Why does "15 Questions for Evolutionists" brochure confuse the meaning of "evolution?

[Split Rock]

I really think the problem boils down to this:

"Evolutionists ALWAYS piggyback on the idea along the implicative lines that abiogenesis (what other option is there for those who do not subscribe to the idea of intelligence creating intelligence?) got the proverbial organic ball rolling. Therefore, the two have become paired whether evolutionists want to deal with that or not. The fact that evolutionists disavow any need to solve the problem of where life originated does not mean they do not have that problem.

Scientists are researching this question, so you are incorrect when you claim we have "disavowed" any need to solve it. The point that has been made over and over here is that the theory of evolution simply does not address the question of where life came from.

Can any evolutionist tell me WHY answering the question of where we came from isn't of the utmost importance if one insists upon claiming that all the diversity of life came from that one mysterious ancestor?

It is an important question. It just doesn't directly impact the theory of evolution.

Can any evolutionist tell me HOW that doesn't make a difference for the ToE of whether that question ever gets answered?

Because it would not change the theory of evolution in any significant manner. Descent with modification would not change whether the first life came form a god, an alien spacecraft, or via abiogenesis. If you think it would, then explain How.

 

[verysincere]

Indeed, one would think that a more effective approach would be to ACCEPT our definitions, and work within those confines, rather than continuously obfuscating the claims.

It's as if they think that manufacturing confusion which isn't there is a good argument. It's one huge strawman.

Exactly. And long before I had sufficiently researched the scientific and Biblical evidence against Young Earth Creationism, I was struck and eventually overwhelmed by my EMBARRASSMENT (and even shame) of the lying that was going on around me. It is diametrically opposed to everything Jesus taught!

I often asked my YEC colleagues back then, "If we have the truth, why do we focus on LIES instead of actual evidence and facts?"

(Of course, we all know that somebody is going to post---or at least had planned to until they saw this sentence---the accusation that I am not a "true Christian" because I deny the nonsense being posted here that has nothing to do with what the Bible actually states. That's all they've got. They must denounce other Bible-affirming Christians who disagree with them, and declare us headed for hell as "false Christian pretenders".)

 

[Split Rock]

In other words, when faced with a problem which we can't answer, we limit the range of questioning. We invent a version of God that doesn't appear anywhere else other than in our desperate attempt at validity and say that particular god started things in motion then went golfing for the next five billion years while everything developed on its on. And then they say we make stuff up.

So your story is that it took six days, then God went golfing.

Hey, it's your lie, you tell it.

Now whose telling a lie here?

You don't believe in God. You're an atheist. That means you have NO explanation for the origination of anything, much less everything.

You cannot explain where your creator god came from, therefore you have NO explanation for the origination of anything, much less everything.

Some believe the moon is made of green cheese, but that doesn't comprise a scientific theory.

Neither does, "Goddidit" because my holy book says so."

Actually it goes to the central theme of our existence. Science has proven that everything can't come from nothing. Science has proved that life cannot come from no life. Science has never documented a mutation inventing new genetic material and encoding it into the reproductive systems. The so-called driving forces of evolution aren't common, but in fact are so rare they can't even be studied. In short, evolution falls short as a scientific theory, and is more of a religion.

This is all a set of lies, made more oboius by the fact you have been provided answers to these question already here.

Atheists latch on to evolution so that they have something to point to when they deny the overwhelming evidence of God.

Evolution is a scientific theory that explains the diversity and distribution of life on this planet we are on. There is nothing atheisitic about it. Scientists of all different religious beliefs accept it.

Why are you compounding lies with more lies? Do you think that flowers will eventually grow out of it?

 

[46AND2]

(snip)...

I often asked my YEC colleagues back then, "If we have the truth, why do we focus on LIES instead of actual evidence and facts?"

(snip)...

How did they respond to that question?

 

[good brother]

As a Bible-affirming Christ-follower...

What part of the Bible do you affirm?

Do you affirm the part that says God made everything in six days and rested on the seventh?

Do you affirm the part that says that Adam and Eve were the only first two humans on the planet?

 

[verysincere]

>
>I often asked my YEC colleagues back then, "If we have the truth, why do we focus on LIES instead of actual evidence and facts?" --- Verysincere
>

How did they respond to that question?

Two types of responses:

1) Anger.

2) Evade.

