Does teaching evolution harm Christianity?

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Helen:
Oh help. John, Genesis IS a series of eyewitness accounts with each of the authors signing off at the end. Please see

Let me cite this verse:

Gen 14:14
14 When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he led out his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.
NASU


The city of Dan was named that at the time of the Judges, long after Abraham had died.

Therefore this verse, at least, took its present form by someone who narrated it long after the events which it retells.

Your idea that there is nothing in Genesis but the stitching together of eye witness accounts falls on the evidence of this verse.

 

[Johnv]

Originally posted by Helen:
Oh help. John, Genesis IS a series of eyewitness accounts with each of the authors signing off at the end.

That's ridiculous, and the "tablet theory" is nonsense.

Nothing more than adding doctrine to scripture. You're welome to personally believe this as a possibility, Helen, but please do not sell this as doctrinal or actual.

 

[UTEOTW]

Originally posted by Phillip:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by hamricba:
Care to point us to a thread or two where Helen made this most clear? I'd be interested in studying it...

I doubt this information is available. If I am not mistaken, Helen and I were debating this subject several years ago. Probably when I first signed up in 2001. A LOT of information changed hands at that time and it would be very difficult to locate our old discussions, if they even exist.</font>[/QUOTE]If you are really interested, many of the threads have been collected into an archive at the bottom of the forum.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/forum/36.html

You will have to use the combo box at the top right to change the date range to all topics.

I would guess to see some of the discussion where Phillip argued the other side, you might have to go back to like page 7 or 8 or so of the list of threads. I took a quick look, but could not locate any Phillip posts from that era, but I bet they are there somewhere.

 

[Helen]

Paul, we know Moses edited the material. That is not a problem. The editing can be seen in grammatical differences and word choices. The first one I am aware of is Genesis 2:5-7.

John, you obviously have not looked at the research or the evidence. Best you not make a fool of yourself with that kind of judgment until you have.

 

[Johnv]

Originally posted by Helen:
we know Moses edited the material. That is not a problem.

We DO NOT know that. We believe it to be a good possibility, but we do not know that with any certainty. But nowhere in the Bible is it specifically stated that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch. There are about 24 or so verses that imply Moses scribed parts of the Torah, but there is nothing in scripture to imply that Moses authored or edited the Torah as a whole.

John, you obviously have not looked at the research or the evidence. Best you not make a fool of yourself with that kind of judgment until you have.

I've heard of this before. IMO, it's as baseless not as it was when I first head it. Again, you're welome to personally believe this as a possibility, but please do not pass this off as something all Christians are required to adhere to. You'd be guilty of the same thing KJVOists do.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Helen:
Paul, we know Moses edited the material. That is not a problem. The editing can be seen in grammatical differences and word choices. The first one I am aware of is Genesis 2:5-7.

John, you obviously have not looked at the research or the evidence. Best you not make a fool of yourself with that kind of judgment until you have.

Helen, has it escaped your normally keen mind that Dan was also named after Moses?

 

[UTEOTW]

"Second, species is often confused with the biblical 'kind'. Wrong. The biblical 'kind' or 'baramin' is a much broader group, often more closely associated with the family or sub-family taxonomic group -- such as canine, feline, bovine, equine, etc."

Really?

If you allow the Bible to comment on itself, then this interpretation is not consistent.

For instance, look in Deuteronomy 14 (ESV).

11 "You may eat all clean birds. 12 But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, 13 the kite, the falcon of any kind; 14 every raven of any kind; 15 the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; 16 the little owl and the short-eared owl, the barn owl 17 and the tawny owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, 18the stork, the heron of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat.

The writer seems to understand that even with a group, such as falcons, that there exist a range of "kinds." This use seems to suggest that kinds be limited to species. It is much different than your assertion that it should be a much higher division such as family.

"Evolutionists challenge us to define 'kind' and give it some kind of test. This when they cannot define ANY of their taxonomic classifications, such as kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, or, often, species. However one useful test for kind is whether or not the animals can hybridize, such as the horse and zebra can (thus showing they were originally from one kind)."

I am not quite sure what your point is here.

I believe that if you talk to any taxonomist, you wil find that divisions such as family or order are simply matters of convenience (or more often, inconvenience) and that there is no real shard divisions into such heirarchies or even between such heirarchies.

Contrast this with the "kinds" proposal. It suggests that there should exist a very shard dividing line between "kinds," whatever that may be. But we see YEers as unable to agree to just what a "kind" is and an objective test of what a "kind" really is.

This hybridization thing comes up often, usually with a few pat examples such as zebras/horses or lion/tiger crosses. But this is far from able to account for your porposed division at the family level. I think you would be hard pressed to get a wide set of hybridizations at the family level.

And in the end, what does hybridization measure? It measures genetic similarity. Now when we observe life, we see no hard and fast lines in genetics that would suggest that such a division is possible. You give canines and felines as probable kinds. Yet as you follow patterns of genetic similarity, you cross no line of distinction when you go above say canine into carnivores. There is a continuum.

"Speciation exists, but it is NOT the same as changing from one kind of organism to another and it is NOT a precursor to that sort of change."

