Posted on 12/03/2009 6:22:56 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Natural selection and change, yes; Evolution, no
--snip--
Summary
1.This episode talks much about change and natural selection, but fails to give any evidence that these produce evolution, other than for the various professors who assert that it does.
2.Darwin’s theory promoted the idea that man is “a beast with animal lusts and no morality”, and this has been gleefully accepted by much of modern society.
3.We might well ask: Why would any sane professor adopt and propagate a theory for which there is such paltry scientific evidence, which is an expression of hatred of God, and which demotes man to the level of a beast? For the answer, we quote the words of another 19th century atheist philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who pronounced God to be “dead”, and gave as his reason, “We deny God; in denying God, we deny accountability.” ...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
This is pure conjecture. There is absolutely nothing on the record that even suggests this. In short this is "Bovine Scat">
Can God can speak creation into being, part the seas, send His inspired word to us through the ages and enter the world to die and rise from the grave? If not, is He or isn't He really God?
Maybe the God you worship is really just another god; perhaps you should learn about the God who is all powerful and omnipotent.
You are in good intellectual company:
"Difference Between Form and Content One answer was already worked out some time ago, as the scientific view of the world was gradually crystallizing; many of you probably came across it in your religious instruction. It says that the Bible is not a natural science textbook, nor does it intend to be such. It is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it. One cannot get from it a scientific explanation of how the world arose; one can only glean religious experience from it. Anything else is an image and a way of describing things whose aim is to make profound realities graspable to human beings. One must distinguish between the form of portrayal and the content that is portrayed. The form would have been chosen from what was understandable at the time -- from the images which surrounded the people who lived then, which they used in speaking and in thinking, and thanks to which they were able to understand the greater realities. And only the reality that shines through these images would be what was intended and what was truly enduring. Thus Scripture would not wish to inform us about how the different species of plant life gradually appeared or how the sun and the moon and the stars were established. Its purpose ultimately would be to say one thing: God created the world."
"In the Beginning...." A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
If you don't believe the authors were Divinely Inspired, I can see how you'd think that way. That's where Faith comes in.
That just isn't going to work on an educated audience. You may as well try and convince us that the world is flat.
I guess that depends on how you define 'educated'.
Evolution is a fact, and is still happening all around you today.
I'm more thinking, adaptation over evolution. but, ok. have it your way. how is the uniqueness of the precambian period explained, using evolution and only evolution? if precambian was an anamoly, what would be the odds of it occuring again? on any planet?
Although that is a one-sided account of Darwin’s moral theory, even according to this text his views were a far cry from regarding humanity as having “animal lusts with no morality”. If the account you linked is accurate, then it is quite different from Nietzsche’s theory of how moral conventions arose, so how can one juxtapose the two, except out of ignorance?
Although we today regard advocacy of eugenics as shocking, it was prevailing wisdom among the educated persons of his day. It is historicism to condemn him for rationalizing a conventional opinion.
On a similiar note, there are numerous Christian apologia for slavery from the 18th and 19th centuries. The pagan festival of Saturnalia persisted into the 16th century under sanction of the Church, during which Jews would be stripped naked and chased through the streets of Rome. Is it fair to say that what is perceived as Christian morality has ...changed?
I think we have changed. I believe that the West has become more morally aware over time (and I don’t mean “better”)- that we have become more aware of the “other”, broadening our scope of empathy beyond tribe, race, and country. In other words, we are inching closer to God in an individual, non-utopian, non-hubristic sense. Darwin was indeed secular, but I think his observations were his attempt to describe and understand the same phenomenon. I do not regard his views as offensive or ridiculous, or even particularly wrong. Incomplete, perhaps, but not necessarily wrong.
Teilhard de Chardin had similar views (cf. the noosphere), and I think Teilhard’s Jesuitical mysticism endowed the idea with a certain beauty. Flannery O’Connor found poetry in Teilhardism, and understood the relevance to the morality of everyday life, and wrote “Everything that Rises Must Converge” as a tribute to his philosophy.
Some people teach that the Bible writers never claimed to be inspired or directly guided by God. They say that neither the writers nor God viewed Scripture as a revelation of the mind of God which we should follow as a pattern for our lives. As such, they deny the infallible, inerrant, verbal inspiration of Scripture.
Other people say the Bible is inspired in that the writers did put down some of God's ideas, but maybe men still put some of their own uninspired ideas in it. For example, maybe God just taught the men right ideas, but left them to express those ideas as they see best.
Others say the Bible writers speak the truth in matters of religious faith and morals, but when they speak about history or science they are writing as humans and may be wrong. Therefore, we cannot accept the Bible accounts of miracles and the lives of Bible characters as necessarily valid.
