "worm with legs" and something with legs, arms and a head.

Where you lack proof you make stuff up and call it fact and science. You can believe it if you want, but im not buying it.

Click to expand...

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html
Go on, refute this.

QuantumFlux said:

I'll give you that you probably know more about evolution than I do. I've lacked motivation to dive to deep into this fiction. However, may lack in this area is made up with my biblical studies. All context points to a literal genesis, the only way you can say otherwise is to say evolution is true.

Click to expand...

Well, you have just disqualified yourself from attacking evolution's scientific merit. You cannot say that evolution is implausible if you do not know it well! To say that something is implausible is to say that it does not happen under normal conditioins, and the study of what happens under normal conditions due to causative links is science. Therefore to say that something is implausible is to say that it is unscientific.

For example, it is implausible to say that a cup of cold water in a cold room will get colder spontaneously - this means that it is unscientific for that to happen, since it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Again, it is implausible for a ball under earth's gravity to spontaneously jump up instead of down without external energy input - this means that it is unscientific for that to happen, since it violates the law of Mass-Energy Conservation.

So to say that evolution is implusible is to disprove it scientifically, which you have admitted you cannot do. So save us the effort of trying that line. You only have the avenue of attack that "even if evolution could have happened, the Bible says that it didn't!", i.e. that evolution is theologically invalid even if it is scientifically valid.

QuantumFlux said:

Jesus backs up the creation in Mark 10:6. Yes he is talking about marriage but he clearly shows his belief that man was created in the beginning.

Click to expand...

How does Jesus show that man was created in the beginning in this verse? The phrase "created in the beginning" comes from Greek arche ktisis.

arche:
1) beginning, origin

2) the person or thing that commences, the first person or thing in a series, the leader

3) that by which anything begins to be, the origin, the active cause

4) the extremity of a thing

a) of the corners of a sail

5) the first place, principality, rule, magistracy

a) of angels and demons

ktisis
1) the act of founding, establishing, building etc

a) the act of creating, creation

b) creation i.e. thing created

1) of individual things, beings, a creature, a creation


a) anything created

b) after a rabbinical usage (by which a man converted from idolatry to Judaism was called)

c) the sum or aggregate of things created

c) institution, ordinance

So how does this show that Jesus was explicitly supporting YECism?

Whether ktisis is "creation" or "the act of creating", man was not there since the beginning of creation. Even in YEC theology man was only created on the 6th day of creation, not the first. This leaves open several interpretations:

1. That the very first humans were created man and woman. This poses no problem for TEs who believe that God supernaturally intervened in creating humans, like me.

2. That since time immemorial (the sense of arche meaning distant past that leads to today's "archeology") humans were created man and woman. Again, no problem for TEs who believe that God supernaturally intervened in creating humans.

TEs who don't will naturally have their own resolution to this. Why don't you ask them instead of assuming that they burn their Bibles?

And in any case, this is an example of bad exegesis. Surely Jesus' main point here was to proclaim what sort of sexual relationship humans had been made for, not how or when humans were made. To say that Jesus supported YECism in Mark 10:6 seems a little like saying that Jesus supported ripping off your boss before retrenchment season in the Parable of the Shrewd Manager.

Our God is not one of half truths and deception. If he is to allow this book to represent him, why allow such a blatant deception to provail throughout hebrew history? It wasn't other cultures taking them away from the truth, it would have been his word. The hebrews did not believe this to be a myth, I'm sorry, there is just no evidence to suggest that they did.

Click to expand...

Would you rather God had waited until the development of GR/quantum mechanics before He expounded on His magnificent creation? If you wanted a scientifically accurate creation account, then the Jews might be starting to write Genesis 1 only around now. ("In the beginning, God created the point singularity and the quantum unification force.") God had a tremendous message for the spiritual destiny of humanity, which didn't need to wait until humans could conceptualize an infinite universe and curvy spacetime. Accusing Him of lying to a prescientific culture, is a little like accusing me of lying when I tell a 4-year-old that the sun is a ball of fire hung in the sky.

I am wondering if Young Earth Creationists dismiss evolution on scientific grounds or solely because of a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Let's look briefly at the five main claims of evolution and all of these claims are disputed by YEC.

1.) The universe and the earth is very old.
2.) Life has progressed from relatively simple to relatively complex life.
3.) All life shares common ancestors. Universal common descent.
4.) Genetic mutation and natural selection account for the diversity of life.
5.) Life originated via natural processes.

Now I as a TE only really disagree with number five. But, lets say for instance that God used natural processes to start life. We would probably be able to uncover the process that God used and then it would be natural even though it was initiated by the supernatural.

Click to expand...

I will answer, but usually I turn heads, so here goes...I believe that the earth is young, but perhaps not as young as YEC'rs do. I think that after God created Adam and Eve that they were in the Garden for some period of time for several reasons...AND WE DO NOT KNOW HOW LONG THAT TIME SPAN WAS. It could have been 10 years, or 10,000 years...there is absolutely no way of knowing. But time is useless, really, in this debate now, especially since a lot of scientists are stepping up to the plate and stating that even billions of years of evolution (if it were possible) could not account for the perfection that we behold in nature.

Second, there is no evidece for statement #2 that can stand up against scientific scrutiny. It is not denied that the evolutionary paradigm in paleontology or geology is strictly followed (the assumption that evolution is a reality from the very get-go), so that any anomilous fossils (fossils that do not follow the evolutionary model) are thrown out of the picture and not mentioned in your text books. The ONLY thing that paleontology demonstrates is fossilized remains of organisms, and nothing more. If you are ever lucky enough to be out on a dig where such an anomilous fossil is found...question it. The response to you questioning evolution will be sharp and distasteful.

