Does teaching evolution harm Christianity?

Most definitely. You can measure the electric currents or biochemical processes in certain regions of the brain associated with anger. But you cannot measure anger.

 

And they can try to measure and find naturalistic sources to my love. And they can only go as far as what physical evidence is measurable, directly or indirectly.

 

In the show I saw, the evolutionists weren't willing to admit that your love was anything more than a chemical process evolved to satisfy your survival and procreation instincts.

They are simply being consistent with the naturalistic premise that you accept with regard to origins.

 

I don't deny that there are chemical processes involved in love for I am a being of many chemical processes.

I don't deny that love satisfies both a survival and procreative function because it is important for the continuation of our species.

I do deny that this is all my love is and scientists who believe this are abusing science as the source of all truth and do not recognize the scope of science. I have a feeling the show you watched never said that this is all love is, but you interpreted them as saying that.

Those who believe the first two points without the third are not.

 

Yes it may be a scientific statement that I make x number of compliments to my wife. Give her y number of massages per week. Take her out on dates z number of times. These effects are measurable. But I could do all these things and not love my wife. You cannot measure my love.</font>[/QUOTE] Bingo!!!!!!!!!!!

You can measure common genetic features, you can apply observable processes to the evidence for previous events, you can come up with creative albeit unlikely ancestral evolutionary trees, you can cite homologies, etc, etc, etc. And still these things might not even be likely accounts of natural history.

One who studied your behavior and concluded you loved your wife would be depending on parsimony... and/or on a uniformatarian model of behavior. But just as you cited, there are often very good reasons to believe that someone is not genuine.

We also cannot measure whether they occurred naturally. That is philosophical assumption.

It is fine when you say evolution is limited by naturalism. It is not fine when you say the science is limited by naturalism. We can study behavior... and that is science. We can study the characteristics of design... that is also science. But we can't study characteristics of intelligent behavior and design because that isn't scientific?

.... no, that cannot be allowed not because it isn't a scientific endeavor but because it does not conform to the philosophical assumption of naturalism.

 

Maybe, maybe not. The evidence from our genetic and physical structures definitely suggests some common ancestry. </font>[/QUOTE]No it doesn't. The evidence reveals commonalities. That's all. It doesn't "suggest" anything.

It is only when interpretted with a presupposition of evolution that it "suggests" common ancestory. </font>[/QUOTE]You are correct. I misspoke. It does suggest commonalities that may be interpreted as common ancestry.

 

No. I am pretty sure that the summary was something on the order of "once you boil it down all emotions like love.... are are chemical processes designed by millions of years of evolution." I don't recall for certain whether it was qualified with "maybe" or not but it impressed me as a definitive statement or else I probably wouldn't remember it.

They even used some of the favored ammo on this board citing similarities between human and animal behaviors.

 

How would you measure behaviour and emotion without using your five senses? Can you measure anger? You can measure heart rate, voice volume and flushing of the skin associated with anger. But you can't measure anger. </font>[/QUOTE]You don't. That's the point.

You can measure the characteristics of intelligence but not the substance of intelligence itself. You can measure the likely hoods of evolution's homologies... but you cannot measure or even study the process that was supposed to have caused them... you also can't measure the substance of "chance".

 

You missed my reference of indirect observation. This is how much of science is done.</font>[/QUOTE] That's fine as long as you don't limit it by the philosophical presupposition of naturalism.

Design and information are very much scientific venues. There is no reason to disclude them from the study of origins except to preserve a the philosophical underpinnings of evolution... and the monopoly naturalists hold over science.

No human today observed any of the supernatural acts of God recorded in the Bible to include creation. The only genuinely objective record we have for origins is the Genesis narrative.

Looking for indirect tests when we have a direct testimony doesn't seem to make alot of sense unless the testifier is unreliable.

 

"You may need to educate me, but the implication is if the first and most basic step, RNA and DNA assembly is an impossibility and in cricks words, "capabal of natural selection", then it prohibits evolution short of an introduction of alreay assembled RNA/DNA into the system. But it just drags the ultimate question on and on, how was this DNA/RNA assemled? This is why intelligent design should be considered. Specifically, he said he could concieve of no process by which RNA can assemble itself to a degree that if would be capable of natural selection, which is evolution."

I think that it might be useful to point out that this quote from Crick is getting a little long in the tooth.

There has been a lot of research into possible scenarios for the origin of life. I doubt that you would hear many informed scientists today say that they could not possibly even conceive of a way in which it might have happened.