Honestly, when I first noticed the problem, my questions to colleagues were purely educational and well-intended. Indeed, I naively THOUGHT that they would appreciate that I had found mistakes in their research and my efforts would make for better arguments. But that was NEVER the response I got.

I also got responses like, "You just don't understand. Sure, public debate is not as rigorous as a scientific journal article---which is what you are wanting us to write. The average person wouldn't understand the exact details no matter how carefully we crafted them. So you are wasting your time and ours." [That last sentence wasn't a literal quotation but gradually I learned that was what they meant.]

They tended to regard their job as similar to a politician---and how often are politicians honest in their stump speeches? Obviously, they oversimplify and use trite slogans. (It is like Obama presently obsessing on "tax the rich" ---even though total confiscation of the entire WEALTH of the rich would hardly make a dent in the federal, state, county, and city debts in the U.S. The president is NOT going to address reality. He's going to do what most politicians of both parties are doing: pandering and playing with the facts and the non-facts.)

I started out trying to get my colleagues to agree with me on this: "Let's put together the BEST evidence and logic which explains why young earth creationism is the best explanation for origins. Let's not use what gets the most donations from churches or gets us applause---because that will ONLY convince our own choir. Instead, let's put ourselves in the position of the average person who sincerely wants to know the truth of what the evidence---both Biblical and scientific---indicates about the past history of the earth and the development of life on earth." Who could argue with that objective? Answer: Everybody in the YEC movement!

[Well....not everybody. A lot of us eventually left. I was involved decades before Glenn Morton but his story is a great summary for all of us. The first time I read his "Morton's Demon" and his account of questioning the YEC movement from inside is SO IDENTICAL to my own experience in a general sense. I wasn't an oil geologist. I was a young science professor who was changing fields to become a humanities professor and theology professor. But I experienced MANY personal parallels.]

And by the way, I am not some "liberal theologian." I remain a very conservative, Evangelical, Bible-affirming Christ-follower who emphasizes obedience to the teachings of Jesus---and that includes refraining from LYING! (For far too long we Christians have allowed the nuts among us to define us. It is time we stopped being so tolerant of unchristian, unbiblical behavior among those who pretend to claim the name of Christ and make fools of us all. They worship their TRADITIONS, not the God of the Bible nor do they care what the Biblical text actually states. That's why we see them claiming that passages poetically describing a lightning display in the sky represents a "prophesy" of cell phones and the Internet! It would be impossible for the most bitter non-Christian to mock any worse the teachings of Christ and the Bible which we value any more effectively than to promote in that way such flagrant nonsense. But the Bible actually DOES speak of those who will abuse the scriptures in that way.)

 

[46AND2]

Two types of responses:

1) Anger.

2) Evade.

Honestly, when I first noticed the problem, my questions to colleagues were purely educational and well-intended. Indeed, I naively THOUGHT that they would appreciate that I had found mistakes in their research and my efforts would make for better arguments. But that was NEVER the response I got.

I also got responses like, "You just don't understand. Sure, public debate is not as rigorous as a scientific journal article---which is what you are wanting us to write. The average person wouldn't understand the exact details no matter how carefully we crafted them. So you are wasting your time and ours." [That last sentence wasn't a literal quotation but gradually I learned that was what they meant.]

They tended to regard their job as similar to a politician---and how often are politicians honest in their stump speeches? Obviously, they oversimplify and use trite slogans. (It is like Obama presently obsessing on "tax the rich" ---even though total confiscation of the entire WEALTH of the rich would hardly make a dent in the federal, state, county, and city debts in the U.S. The president is NOT going to address reality. He's going to do what most politicians of both parties are doing: pandering and playing with the facts and the non-facts.)

I started out trying to get my colleagues to agree with me on this: "Let's put together the BEST evidence and logic which explains why young earth creationism is the best explanation for origins. Let's not use what gets the most donations from churches or gets us applause---because that will ONLY convince our own choir. Instead, let's put ourselves in the position of the average person who sincerely wants to know the truth of what the evidence---both Biblical and scientific---indicates about the past history of the earth and the development of life on earth." Who could argue with that objective? Answer: Everybody in the YEC movement!

