Is Man a Cosmic Accident?

Well, lets take the similarity of failure of the gene for making vitamin C in both humans and chimps. The defective gene has been identified in both humans and chimps, and it occupies the same location in the chromosones. This is easily explained under the evolution theory, harking back to a common ancestor. Surely no designer would bother to put a defective gene in the same location in two species!

 

Do we know what the designer's true intent for this was, or do we merely assume we do? Do we know that is a defect or is intentional?

 

Well, you asked for evidence. Like an attourney in a courtroom, one can always come up with a comment against the evidence. But there comes a point when denying the overwhelming evidence is unreasonable. In my opinion, that is the case with the evidence for evolution.

 

But...

Does the evidence prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" (in attorney-speak) that evolution has occured, or does the evidence merely suggest that evolution might be a plausible explanation but not the only one.

You mention "overwheming evidence". I am not overwhemed in the least by what has been presented by other evolutionists. The "overwheming evidence" doesn't seem to be so overwheming. It seems to be anecdotal at best.

 

I mention feathers on penguins. Flightless birds, as you know. Other water based creatures do just fine with fur (otters and seals) or with naked skin (dolphis, fish, whales). . . why feathers? EVOLUTION! from flying birds, of course,

How many such examples would be sufficient to be overwhelming evidence for you? Or is it that nothing can overwhelm your solid faith that evolution is false? And if it would only take a thousand examples, they are there, you know.

 

Assumption.. Evolution.. Not proven.

Yes, my faith is as solid as yours. I believe that God got it right in the first place when He created man out of the dust of the ground as a fully-formed human being just before breathing the breath of life into him and did not use a wasteful form of "creation" to get us to where we are now.

You have faith that the evolutionary process occured. If so, if things in the distant past changed from, for example non-dog to dog, let's seem 'em do it again. Why don't we. Oh I know... It takes "millions of years..."

Since we cannot observe this process in action, we can't test it directly, we can't say for certain that it occured or is occuring now.

Thank you for your testimony that you believe in the god of "chance through time". There is another God though, a God who created all things fully-formed as the fossil record shows.

He is the one who gave us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, guiding the hand of man, the written record of His revelation to us, the Bible, the very center of which (according to chapter and verse) is Psalm 118:8 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.

The discussion has been most enlightening, thanks.
Out...

 

I also have a bible verse to share:

"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; but the honour of kings is to search out a matter." Proverbs 25:2

It is not appropriate to fault honest men of science for doing the thing God has called them to do! And God does call and use men who do not even know He is involved.

 

Here's a summary of the evidence for evolution (meaning for present purposes common descent with modification):

(1) The enormous explanatory power of the hypothesis of common descent, i.e., the vast array of observed phenomena and data that are explained by common descent; plus

(2) the fact that no competing alternative scientific hypothesis has remotely the same explanatory power; plus

(3) the fact that common descent is consistent with the rest of our scientific knowledge.

These three elements, taken together, are the reason why any scientific theory, not just evolution, becomes accepted by scientists.

Take a look at (1). It says that it is the quantity of observed phenomena explained by evolution that argues for evolution, and so by its very nature the evidence for evolution cannot be presented briefly. If evolution just explained a few random facts here and there, such as feathers on penguins, you'd be right that that doesn't count as very strong evidence in its favor. But multiply these examples by millions and you have a solidly supported theory, particularly when there is no serious competition from any other scientific theory. The point of a scientific theory, after all, is to explain the observed phenomena.

Here are a couple of websites that present some of the evidence for evolution:
Evidence for Evolution
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution

Enjoy.

 

Do we know what the designer's true intent for this was, or do we merely assume we do? Do we know that is a defect or is intentional? </font>[/QUOTE]If we don't know the designer's intent and therefore can't know whether the allegedly defective gene is an example of poor design, then by the same reasoning we can't recognize good design in organisms -- we don't know what the designer was trying to do, so we don't know whether He/She/It succeeded. So we can't use the supposed high quality of the design as evidence for ID -- that would assume that we can read the mind of the Designer.

 

I'd be interested in hearing what Jesus had to say about evolution. Did God have to create in any particular way? No, of course not. He did it the way He wanted, and evolution would be no more or less trouble than the magical creation of each organism seperately.

It's important to remember not to try to attach our personal preferences to God.

 

Hi, Christine. The Gospels do not record that Jesus said anything specifically about Adam, as far as I can recall. Mark 10:5 reads:

and Matthew 19:4 is essentially the same. His main point here is the sacredness of marriage (“What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder”), not that Adam and Eve were specially created. But supposing that Jesus believed in special creation, what then? A little further down in Mark 10, Jesus says:

In the same spirit we could ask, Why do you call Jesus omniscient? No one is omniscient but God alone. Not being omniscient myself, I really do not know whether Jesus had a correct understanding of the origin of humanity from a scientific perspective. If it is assumed that he was omniscient, there are some interesting consequences. For example, it follows that he understood how to prevent diseases by sanitation and vaccination, how to perform surgery using anesthesia under antiseptic conditions and all the rest of our modern medical knowledge, how to construct electrical power grids, how to increase agricultural productivity, and presumably much more. Yet there is no evidence that any such knowledge was passed along to the disciples or anyone else. He also prayed in Gethsemane for the cup to pass from him, and asked why God why He had forsaken him on the Cross. Why did he need to pray and ask?

In an earlier post Christine wrote:

As I read the passage, Paul’s essential point does not depend upon there being an exact parallel between Adam and Christ. Paul is saying that Christ offers us justification, grace and life, a way out of the reign of sin and death. This remains true whether or not the Fall into sin and death was an historical event that happened some 6,000 years ago.

To suppose that the Fall was an historical event that, um, befell Adam and Eve also raises the knotty question of how the effects of the Fall were passed down to their descendants. To me it makes a lot more sense to conceive of the Fall as either an account of (unredeemed) human nature
or as a process that occurs in the lives of each one of us.

Richard

 

The problem with your line of thinking is that you can't reconcile what you said here with the words of Jesus.
I wasn't addressing the words of Jesus. Only the text of Gen 1 and 2.

Also, to imply that God needed evolution to bring man into existence is ridiculous (IMO).
I didn't say God may have needed evolution. I said that God may have used evolution.

You seem to be mixing Creation beliefs with evolutionary beliefs (where convenient) in your post.
I'm not "mixing" anything. I'm simply not categorizing one or the other.

You can openly do this here but your atheistic evolutionary friends would most certainly outrightly reject your statements.
In don't have any such friends. However, I do have many Christian friends who don't think Gen1 was necessarily meant to be interpreted literaly.