The flip side of that, however, is that the actual process has likely been lost to time. We can propose various pathways, we can test them to see if they are really plausible but we are unlikely to ever have enough information from the past to know for sure that a particular path was the one used. A good approxiamation may come as we spread across the solar system. There is a chance that places like Titan or Europa might have had some prebiotic chemistry that never bore fruit. Remnants of this chemistry might be frozen for us to find and at least confirm that some path was taken elsewhere. (If I were a betting man, I would put a small wager that in the case of Europa we will find that there is some form of life swimming in its seas.)

The point is that the question is no longer one without good proposals for an answer. Even if it had instead been shown to be not possible, as a believer in the Creator God, this is not a problem for me. However, since my position is that God created the laws of this universe so perfectly as to accomplish His creative wishes through those laws, it is satisfying to see that there are some very promising possibilities. It would be less satisfying to have to throw a God-of-the-Gaps in there at some point.

If, after all this, you are interested, I did make a recent post which summarizes some of the more recent research into this topic. It is quite long and consists of references to papers and books dealing with various aspects. Even if you fail to look up any of the references, the shear length, which is just scratching the surface, should at least give some confidence that this is not considered an unsolvable problem by those in the know.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3178/16.html#000226

 

"So, explain how we study the part about God's Son coming to Earth to atone for our sins----from strictly a natural perspective."

It is not possible to do. Such events are outside the purview of science on which to comment at all.

But we as Christians take it on faith that just this very thing has happened. We could not possibly hope to even attempt to confirm or deny this event through scientific investigation.

"If science cannot handle the variable of the 'non-physical'--- there is the possibility that observations could result in the wrong conclusions?"

You are right. Science is unable to put God into a box and study Him. It can only deal with things that follow natural laws which can be tested and investigated.

In the case of evolution, the data from the creation seems to indicate that evolution has occurred. Science would be completely unable to distinguish between a world in which evolution happened and one which was created recently to merely look as if evolution happened.

But I doubt that you are implying that you think that the evidence from creation does support evolution but was actually recently created to look that way.

In which case, we can propose differences which we would expect in a recently created world than an old earth. Let's take genetic homologies as an example. I claim similarities in genes to be signs of common descent and you claim them to be signs of a common design. Now my expectation would be that if a designer were going to use the same protein in different species that he would use the same genetic code. But what we actually observe is that genes that code for the same product often have mutations in different species that change the DNA sequence without changing the product made. And the patterns of these silent mutations fit with patterns from other areas of evidence that also supports evolution. I also have doubts about other observations such as the large number of shared viral inserts between the species and shared pseudogenes.

 

"Okay, so let me understand what YOU believe. Do you believe that man evolved from other animals and was given a soul after a certain point? How does man differ from animals as far as your religious beliefs?"

Man differs from the other animals in that he has been made in the image of God. That is to say that man has been separated out and given a soul. Man alone has the capacity to determine right from wrong. Man alone has the ability to praise God or to reject Him. In this is the basis for man's special relationship with God. Without a choice, praise and devotion are meaningless. But since we have the choice, we can have a special realtionship with God. We show our willingness, or lack there of, by our actions. If we praise God and desire Him in our lives it is because we have made a conscious decision.

And yes, man shares a common origin, physically, with the other animals.

As far as the rest, I don't know. Man was definately separated out at some point. It is very possible that this is where we begin to shift from God being described as creator of all to a literal account. Adam and Eve may have been separated out, given a soul and placed in the garden. But I am also open to Adam being symbolic of mankind, so this is a big I am not sure. From my perspective, it does not matter a whole lot whether it was either of these or another path entirely.

 

Genesis is definitely a genuine narrative on origins.

Isn't creation itself a genuinely objective record of origins?

 

Genesis is definitely a genuine narrative on origins.

Isn't creation itself a genuinely objective record of origins? </font>[/QUOTE]NASB - Romans 1:20

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

 

IMO without a challenge, 'Christianity' would become weak. If we aren't challenged to fight for what we believe in and stand up for the truth, IMO we would get to laid back.

So in other words, I don't think it 'harms' us, but IMO instead it encourages us to really think about what we believe, than after we know for shure that with-out a doubt we have the truth, it will make us stonger and it will make us stand up for what we know is the truth.

Thats what it has done for me adleast, because I know I wouldn't have ever really thought about why we don't need prophets anymore, or why we couldn't have evolved from monkeys.

I don't know if this is really makeing any sense

 

Genesis is definitely a genuine narrative on origins.

Isn't creation itself a genuinely objective record of origins? </font>[/QUOTE]Yes... until someone subjectively supplies their own philosophical/metaphysical premises for interpretting the data... and dogmatically asserts that their philosophy limits what is and is not scientific.

