Can an Evolutionist be Saved?

What I would like an evolutionist to explain is how spirituality as a natural feature of the human organism "evolved." Why don't other mammal species have a need to "worship" a higher being? Why is this unique to homo sapiens?

 

Extraordinarily well put Mike.

 

How much Argon was was present at the creation of any sample over 6000 years old? You can choose any sample you like as long as you provide an absolutely concrete proof of the original composition.

 

If evolution was proved to be true, I would consider the existence of God to be a great misfortune. I would not want to worship a God who created nature red in tooth and claw, with animals eating each other alive, and pre-Adamic humanoids annihilating each other in a process called "natural selection", eventually to produce an advanced race called humans who continue to annihilate each other in the most brutal manner in a process called "war".

Mike </font>[/QUOTE]...Why? You're comfortable worshipping a God who drowns almost every living thing, advocates stoning as a just punishment for adulterers in the OT, etc.?

We (and this includes me) often make the mistake of applying human standards to God. If I did this regarding the above two things, I would find it difficult to worship God also.

Thankfully, God gives us the strength to realize that God is God is God, and that He is infallible and infinitely just. You cannot question the way he chose to make life on this planet.

 

O.K. enough fooling around. If you can prove to me the theory of evolution I will believe it.I need absolute infallable proof.
1. I need proof that evolution does not defy stastitical probability.
2. I need the missing links.
3. I need time measuring devices that are absolutely infallable.
4. I need absolute proof of how life started.
5. I need absolute infallible proof of the first mating of human beings,monkeys,cats,dogs,and elephants.
6. I need absolute infallible proof of when evolution was far enough along that a man and a woman recieved a soul.
7. I need absolute infallible proof that the creation account in Genisis chapter 1 is not true.

I suggest that since we dumb creationist are to be taught by the super intelligent evolutionist that this is thier chance to do so.

 

I have taken time to think about this.

First, the question is meaningless since there is no means except for a direct revelation from God that would demonstrate evolution categorically true. We have not eyewitness testimony of creation except for God's.

One of the things you resist admitting is that evolution only speculates possibilities. Even if you could prove that all of evolution's mechanisms worked in a lab (which isn't even close to being done), you could never prove that evolution actually represents natural history.

If someone showed up at my house, I could speculate on how they got there but without an actual observation I could never say "This is the way they got here."

Proving one means of doing something a possibility does not disprove all other possible means.

I am going to answer your question then ask a few of my own expecting the same courtesy.

Yes. If it were proven that:
1) man was not a special creation as the Bible says and that death did not enter by the sin of the first man, (over turns doctrines of sin and redemption)
2) the God who resurrected Christ and promises to resurrect me used specific words that deceived His followers for all of recorded history, (negates resurrection promise as well as all others)
3) naturalism is to be preferred over the supernatural alternative given in scripture, (nullifies the sovereignty of God and denies the attributes of the biblical God)
4) God was not necessary as a prime cause,(denies direct scripture related to His having spoken the world into existance and even now holds it together by His will)
5) God did not have the power to accomplish creation according to the Genesis account, (God not omnipotent but rather governed by natural law)
6) God did not have the candor to give Moses an account of creation that allowed for evolution (God not holy)
7) Christ never in over 33 years enlightened us that the creation account of Genesis 1 was a fairy tale...
8) probably more if I sat and thought about it more...

I would no longer believe in Christianity. Now you will obviously object to some or all of these and point to how we can twist one scripture and tweak another. But if we must do this to agree with the philosophy of God denying men then Christianity is no longer an intelligent faith and no longer worth believing.

I find a 6 day creation every bit as believable and no more incredible than the resurrection or heaven or hell. I really don't see why one would insist on scaling God down. If God was capable of resurrected a dead body (fully mature and functioning) then I find no problem believing anything He said that He did... including creating a fully mature universe in six 24 hour days.

Now my questions:

What supernatural event recorded in the Bible including the resurrection does not have a naturalistic explanation?

Is evolution ultimately based on a scientific or philosophical premise?

Isn't the strict naturalistic premise underlying evolution contrary to the supernatural God revealed in scripture?

If evolution were proven untrue, would science cease to exist? Would we no longer be able to study genetics or build nuclear reactors?

 

If you are going to get your science correct then correct your statement to: Because the half life of potassium-40 has been "calculated to be estimated at" 1.3 billion years.

[ December 17, 2004, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: Phillip ]

 

Lady Eagle

This is a great question but don't hold your breath waiting for an answer!

 

Parable or true story?

A man crashed his Cessna 150 (2 seater, single engine plane, typically used for training). He broke off a wing, smashed the window, and knocked off a good portion of the tail section.

A truck pulled the mangled plane to the airplane bone-yard where it lay with other crashed airplanes of different sizes and shapes.

Along came a tornado that stirred up the pile, amazingly when the tornado left, the wing was straightened out again.

A few hundred years later a strong wind came through and blew a piece of metal against the plane and it lay there for years and years, finally rusting itself to the little 150.