[Well....not everybody. A lot of us eventually left. I was involved decades before Glenn Morton but his story is a great summary for all of us. The first time I read his "Morton's Demon" and his account of questioning the YEC movement from inside is SO IDENTICAL to my own experience in a general sense. I wasn't an oil geologist. I was a young science professor who was changing fields to become a humanities professor and theology professor. But I experienced MANY personal parallels.]

And by the way, I am not some "liberal theologian." I remain a very conservative, Evangelical, Bible-affirming Christ-follower who emphasizes obedience to the teachings of Jesus---and that includes refraining from LYING!

Sounds like a bad strategy on their part; not correcting the mistakes/lies. Then you have to tell more lies to cover the first lies, and it eventually leads to the pervasive dishonesty that we see in YEC apology today. It's so rampant now that even outsiders have a hard time believing that the Hovinds and Hams of the world actually believe what they spout.

 

[CabVet]

And you let that concern you, as if it's a stone in your shoe?

No, I don't let that concern me. What concerns me is when one creationist accuses the other of having the wrong "truth". I am pretty sure there is one version of this "truth" for every Christian. But going back to my original point, all I was trying to do was to point out to you that when you say things like this:

They just interpret God's Bible ... not yours.

Or by 'Bible,' do you mean your own paraphrased version?

You are really not doing anything, because you have your own "paraphrased" version of the Bible as well. The difference of course is that for you, your paraphrased version is better than the next person's paraphrased version.

If there was one interpretation of creation that all Christians stood behind I would start to agree with you that according to you that could be considered "the Christian truth", but both you and I know that this is very far from what really happens.

 

[Loudmouth]

The Bible and a map.

The Bible is the claim, not the evidence. Surely you can tell the difference between the two?

What evidence do you have that there was a real Noah's Ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat?

 

[KWCrazy]

Evolution is the question of how life diversifies.

No, it's beyond that. Nobody denies the fact that life diversifies and has since it was created. Evolution denies the existence of God and treis to state that all of life began from one sinlg common progenitor, despite the fact there are a billion impossibilities between there and man. Nobody pretends that every lvinging thing currently on the face of the earth were nestled in the ark for a year.

Abiogenesis asks how life started. But the answer to one is not dependent on the other.

Your grandfather probably believed in God, as did your great grandfather and his father before him. Evolution states that he didn't know what he was talking about. Before Jesus came God used to physically talk to people. They had no doubt God was real. Evolution calls the teachings of the Bible false; yet doesn't answer all the questions which arise from removing the only explanation of how life came about.

Evolution does rely on the FACT that life started, of course. But we don't need to explain HOW life started to question how it diversifies.

It may not need to explain it to you, but to those who believe in God and believe that the Bible is His word, your sales pitch is incomplete and your science begins with the impossible.

So now we can ask the question, how does it diversify? That is evolution.

Or adaptation, if you accept that nothing in biology buoys the assumption that one species can begat another, even over billions of years.

I never said theistic evolution was a scientific theory.

I never said evolution was a valid scientific theory.

I've told you once before that evolution has nothing to do with whether or not I believe in God.

If you don't believe in God then you can't support any theory that involves God; which means you have to believe in some form of abiogenesis, which is impossible. At least God's miracles have a supernatural foundation which supercedes that which is impossible in the physical world.

 

[KWCrazy]

Indeed, one would think that a more effective approach would be to ACCEPT our definitions, and work within those confines, rather than continuously obfuscating the claims.

Why would we accept something that rejects the word of the Creator? It's not enough for evolutionists to contend that speciation happened since the great flood, they insist that everything in the Bible, including events verified by Christ, simply didn't happen because science doesn't believe in miracles.

 

[verysincere]

Sounds like a bad strategy on their part; not correcting the mistakes/lies. Then you have to tell more lies to cover the first lies, and it eventually leads to the pervasive dishonesty that we see in YEC apology today. It's so rampant now that even outsiders have a hard time believing that the Hovinds and Hams of the world actually believe what they spout.

It was a very bad strategy then and you see the results now. The results of chronic lying spilled out of those ministries into rank-and-file Christians who repeat what they've been told----and becoming more and more outlandishly absurd in the process. Is there any doubt that what begins with "little lies" about Carbon-14 and flood evidence eventually leads to bizarre claims about various Genesis chapters first being composed in English and Noah's ark's pitch came from New Jersey and lightning in a Job passage predicting the Internet?