Third, there is no evidence for universal common descent, except in evolutionary textbooks. The cladograms and phenograms that you look at in your textbook depicts sister organisms within a species, or the nodes show how the artist thinks one organism branched out into several different ones...the time covered in those diagrams being millions of years. Only one problem...where are all the organisms in between the beginning and the end nodes of the diagram? There are none, it is a hypithetical construct of what the originating scientist THINKS the evolutionary trail took.

Evolutionists have been trying for 100 years to identify direct ancestor-descendant links to solidify their claims to descent with modification. They have failed millions of times, and each failure screams that there are not ancestor-descendant organisms in an evolutionary way. That failure is evidence against the notion of descent with modification. Descent with modification is true of organisms within a species, but there is nothing yet that has been found that can break the species barrier.

Fourth, and perhaps the biggest sheep wool to be pulled over peaoples eyes today, is that mutation can create novel genes that will actually build something biologically. No where, ever, has there been any evidence for this, it is simply and wholly assumed that mutations can add intelligible biotic information into the genome and give an organism over time a limb where it never had one before. Go to the HGMD website, click on the search button, and enter any part of the body, any organ, any protein or gene symbol, and behold the vast array of mutation information that has been cataloged.

Each mutation destroys the specificity of the gene that it hits...it does not produce something good, it only destroys. The much vaunted Milano mutation and SCA mutation that is consistently put up as evidence for such change demonstrates either a lack of intelligible information on the subject, or a deliberate willingness to lie to the public. Both mutations are deleterious that just happen to have a beneficial side affect in the right environment...but don't skip over the fact that they are still deleterious. They both destroy the proteins that the genes code for...a SCA blood cell that cannot carry the malaria molecule can neither carry an oxygen molecule, the purpose and function of the cell has been destroyed. Same with the Milano mutation...and mutations initiated by insects' genetic programming that make them non-suseptible to DDT (not too mention that they don't live very long because of the side affects of the self-induced genetic changes).

Mutations account for only genetic diseases...that is the extent of our codified knowledge concerning mutations, anything else that is told as a fact instead of as an assumption on the part of the author or lecturer, is either a gross misunderstanding of the facts, or a great willingness to decieve people.

Lets stick with the facts...not assumptions labeled as facts.

As for Abiogenesis, evolutionists don't even cling to this anymore. My thought on this is here - the cell is so irreducibly complex in and of itself, requiring hundreds of proteins and enzymes RIGHT FROM THE GET-GO, that any microbiologist or cell biologist that still thinks it happened that way is not worth his weight of the salt content of his body.

Cosmology has solidified and codified that a force of extreme power and intelligence that is outside both time and space brought the cosmos into being from nothing...you will find only the most argumentative cosmologist that does not hold to this view today, the evidence against it is so overwhelming that only those with emotional bars to the other deny it.

Evolution in any form of the word holding descent with modificational meaning within it is an impossibility. If you are interested in more, I have a book hopefully coming out in print in December entitled "The Assumptions Behind the Theory of Evolution"...look out for it.

Blessings!

Smidlee said:

what evidence? They don't even go as far as show any bones in the article. It easy to dismiss something built by human imagination.
The fossil record has never supported evolution so scientist has to rely on their story-telling as evidence.Like Darwin's "the little eyeball that could" story most of evolution claims is build upon human imagination.

Click to expand...

So you believe since you couldn't see the fossils themselves, the entire thing is made up? Suppose you could see the pictures (http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/falcarius_utahensis/), how in the world would you be able to conclude anything, seeing how you seem to show very little scientific training about fossils?

The worst part is you think evolution is nothing more than a conspiracy theory that must be kept secret by several million biologists, and every single university, including every single accredited Christian college with a biology program.

Better Story:
http://www.physorg.com/news3986.html

random_guy said:

So you believe since you couldn't see the fossils themselves, the entire thing is made up? Suppose you could see the pictures (http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/falcarius_utahensis/), how in the world would you be able to conclude anything, seeing how you seem to show very little scientific training about fossils?

The worst part is you think evolution is nothing more than a conspiracy theory that must be kept secret by several million biologists, and every single university, including every single accredited Christian college with a biology program.

Click to expand...

Actually I see Darwinism as modern day idolatry just without the wooden statues. In the OT the majority was into idolatry including Isreal. So I don't see a conspiracy theory with evolutionist no more than there a conspiracy with used car salemens. They follow what's natural/naturalism which even christians are tempted to follow.
I don't deny the fact that the fossil records has always been clear evidence againest evolution even in Darwin's day. Darwinist loves using "appearances" of fossils as evidence while trying to deny creationists and ID doing the same. Appearances can be very deceiving except when it come to animals. (Zebras appears to be stripe horses but they are not)

Smidlee said:

Darwinist loves using "appearances" of fossils as evidence while trying to deny creationists and ID doing the same. Appearances can be very deceiving except when it come to animals. (Zebras appears to be stripe horses but they are not)

Click to expand...

NO!

This is not what is done since the word "appearances" is used in a different sense by the 2 groups. One group uses the word as a euphemism for anatomical characterisation and taxonomy - the other uses it on the level of "oh look - all cars have wheels, they must all be of the car kind".