The results of these views of inspiration are that maybe there is some error in the words written by "inspired" men: maybe we can, even should, reject parts of it as not being true. Such views are called "modernism" or "liberalism." Yet those who hold these views may still claim to be Christians who believe in God, Christ, and the Bible.
This study deals with the basic question: In what sense, or to what extent, is the Bible inspired? 1) Did the Bible writers really claim inspiration? Did they say that what they wrote was God's will? 2) Did God actually guide the words the men chose in expressing the teachings (verbal inspiration)? 3) Could it be that some words in the writings of these men were true and accurate, but some may have been mistaken in some way? Or is the Bible an infallible and inerrant revelation?
Notice the subject as outlined for us in Revelation 19:9 - "These are true words of God." [LINK]
A. Old Testament Writers Claimed Their Message Was from God
Isaiah 1:2 - The Lord has spoken.
Jeremiah 10:1,2 - Hear the word which the Lord speaks. Thus says the Lord...
Ezekiel 1:3 - The word of the Lord came expressly.
Hosea 1:1,2 - The word of the Lord that came ... the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said...
Jonah 1:1 - The word of the Lord came to Jonah.
Micah 1:1 - The word of the Lord that came to Micah.
Zech. 1:1 - The word of the Lord came to Zechariah.
[See also Joel 1:2; Amos 1:3,6, etc; Obad. 1:1; Zeph. 1:1; Hab. 2:2; Deuteronomy 30:9,10; Numbers 12:6-8; 23:5,12,16,19; plus see references in other sections.]
B. New Testament Writers Claimed Their Message Was from God
1 Corinthians 14:37 - The things I write are commands of Lord.
Ephesians 3:3-5 - The things Paul wrote were made known to him by revelation. Formerly these things were not known but have now been revealed by the Spirit to apostles & prophets.
1 Thessalonians 4:15 - We say by the word of the Lord.
1 Timothy 4:1 - The Spirit expressly says.
[2 Thessalonians 3:12; John 12:48-50; Acts 16:32; Romans 1:16; 1 Thessalonians 1:5]
C. Inspired Men Claimed that What Other Writers Wrote Was from God.
Matthew 1:22 - A quotation was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.
Matthew 2:15 - Another passage was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.
Acts 1:16 - The Spirit spoke by the mouth of David.
Acts 28:25 - The Holy Spirit spoke by Isaiah ... prophet.
Hebrews 1:1,2 - God spoke in times past to the fathers by prophets. But now He has spoken to us by His Son.
Matthew 15:4 - Jesus Himself confirmed that Scriptures were from God. He quoted the Law revealed through Moses and said it was what God commanded.
Matthew 22:29-32 - He said the Scriptures were spoken by God.
Luke 10:16 - He also confirmed the inspiration of the New Testament for He told the apostles who wrote it: He who hears you, hears Me; he who rejects you rejects Me and rejects Him who sent Me
John 16:13 - He promised the men who penned the New Testament that the Spirit would guide them into all truth
To deny or question that the Bible writers spoke from God is to deny and reject the truthfulness of their own statements about themselves, their statements about one another, and Jesus' statements about Scriptures.
[Matthew 19:4-6; John 10:35; 2 Chronicles 34:14-19; Isaiah 2:1-3; Matthew 22:43; Romans 1:1,2; Hebrews 3:7; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20f; 3:15f; Acts 4:24f]
You have ignored this question at least three times now.....Please explain why we find no trilobites above the Permian strata, and why we find no dinosaurs above the cretaceous strata, or no mammals in the Cambrian strata?
Well, the quagga obviously lives with its rear end in a non-grassy area while the front is in the tall grass.
Seriously, though, I have read that the stripes on the zebra are to confuse the predators because they can’t pick out an individual animal in a herd.
...and elementary geometry tells me that a circle is most certainly not a sphere.
Care to review basic geometry or is "Man lived in the world of 100+ species of meat eating dinosaurs" your final answer?
Hint: a circle is 2-dimensional and as "flat" as you can get.
What the heck would the Pope know about the Bible??
Yes, I have heard the confuse with stripes idea too. Maybe so. Still they get eaten, stripes and all.
“Hint: a circle is 2-dimensional and as “flat” as you can get.”
The original word in Hebrew just like in Job 22:14
means circuit or sphere
So, it gets translated to mean whatever you need it to ean, whenever you need it?
So, Man tainted the Bible to mean what it does not mean.....got it.