If someone says "I did this...and this is how/when/where...." then that is objective. It may be true or false. But it isn't subjective.

God said that He created the world in 6 days by acts of will... He defined those six days as "a morning and an evening". I have a completely objective basis for saying that all interpretations of evidence must conform to that objective statement.

To assume that an intelligent designer/creator was not active in natural history is a metaphysical, not scientific, assumption. The presupposition of naturalism is purely subjective. No higher authority established the rule. There is nothing in nature that demands the rule.

 

As are origins and unobserved/unrecorded history... although not completely. You cannot interpret the data for natural history without making non-scientific assumptions.

To assume that a creator was not directly responsible for something that exists is just as metaphysical as to assume one was.

You also take on faith that evolution occurred, that naturalism is a legitimate limitation on origins theories, and that God "would not have done it that way".

You can do it every bit as much as proving that even one species arose from a completely different one.... ever.

It is also unable to put history in a box and study it. You can speculate how something might have happened by undirected natural forces just like one can speculate how something happened due to intelligent cause...

Only if you presuppose evolution when before you interpret the data.

You have assigned a motive where none has been established. You have attempted to make God to blame if naturalists misinterpret what they see.

The evidence does not "indicate"... it doesn't "speak"... it doesn't "suggest". It simply lays there until someone interprets it.

No. Common ascent... that simple forms become more complex by an unproven process of acquiring complexity and genetic information from some other source than the "kind" that reproduced them.

That is a metaphysical assumption that is no more likely true than the idea that one can only use the same code on any given silicon chip.

So? This doesn't even effectively knock down the straw man assumption you constructed.

 

"Now that I've said that, I would like to point out that natural selection is acceptable. Evolution requires natural selection to add genetic information and further species. However, when natural selection is observed, it only takes away genetic information to further a species. So the animal will never evolve, only adapt to a given enviroment. That's why God said for everything to reproduce after its own kind."

I do not think that this is a true statement.

There have been several presentations of specifics recently on other threads, so I will not repeat them here. You are free to find them or ask about them if you wish to have more information. But I will give a couple of general responses.

The assertion is that natural selection can only remove genetic variability. I will instead show a couple of mechanisms which provide for new genetic diversity on which evolution can work.

The first is duplication and subsequent mutation. In this case, an existing gene is duplicated. One of the duplicates is then free to mutate into something new. Through such a process, novel genes can be produced to be acted upon by natural selection without eliminating the useful gene that was duplicated. Therefore, selection is preserving new and useful gens without removing anything.

Here is a link to a post showing how globin genes show characteristics consistent with being produced through several cases of duplication and mutation.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3200/2.html#000018

Another way in which new genes can be created is through alternate splicing. Genes are generally broken into pieces called exons. To make the final gene, the exons have to be brought together, the material between them has to be removed (called introns), and the pieces spliced together to make the final gene. Well, in alternative splicing, different genes are made by splicing together different combinations of exons. So you can see that this is a way in which new genes are made while existing genes are unaffected.

Here is an example of this in combination with duplication producing a new gene. In this case, the process took about 20 million years. In the meantime, intermediate steps in the process were preserved as lineages split from one another through evolutionary processes. I am not sure what the YE explanation would be as to why these non-functional genetic intermediates are to be found in extant species in this pattern.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3200/2.html#000019

 

Evolution hurts Chrisitianity because it makes people doubt the Bible.

And that is important. Because we are saved through faith.

Look at the evolutionists here. They say they believe the Bible.

You could've fooled me.

You say the creation account should not be taken literally.

Well, then why should we take the Bible as literal when it says,

Jhn 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Well,?????

All I see is the evolutionists throwing doubt on one scripture after another.

And this is evident today. There is a local show in my area where a pastor goes to college campuses and speaks to students. The students constantly bring evolution up in an attempt to prove the Bible wrong. The very show this week the pastor pulled out a wristwatch to show that design cannot come about through random chance.

But even with this simple example, the students believed evolution. And all thought the Bible was a myth.

The evolutionists do not want freedom of thought. They start their work early. My 3 year old son has many books on dinosaurs. They are full of references to evolution, saying the earth is millions of years old, and explaining how some dinosaurs evolved into birds, etc.....

And I have to always explain that this is not true. That God created the animals as they are and that the earth is not old.

And you see and hear it on all the natural shows as well.

The aim of evolution is not science. The aim of evolution is to make people doubt God.

And it works. The evolutionists here certainly do not believe the creation account in Genesis.

 

Right on JWI. Preach it!