I can't help but think of "giving them over to reprobate minds" in Romans. As the Book of Proverbs states, those who refuse instruction are doomed by their own folly---to where they cherish more and more foolishness. There is no limit. Lying produces more fantasy and fantasy produces more lying.

Again, what I witnessed in the 1960's doesn't hold a candle to the kinds of nonsense spewed by federal prison inmate Kent Hovind (and now his equally pathological son, Eric Hovind who runs the ministry for him.) We should NOT be surprised that the movement's choices led to professional con-men and psychologically deranged people leading the sheep.

Is there any serious doubt that Kent Hovind, with some 53 federal felonies on his rap sheet, has lost the ability to separate truth from lies? His lying is pathological. And if you want to hear something chilling, listen to the jail tapes of his threats against the trial judge just a day before his final sentencing! And Judge Jones observed in his final decision in the Dover Trial that he was shocked by the flagrant lying UNDER OATH of the defendants---and Jones is himself an Evangelical, Bible-believing Christian who was no doubt embarrassed by the conduct he observed from those who claim Christ. Indeed, that movement is very much a fulfillment of what the Bible said would happen as evil people begin "to see 'godliness' as a means of great financial gain". That is, they have learned how to use "Christian talk" to deceive the Bible-ignorant sheep and fleece them of their dollars----all to just grow the size of the lying-for-Jesus organizations. Is that not exactly what Kent Hovind and his wife did that got them both in prison?

(Mark my words: more will follow. There is LOTS of corruption yet to be uncovered. I'm no prophet. I don't have to be. The Bible predicts it and I see the evidence all me in phoney "ministries" and liars-for-Jesus. They are the enemies of the teachings of Christ.)

 

[Loudmouth]

I really think the problem boils down to this:

"Evolutionists ALWAYS piggyback on the idea along the implicative lines that abiogenesis (what other option is there for those who do not subscribe to the idea of intelligence creating intelligence?) got the proverbial organic ball rolling. Therefore, the two have become paired whether evolutionists want to deal with that or not. The fact that evolutionists disavow any need to solve the problem of where life originated does not mean they do not have that problem.

Scientists are dealing with the problem. Scientists are working on abiogenesis, and it is not being ignored. What we are saying is that we don't need to know where the first life came from in order to determine if life evolved. They are DIFFERENT QUESTIONS. Go to my thread on the Germ Theory of Disease to see how your argument does not match up to how science works.

Can any evolutionist tell me WHY answering the question of where we came from isn't of the utmost importance if one insists upon claiming that all the diversity of life came from that one mysterious ancestor?

It is important to know, but the answers are independent of each other. For example, you and I may disagree about where atoms came from, but we will probably both agree about how chemistry works. Obviously, it doesn't matter where atoms came from as it relates to our understanding of how atoms behave once they are here. In the same way, it doesn't matter how that first life appeared as it concerns evolution. Even Darwin suggested that the first life was created, and that life then evolved from there.

Can any evolutionist tell me HOW that doesn't make a difference for the ToE of whether that question ever gets answered?

You tell us. You are the one who insists that it does make a difference. If the first simple RNA replicator was created by God and then all the life you see now evolved from that first RNA replicator, how would the theory of evolution be any different than if that RNA replicator came about through abiogenesis? We are saying that the theory would be unchanged, but you seem to disagree, so please show us how it would be different.

 

[Loudmouth]

Why would we accept something that rejects the word of the Creator?

Since when did creationists become the creators? Modern geology rejects the claims of creationists, not christians.

It's not enough for evolutionists to contend that speciation happened since the great flood, they insist that everything in the Bible, including events verified by Christ, simply didn't happen because science doesn't believe in miracles.

It's not about science not believing in miracles. It is about science having mountains of evidence that contradict your claims of how history happened. Your claims do not match up to the evidence.

 

[SkyWriting]

Why would we accept something that rejects the word of the Creator? It's not enough for evolutionists to contend that speciation happened since the great flood, they insist that everything in the Bible, including events verified by Christ, simply didn't happen because science doesn't believe in miracles.

I imagine a great deal of new "species" developed since the time all the land animals left the Ark. "Species" is not a biblical term nor does it have just one meaning so it's not as if the the Bible doesn't allow for animal populations to change. Science has no ability to confirm or reject any biblical claims. That would be giving control of miracles over to men and we can't have that.

