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To: betty boop
I am a Christian and I do believe in the Creative word of God AND evolution; as do millions of other Christians.

I find no contradiction between God using evolution as his creative mechanism involving life, just as God uses gravity and nuclear fusion to create stars and our Sun.

Would Genesis 1 and 2 be a good explanation for how God creates stars?

It certainly isn't a good explanation for how life changes over time in response to changing environments.

So is a bacteria tuning in to the “creative Word of God” every time it adapts to changing circumstances? Isn't there also a corresponding change in DNA?

How could one describe that change in DNA without it being a “Darwinist” argument?

Do you think it is possible to describe how that DNA changes without it being a “Darwinist” argument?

134 posted on 03/23/2012 9:13:03 AM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send GOP to DC to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)
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To: allmendream; Alamo-Girl
Let me try this — a general explication of the creative Word of God in terms of Aristotelian causal language.

The Son of God is the creative Word of God — Logos Alpha and Omega — that is to say, from the Beginning to the End. Thus we have First Cause (the Beginning) and Final Cause (the Purpose for which the Beginning was made), and Immanent Cause in between.

The Creation is something that unfolds in space and time — that is, it evolves from a beginning to an end. Intervening causes are constrained or "entailed" by the Final Cause, for which the Beginning was made. Immanent Cause basically refers to the intervening "guides to the system" that were loaded into the system (so to speak) in the Beginning by God's Creative Word.

This is the causal context of the Creation, or of the Universe if you prefer. It is the context within which science (and everything else) happens.

This does not mean that God has to directly step in to effect change in, say, DNA (your example).

You ask me if it is possible to describe how DNA changes without resort to a Darwinist argument. But why use a "Darwinist" argument for anything having to do with DNA? Charles Darwin never even heard of DNA....

138 posted on 03/23/2012 9:59:11 AM PDT by betty boop (We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through the eye. — William Blake)
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To: allmendream
I am a Christian and I do believe in the Creative word of God AND evolution; as do millions of other Christians. I find no contradiction between God using evolution as his creative mechanism involving life, just as God uses gravity and nuclear fusion to create stars and our Sun.

Would the fact that the Hypothesis of Evolution tells people whom God loves that they are evolutionary trash to be discarded on the dustbin of history be a contradiction between God and evolution?

If God loves every human being equally, even though many reject Him and this does affect their lives, would He use an evolutionary process that says some humans are more valuable than others and some are worthless trash to be avoided, so that the human race is better off without those people?

That was the point of the post. For those who want to say that believing in God is compatible with evolution, what do you say to a child of God who is told she is worthless trash in the evolutionary scheme?

The reason that people who believe in God also believe in evolution is (1) they don't want to be criticized, whereas Jesus Christ told us we must be willing to be persecuted to "take up our cross daily" and (2) they doubt God's ability to create anything. But if God created life, it takes LESS faith to believe taht God created all the living things directly. It is harder and more complicated for God to have created life through evolution.

Favoring a God-driven evolution is an attempt to make it easier to believe that God created everything.

But it merely begs a lot of more challenging questions: Who dreamed up DNA? Who wrote the rules that DNA follows? Indeed, who wrote the laws of physics?

To point to a physical world and its rules, simply obscures the next question: WHO MADE THE RULES?
169 posted on 03/23/2012 10:17:15 PM PDT by Moseley (http://www.curesocialism.com)
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