Over a period of 100 million years. Man (who was no longer a man, but a huge brain being driven around in a solar powered electric scooter) drove to the old plane bone-yard and low-and behold there was a 747 sitting where the little Cessna sat.

Through years of wind, rain, tornados, lightning that welded parts together. The little Cessna 150 had evolved into a fully functional 747 complete with full avionics package, four identical and symetrical (notice most animals are symetrical, ever wonder why they would be?) wings with two turbo-fan engines hanging from each wing.

Enough organic material was caught in the wings that it turned into Kerosene (Jet-A fuel grade).

All the man (brain on the electric scooter) had to do was climb aboard and start the engines.

The bottom line to this quite RIDICULOUS story is that to believe in evolution causing the complexicity of a human body would be even a much HARDER task than the little Cessna turning into a 747. If you believe one, then you must admit the other IS possible.

Now, I know what an evolutionist will say. OH, but that's different and doesn't really describe the process. No it doesn't. Not the specific processes to get to man, but the basics and the "odds" of a non-designed 747 are even lower than the odds of a non-designed man to be walking around today.

 

"How much Argon was was present at the creation of any sample over 6000 years old? You can choose any sample you like as long as you provide an absolutely concrete proof of the original composition."

As demonstrated by many different tests through the years, if you can show that a rock met or exceeded a set of conditions, you can show that it had no argon in it when it solidified. The problem you run into is why would a young rock have enough argon in it to demonstrate an age of millions of years.

The first, the rock really is old. It takes at least a couple of millions of years for enough potassium to decay to argon for the argon to become detectable. If the rock met certain requirements during its formation, you can be certain that the original argon levels were below detectable levels. We can do this with rocks we have observed to form.

The second would be that the rock records a history that never happened. This is obviously where you will go. But this becomes tricky for you. Rocks often record a nice history of their formation. For example, through heat transfer calculations, you can work out how long it takes a rock of a given size and set of conditions to cool. From the lab, you can also determine which minerals form at which temperatures and how quickly their grains grow. From this cooling series, you can determine for how long the rock was at various temperatures. The two separate lines of evidence complement each other and both reveal that for some formations, cooling times can be on the order of millions of years. For very large "rocks" the different parts will even date to different ages reflecting the time at which different parts cooled to the point that their composition was fixed and the radiometric clock started ticking. So now we have three ways of determining the formation of the rock. So you would have us believe that God would create rocks, with such detailed histories that all point to an ancient age for the rock, and would sort the various rocks according to these constraints, when they were really young? Why? The data fits an ancient age well. You are left to argue that they were created with an arbitrarily selected set of characteristics that all point to the same thing which never actually happened.

"What supernatural event recorded in the Bible including the resurrection does not have a naturalistic explanation?"

First let me say that I do find your conditions for answering well beyond what I find logical and permissible. If I made the same leaps as you suggest you would be forced to make then I too would no longer be here.

Some do, some don't. Mostly, to exclude the supernatural, you have to exclude the account. As examples... The sun standing still for Joshua has no natural explanation. The release of the kinetic energy of the rotation of the earth would have destroyed the earth. On the other hand, some could say that the resurrection did not happen. Jesus was either not dead when emtombed or the body was stolen. But to accept that would be to lose all faith. A final category would be events such as the crossing of the Jordan. It is a relatively common event for landslides to temporarily block the flow of the river. God could have either supernaturally caused the flow to stop or could have provided for an opportune landslide. Either accomplishes His will and is an example of how there are some choices where the explanation can be either or both.

Also, most of the supernatural events would leave nothing for us to study if you did want to pose an alternate. With the case of origins, God left us the entire creation AND the intellect and desire to study the creation. It records the means of creation.

"Is evolution ultimately based on a scientific or philosophical premise?"

Scientific. The theory falls out of the data.

"Isn't the strict naturalistic premise underlying evolution contrary to the supernatural God revealed in scripture?"

All of science has a "strict naturalistic premise." This does not mean that all science is bad. It is just limited to what it can study. The supernatural by definition falls outside of its purview. As it turns out, the most parsimonious explanation for the current diversity of life is the natural one. Too many things have been specifically tailored to make common descent appear to be a fact to rationally accept that it is not so.

"If evolution were proven untrue, would science cease to exist? Would we no longer be able to study genetics or build nuclear reactors?"

No, science would not stop. In fact, it would be a great triumph for science to come up with a better theory to explain the observations. Nuclear reactors would, obviously, be unaffected by biology. Genetics on the other hand would be thrown into chaos as so much of it depends of evolution. It has been said that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. Disproving evolution would disprove much of the basis for biology and even medicine and many related fields.

"... including creating a fully mature universe in six 24 hour days."

Just what is required to be "mature?" Many of the things go way beyond a functioning universe.

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"O.K. enough fooling around. If you can prove to me the theory of evolution I will believe it.I need absolute infallable proof."

Well, we all know that science never provides "absolute infallable proof" of anything. It provides the best, empirical explanation for what we observe. It cannot even provide "absolute infallable proof" that you will fall to your death if you step off a cliff but I still would not try it.