What prevents small changes from accumulating? The evidence suggests that this is what has happened.

 

[bapmom]

I thought this wasn't supposed to turn into a thread on evolution vs creation again?

 

[TexasSky]

Lets back up a minute.

What do you believe evolution is? Specifically, in regards to how human life came about. How do you believe it fits into the story of Eden?

 

[Phillip]

This also depends on what you believe about the Bible. It is my belief that the Bible was inspired by God and the men who wrote it may have penned it in their own style, but said what God told them to say; therefore, it is plain to see that God is the witness. That is why we call the Bible God's Word.

That is also the reason the Bible becomes such a credible witness because it originates from the creator who cannot lie.

Back to the subject, evolution simply muddies the water and AGAIN is nothing more than a theory with many missing pieces.

 

[UTEOTW]

Grouping a few here to avoid lot's of short posts....


by Helen

"Gold Dragon, evolution as in changes from bacteria to bear has NO empirical evidence and depends entirely up on faith and interpretation of data and ignoring a lot of other data. THAT is the fact of the matter."

How can you say in one sentence both that there is no empirical data and then in the next phrase say that it depend on interpretation of the date? These are contradictory.

There have been quite a few detailed lines of evidence presented to you and others on recent threads that purport to show such evidence. Demands have been made for you and others to support their assertions of alternate interpretations and how to test them. Thus far, such requests have been met with silence or reasons why you won't provide the alternates.

I think they simply do not exist.

----

by TexasSky

"I'm sorry, but evolutionary theory changes all the time. I'm 48 years old and what they teach today is not at all what they taught when I was in school."

What has changed?

The underlying theory is that life changes by degrees and with time produces new forms of life. Now there has been a lot learned about the mechanisms by which this takes place. Some of the mechanisms have had to modified and new one have been found to be important. But these are the reasons that research is done. Nothing fundemental has been changed.

 

[UTEOTW]

Originally posted by Scott J:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />With that said, evolution is one of the more trustworthy theories in science, having undergone and withstanding several generations of scientific criticism.

Not true. Evolutionists have carefully crafted the debate so that evolution does not have to prove its premises nor compare itself to explanations that do not depend on strict naturalism.

The recent ID demagogury by evolutionists is a case in point. Somehow evolutionists truly believe that the assumption of no active creator is less metaphysical than not making that assumption. </font>[/QUOTE]So you think that it is a bad assumption to accept that things are as they seem?

As I challeneged you on the other thread, if you wish to accept that the data indicates common descent but that God supernaturally made it look that way when it really is not true, then you are the one making the metaphysical assumptions that you need to demonstrate. You are not allowed to shed the burden of proof.

I refuse to accept that it is a bad assumption to simply believe my lying eyes.

 

[UTEOTW]

Originally posted by bapmom:
I thought this wasn't supposed to turn into a thread on evolution vs creation again?

It is just what happens.

It was a worthy goal to ask in the first post to just give opinion on the question asked and not to debate the underlying facts. But as you see, it does not take long for someone to go beyond the original scope and throw in some extra comments on why they thing evolution is not a fact or what evidence they think it goes against. Then all bets are off. The thread is derailed and both sides wil start defending or refuting the original insertion of off topic remarks.

People have strong feeling on each side. It will always happen.

 

[Phillip]

No it actually usually starts occuring when you show up and start throwing data out in an effort to prove your theory. Getting you to actually translate the first 11 Chapters of Genesis for us is like pulling teeth, so we gave up.

This thread IS about whether or not teaching evolution will hurt Christianity. No, it will NOT always happen, just like evolution is NOT a fact.

 

[Phillip]

I am going to REPEAT my post above for those of you who missed it with the shot-gun posting going on here:

This also depends on what you believe about the Bible. It is my belief that the Bible was inspired by God and the men who wrote it may have penned it in their own style, but said what God told them to say; therefore, it is plain to see that God is the witness. That is why we call the Bible God's Word.

That is also the reason the Bible becomes such a credible witness because it originates from the creator who cannot lie.

Back to the subject, evolution simply muddies the water and AGAIN is nothing more than a theory with many missing pieces.

 

[TexasSky]

UTEOW,

Evolution used to teach pure and total Darwinism. That is not rejected as unable to stand the test of science.

Then it taught "big bang" - which also has been questioned by science.

It used to teach that man came from ape.
Then it said, "No, wait, we meant fish."

It said, "We all came from the same cell," then someone said, "Explain the DNA differences. Show us species jumping."

Science went, "Oops. Okay. We can't. So, that isn't what we meant."

Well, it is what you taught.

They used to teach me: Nothing that is mutated can procreate into its mutated state. Nothing that crosses from one specific species with another can reproduce itself. You can take a horse and a donkey and get a mule, but the mule can't have a mule. (Or have I got the donky and mule reversed?)

But they also taught my group of students: Evolution is the mutation reproducing throughout all of society.

When some of us went, "Wait a minute!"

They went, "Oh, wait. Wait! That isn't what we meant. We meant that if you have a white cat and a black cat, and they produce a cat with black paws, and you mate that with another cat with black paws you can get a cat with black paws."

