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To: Alter Kaker
==So you’re now making rules for the Almighty? Saying what tools He can choose to use or not use for His purposes? I find it simultaneously amusing and yet preposterous that you and your ilk purport to piety.

You might want to do a little research before embarrassing yourself by making comments about things you obviously don’t understand (such as the Bible/science).

==Jeremiah 32:27: Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?

If you honestly believe that nothing is too hard for God, then why won’t you take Him at his WORD! He saw fit to inform us that he created the plants and animals fully formed and fully functional. Are you calling God a liar?

==That a mechanism (natural selection) so powerful, so beautiful and yet so simple exists just might testify to the existence of God seems beyond them.

Creation scientists have no problem with natural selection/survival of the fittest in terms of explaining variation within the limits of the created “kinds”. What they have a problem with is the Church of Darwin’s religious claims that natural selection accounts for the ORIGIN of species (every species, starting with the pre-biotic soup, then simple cells, simple organisms, and so on down the line right DOWN to modern man). Even evolutionists admit that the testimony of the fossil evidence is decidedly against such claims. Take for instance the stunning admission of Stephan Jay Gould (a Darwinist in good standing who tried to make the Theory of Evolution fit the fossil record with his theory of Punctuated Equilibrium...and failed miserably). He nevertheless admits the following, and yet still managed to cling to his Darwinist faith because the alternative would simply be too “incredible”:

The history of most fossil species include two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1) Stasis - most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless;

2) Sudden appearance - in any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed’.

Gould, S.J. (1977)
“Evolution’s Erratic Pace”
Natural History, vol. 86, May

204 posted on 06/18/2007 9:30:37 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
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To: GodGunsGuts
You might want to do a little research before embarrassing yourself by making comments about things you obviously don’t understand (such as the Bible/science).

I'm not a theologian and have never claimed to be one. But I do take my religion seriously, and I do have more than a passing familiarity with "science," having been a scientist for longer than I suspect most posters on this site have been alive.

If you honestly believe that nothing is too hard for God, then why won’t you take Him at his WORD! He saw fit to inform us that he created the plants and animals fully formed and fully functional.

You should read some commentaries on Genesis to better understand why your position is ill-informed and, with all due respect, a bit facile. Genesis was never intended as a literal, step-by-step cookbook recipe for Creation. In fact, when read that way, you find many problems, not just with science, but internally and with other books of the Tanach. Instead, Genesis is allegory, representing first and foremost God's responsibility for Creation, His primacy, His special bond with mankind, and His covenant. Now I could argue this all day with you, but, as you have correctly surmised, I am not a theologian. Instead, I'd like to refer you to commentaries on Genesis by the great biblical scholars, many (if not most) of whom seem to have reached the same conclusion hundreds of years before Darwin was a glint in his mother's eye. Nachmanides, Maimonides, and even Augustine recognized the literal problems and the allegorical potentials of Genesis. You should argue with them, not with me. I'm sure you'll consider yourself up to the challenge.

Are you calling God a liar?

Again, this is simple silliness. If anybody is calling God a liar, it's those on your side of the aisle who think that the Lord created the universe with a dishonest appearance of great age, even though you say it's only 6000 years old. Why would God wish to deceive us by creating microwave background radiation? Why does He want us to think the universe is 13.7 billion years old if it isn't?

207 posted on 06/18/2007 10:09:17 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: GodGunsGuts
Creation scientists...

Creation scientists? Those are rare birds, rarer yet than the Pterodactyls our author Mr. Farrah believes are soaring over Asia even as we speak.

... have no problem with natural selection/survival of the fittest in terms of explaining variation within the limits of the created “kinds”.

Oh yes, I've heard this explanation. So you believe that Noah took just two frogs onto the Ark, 5000 years ago, and in just 5000 years, two frogs have "evolved" into more than 5000 different species of frogs? Is your understanding of evolution really so deficient as to believe that that's even remotely possible?

What they have a problem with is the Church of Darwin’s religious claims that natural selection accounts for the ORIGIN of species (every species, starting with the pre-biotic soup, then simple cells, simple organisms, and so on down the line right DOWN to modern man).

It's remarkable, given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that a few creationists still cling to this nonsense. You do know, for example, that the most-favored creationists du jour, the Intelligent Designers, fully accept common descent? Have you actually read any books by Stephen Jay Gould? Because I have -- and not the thin, popular ones, but his 1500 page magnum opus The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Nowhere do I recall any doubts about common descent. You fundamentally misunderstand punctuated equilibrium -- again, I'd advise you to read for yourself rather than copy and paste creationist tracts.

213 posted on 06/18/2007 10:22:08 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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