"1. I need proof that evolution does not defy stastitical probability."

Evolution does not operate according the types of probabilities you have posted in the past so this would require further consideration. It does not seem to defy any probabilities that have been established.

"2. I need the missing links."

THis is also known as moving the goalposts. I can provide you with numerous examples of transitional creatures from transitions to new species, to new genera, to new families, to new orders and classes. Yet you are then free to move the goalposts by asking for the links between them. To do this justice, you would have to specify what you would want links between and why you find the existing links insufficient.

"3. I need time measuring devices that are absolutely infallable."

Uh..Why? What has this got to do with evolution? As has been pointed out elsewhere, a strong case can be made for evolution without ever invoking the fossil record if you wish to fault dating methods.

"4. I need absolute proof of how life started."

Not possible and it is outside the scope of evolution. Evolution only seeks to explain what happens to life. Where it came from is a different story. God very well may have miraculously created the first life but His creation shows that it diversified from a common ancestor.

"5. I need absolute infallible proof of the first mating of human beings,monkeys,cats,dogs,and elephants."

This does not even make sense. There would be no such thing as the first elephant or dog.

"6. I need absolute infallible proof of when evolution was far enough along that a man and a woman recieved a soul."

Whenever God decided.

"7. I need absolute infallible proof that the creation account in Genisis chapter 1 is not true."

No one is saying it is not true though the correct interpretation is under discussion.

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"If you are going to get your science correct then correct your statement to: Because the half life of potassium-40 has been "calculated to be estimated at" 1.3 billion years."

There is no difference in the two statements. You take a known amount of potassium-40, you measure the number of decays per unit of time, this tells you the half-life. It is a rate, you measure the rate. I do not have to observe a car moving at 100 miles per hour for a full hour to establish its rate of speed. I measure distance for a unit of time. I do not have to measure decays for a billion years. I measure decays per unit of time.

 

If God raised up a child of Abraham out of a stone, how much argon would he contain? Where did God say that rocks were for history? Rocks are for praising the Lord and killing witches.

I remember this one rock that followed the Israelites around and gave them water in the desert.

 

Thanks Mike. It is interesting that we keep PUSHING towards a Naturalistic approach. What was to stop God from forming a fully functioning universe with the appearance of age? If I were God and could build a house for example. I would snap my finger and it would be full of furniture and have all of my books stacked on the shelf with one laying open at the recliner that appeared when I snapped my finger.

Why is this so difficult? Why do we, who believe in God, have to have a naturalistic beginning? God is Omnipotent, in other words; capable of creating everything in any fashion He wanted to.

 

Sorry Mike.

Hopefully this is theological enough to stay within the bounds of your topic:

UT, you are obviously intelligent. Surely you cannot believe that a subjective statement like this is valid.

A theory "falls out of the data". That violates the very definition of "theory".

It is a philosophical and to some extent religious assumption to believe that everything that exists has a naturalistic cause. It requires faith to believe in a prime cause that can neither be observed or known.

It is also ridiculous to suggest that any part of biology relies on evolution. Evolution does attempt to explain biology and some of the explanations are valid no matter what your origins view is. However, nothing in biology requires that evolution be true.

 

" If someone showed up at my house, I could speculate on how they got there but without an actual observation I could never say "This is the way they got here."

True. But if that person was there at the door and a car was in the driveway still running with its left front door open you might be justified in saying it seems likely that he drove there.

If your wife hypothesized that he parachuted in she could say that you don't have proof otherwise. But forensically your theory that he drove would seem more likely.

 

That's an observation Charles. But it is similar to what we have. We can see a working system before us. What we don't know is how it came to us. That car could have been designed and built by a car company or (similar to the example of the plane given above) it could be the result of billions of years of random processes.

Sorry again Mike.

 

How old was the wine that Jesus made, that filled the six jars representing the six days of creation? And why should he do this as his first miracle?

Mike </font>[/QUOTE]If they saved the best wine for last, as the guests told the host of the party; then obviously the wine made instantly from water would appear to be very well aged if it were either "tasted" by an expert wine-taster. Or, if a chemical analysis were done to the wine, it would match that of "fine" aged (OLD) wine, and not that of Newly bottled wine.

When we look at the Earth, we find a fully functional biosystem. That, by the way, is EXTREMELY complex.

Our pea brains have more synapses than there are stars in the visible sky. I'm sure this computer, of ALL computers that even a lowly bum living in the gutter owns in his cranium, took an extra 500 billion years or so to evolve?

 

That's an observation Charles. But it is similar to what we have. We can see a working system before us. What we don't know is how it came to us. That car could have been designed and built by a car company or (similar to the example of the plane given above) it could be the result of billions of years of random processes.

Sorry again Mike. </font>[/QUOTE]But then again, Scott, the airplane that I described above may have dropped the visitor by parachute to the front yard and the car evolved from a bicycle driven by a Mormon missionary who is canvassing the neighborhood and decided to leave it in your driveway until your visitor leaves, so he can teach you the REAL truth.