 

[verysincere]

It's not enough for evolutionists to contend that speciation happened since the great flood, they insist that everything in the Bible, including events verified by Christ, simply didn't happen because science doesn't believe in miracles.

1) No. Evolution theory says nothing, either for or against, God and the Bible.

2) Also, the Bible and Science agree on the topic of miracles. Here's why:

a) The Bible considers miracles to be reported events which cannot be explained by natural phenomena and processes.

b) Science agrees that any reports of "miracles" cannot be explained by natural phenomona and processes.

Example: If 200 hundred years ago some alien spacecraft had visited earth and humans observed them using radio devices to communicate, those humans would have described it as "miraculous" and unexplainable by natural phenomena and processes. The scientists of 1812 would have said exactly the same thing: "We know of no natural processes or phenomena which can account for the reports of distant communication through small devices, through nothing but air and space." What scientists, then and now, CANNOT say is that some reported phenomena will NEVER ever be observed or explained. Scientists are smart enough to say "Without evidence we have no means to explain or even significantly comment on the reports we've heard."

No, as a retired scientist I consider miracles to be reports for which there is no evidence by which I can evaluate and explain by natural processes. And as a retired theology professor, I define miracles in much the same way. They are not explained by natural processes. So where is the conflict? Without evidence, I have nothing meaningful to argue about.

 

[Loudmouth]

No, it's beyond that. Nobody denies the fact that life diversifies and has since it was created. Evolution denies the existence of God and treis to state that all of life began from one sinlg common progenitor, despite the fact there are a billion impossibilities between there and man.

Evolution says nothing about God, and nowhere have you shown that there are billions of impossibilities.

We could start with the human and chimp genomes. Can you show us a single DNA difference between the two species that could not be produced by the mechanisms of evolution? Just one?

Your grandfather probably believed in God, as did your great grandfather and his father before him. Evolution states that he didn't know what he was talking about.

Evolution calls the teachings of the Bible false;

No more so than Heliocentrism, dear Cardinal.

If you don't believe in God then you can't support any theory that involves God; which means you have to believe in some form of abiogenesis, which is impossible. At least God's miracles have a supernatural foundation which supercedes that which is impossible in the physical world.

Theories are not supported by beliefs. They are supported by evidence. Do you have any?

 

[KWCrazy]

So your story is that it took six days, then God went golfing.

No, the absentee creator award goes to theistic evolutionists or those who credit God with originally life but contend that everything in the Bible was a lie.

You cannot explain where your creator god came from,

Yes I can. He is eternal. time is a creation of His. Finite minds were not designed to comprehend things like eternity, which is why it's kind of mind boggling to all of us.

Neither does, "Goddidit" because my holy book says so."

Have you ever heard me call creation a scientific theory?

This is all a set of lies, made more oboius by the fact you have been provided answers to these question already here.

Your answers were incorrect.

Evolution is a scientific theory that explains the diversity and distribution of life on this planet we are on. There is nothing atheisitic about it. Scientists of all different religious beliefs accept it.

Evolution is a scientific theory that attempts to explain the diversification of all species in the absence of God. It is presented by its prophets as not an alternative to religion, but a replacement of it. If in fact the world is billions of years old and man evolved from plankton, then every religion in the world is wrong. You cannot reconcile the tennants of it with any known religion, which takes it beyound theory for many people and elevates it to a religion of its own.

 

[RickG]

Evolution denies the existence of God

Can you give a citation from the scientific literature that denies the existence of God. I've never come across any such statement. Oh! and one thing more. Due to the fact that I do accept the theory of Evolution, does that mean I have to stop believing in God?

 

[KWCrazy]

You are really not doing anything, because you have your own "paraphrased" version of the Bible as well. The difference of course is that for you, your paraphrased version is better than the next person's paraphrased version.

The difference is that he cites chapter and verse for the portions of the Bible he quotes. Certain other people never do, which is why their opinions get discarded like yesterday's mail.

If there was one interpretation of creation that all Christians stood behind I would start to agree with you that according to you that could be considered "the Christian truth", but both you and I know that this is very far from what really happens.

The answer to that lies in the fact that people want to be accepted and considered part of the "in" crowd, so they go along with things that others tell them without ever discovering the truth for themselves. I was an OEC for years until I acually READ Genesis and the verses that support it. Those who don't adhere to the verbiage of Genesis do so because of external influences, not because of anything they read in the Bible.