I, on the other hand, will believe that they thought the world was flat because that’s what was thought at the time.....as their pathetic understanding of the scope of “the world” was severely lacking.
Job 38:16
Have you entered into the springs of the sea? or have you walked in the search of the depth?
Job lived in the middle east around 4000 years ago , modern man found springs in the sea in the early 1900’s.
Job 26:7
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
I guess he knew the earth wasn’t sitting on someones shoulders too since he says it hangs on nothing.
They knew way more than you think they did.
God gave you free will to believe whatever you want.
What’s that have to do with the People’s lack of understanding of the scope of the world at the time?
Hint: nothing.
You provided the verse that said the Earth was a sphere. I read the verse and it very clearly, in very plain English, said the Earth was a circle.
If THAT was translated incorrectly, shat else was?
I say it was translated with the knowledge at the time...that they thought the Earth was flat.
That they knew of water springs is irrelevant. They might have seen them in fresh water, but I doubt they went to the bottom of a sea and saw them.
Omg, the Earth hangs on nothing? That means they knew the Earth was not flat? Wait...flat things “hang”...
This is called “knowing stuff”?
Maybe you should try reading the entire book . Instead of mocking it read it and prove it wrong.
If you read it you would be surprised at what they did know .
Things you wouldn’t even begin to think about like the concept of phi.
How can evolution possibly "go against" the second law without life itself going against the second law?
Consider first, what ultimately drives evolution? Mutation, right? Mutations create the variation which evolution requires. Now, which would necessarily generate more entropy: copying DNA exactly, every time, without ever making a single error; or copying DNA with occasional errors, i.e. mutations? Obviously life never mutating, and therefore not creating variation, and therefore not being able to evolve, or at least keep evolving, would violate the second law more (if it were violated at all) than would life that makes occasional copying errors.
What else does evolution require, besides mutation/variation? Well, it requires reproduction. (Obvious.) It requires heritability. (Selected variants pass on the traits which led to their increased reproductive success.) It requires superfecundity. (Organisms produce more offspring than the environment can ultimately support, providing the excess population on which natural selection acts.)
But, wait, living organisms are doing all those things anyway, irrespective of the fact that they may lead to evolution!
Therefore evolution can only "go against" the second law if life itself (evolving or not, that is just the mere fact of life existing and continuing) first "goes against" it.
Since life clearly does not violate the second law, there is a flaw in your logic.
We are not gaining DNA we are losing it.
You know this how? I'm no expert, but I doubt it.
First, there are many types of mutations, and most neither increase or decrease the amount of DNA. For instance: point mutations (no addition or subtraction, just the change of one nucleotide for another), inversion (a DNA sequence gets copied backward) and translocation (a sequence is moved from one chromosome to another, or to a different location on the same chromosome).
OTOH, deletion mutations subtract DNA, but insertion and duplication mutations add DNA. So you must be claiming that deletion mutations are more common than insertion mutations, and are always or systematically so. Do you actually know this to be the case? (If so, how?) Or are you just ASSuming it so?
From what little I know about the DNA copying, editing and error correction mechanisms, I would suspect that deletion mutations are more easily caught and corrected than duplications and insertions. But that's just a guess. If you know better, educate me.
I'm even less expert in Hebrew or the Bible than in genetics, but nevertheless I can't find a single instance where the word (chuwg) is translated as "sphere" or "ball" or anything of the like.
Neither do any of the commonly used Hebrew lexicons give the sense of "sphere" to this word. For instance, Strongs says:
Definition
- circle, circuit, compass
- (BDB) vault (of the heavens)
Translated Words KJV (3) - circle, 1; circuit, 1; compass, 1; NAS (3) - circle, 2; vault, 1;
Furthermore, when I looked at the issue before (sorry, don't remember the verses) I never found sphericity implied by context. Instead the earth, as to its creation or formation, is described in ways that imply flatness. For instance God draws it with a compass on the surface of the waters. He stamps, or pounds or spreads it out. Etc.
The Bible certainly might have conveyed sphericity in any number of ways. For instance, instead of saying that God spread out or pounded out the earth, it could have said that He gathered it together, or that He formed it in His hands, or that He sculpted it. It might have compared the earth to a fruit, or it's surface to the rind of a fruit. But it never does. None of the analogies or language convey sphericity.
Gee, I’ve read the book numerous times, and have no intention of “proving it wrong”...why would I attempt to prove wrong a book?
YOU made the claim, gave the passage.....and the passage didn’t say what you claimed it did. That’s it....period.
“They” didn’t know squat concerning the scope of the world. “They” knew their pathetic little slice of it, nothing more.
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