The second version is a far cry from "we all started out in the same DNA pool."

 

[UTEOTW]

"Evolution used to teach pure and total Darwinism. That is not rejected as unable to stand the test of science. "

What was rejected? What part of the basic theory has been thrown out?

"Then it taught "big bang" - which also has been questioned by science."

THe inflationary cold dark matter lambda theory is fairly widely accepted from where I sit. Why do you think the BB is being abandoned?

"It used to teach that man came from ape.
Then it said, 'No, wait, we meant fish.' "

What? It is both. When was it ever taught as otherwise?

"It said, 'We all came from the same cell,' then someone said, 'Explain the DNA differences. Show us species jumping.'

Science went, 'Oops. Okay. We can't. So, that isn't what we meant.' "

I am not even sure what you are getting at here.

When has anyone changed their opinion that we have a single celled ancestor?

What DNA differences do you think are unexplained?

Just what is "species jumping?" Do you mean transitionals? We have oodles of those.

"They used to teach me: Nothing that is mutated can procreate into its mutated state. Nothing that crosses from one specific species with another can reproduce itself. You can take a horse and a donkey and get a mule, but the mule can't have a mule. (Or have I got the donky and mule reversed?)

But they also taught my group of students: Evolution is the mutation reproducing throughout all of society."

I still do not know what you are getting at.

Mutation has been the source for genetic variation for as long as we have known there was DNA. Even beforethat, Darwin speculated that there must be something like DNA, though he could not possibly know what it was.

And every generation has mutations. They generally present no challenge to reproduction. If they do, well they obviously are not passed on.

And I ma not sure quite what you are getting at with the mule reference. I think it might be how a new species is supposed to mate with. Easy. Evolution happens to populations, not individuals. The offspring are always the same species as the parents.

"They went, 'Oh, wait. Wait! That isn't what we meant. We meant that if you have a white cat and a black cat, and they produce a cat with black paws, and you mate that with another cat with black paws you can get a cat with black paws.'

The second version is a far cry from 'we all started out in the same DNA pool.'"

Again, who today says anything other than all life shares the same initial gene pool?

I am at a loss to understand just what you assert has changed that should cause us to doubt the whole thing.

 

[TexasSky]

I don't have time to recount the 42 years since I started school on this board.

I will say that I work with reputable scientists who are NOT Christians who DO work in the fields of biological science who freely admit that Darwin was wrong. In fact, they dislike him as much as many Christians because he is so wrong.

But if you want to defend Darwin - what is your explanation for fossil leaps? If Darwinism is correct, it means that species slowly evolved over time, and that the links must have existed in tremendously large numbers just as the origins and outcomes exist. Yet, the links are missing. ALWAYS.

The basics of Darwinism state that two parent-organisms will produce a mutated offspring and that nature will favor the mutation, thus allowing this mutation to become dominate. According to pure Darwinism this is all due to random chance.

Now, yes, we can go into a lab, and under very carefully controlled circumstances, we can create an set of specifically engineered offspring. We do this by very carefully selecting a special set of parents. The question comes up though, even for scientists - how does this happen in a double blind, chaotic situation? If random selection is at work, based on environmental issues, as classical darwinism holds forth - why do these changes seem to be "world wide?" Why are there so few variations within other areas. If man came from a set of apes that mutated, in a random way, why is it men are all so similar and apes so different.

Who taught this? Universities, museums.. tremendously large segments of society used to march school children into museums to look at pictures of "ape men" "progressing" through the ages.. then they found Lucy.

Lucy ruined it.

Lucy didn't fit the mold.

So the "ape men" vanished from the museums.

Darwin's micro-evolution works. Yes, one generation may be taller, smaller, fatter, etc. than another.

Darwin's species transferral evolution fails.

The questioning of the classical Darwin theory lead to a new theory in 1930. That is "synthetic theory". In 1979 Stephen Gould said that was "dead." That was replaced by Punctuated Equilibrium.

French evolutionists reject Darwinism and call it pseudo-science.

One of the things they always taught me in school was that you could either "observe something in a natural state" or "you could reproduce it in controlled tests" or you tossed the theory out as failing the tests of science.

Well, we cannot observe species jumping evolution in nature. Frogs may produce different frogs, but they don't produce cats, and it doesn't matter how similar or different the DNA is. It just doesn't happen. Not even in controlled lab experiments.

You may be able to clone a kitten.
But you cannot take the DNA of a kitten and produce a human being.

 

[Trotter]

It is to ask EVERYBODY who is allowed to post here their personal thoughts on whether or not teaching evolution causes any harm to the teaching of Christianity.

Does teaching evolution harm Christianity? Good question.

What does evolution teach? That the universe is but a momentary blip in the chain of existance. That all life occured totally by accident, thus making each person an accident of nature. That life has no purpose whatsoever, including merely survival, as all are but accidents.

What does Christianity teach? That the universe is the handiwork of God Himself. That God ordained and created all life, making each one precious. That the ultimate purpose of life is to know God and accept Jesus Christ as Savior.

Does teaching evolution harm Christianity? Only by opposing everything about it.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

[Helen]

nicely put, Trotter.