Kenneth Miller: Respected Christian Champion of Evolution

My father grew up in Port Arthur, Texas and went to college in Denton, Texas. Denton was and is an extremely conservative city.

 

Well, my family never admired Darwin. He was considered an atheist when I first heard of him. As an adult, I consider Darwin a poor little rich kid who married his cousin because she was an heir to the Wedgewood factory fortune and whose scientific education was rudimentary at best. I tried to read him a couple of times and had to give up. Not my cup of tea. I don't know about any part of Texas except West Texas. I have started a new thread dealing with the age of the earth, specifically how the six thousand years is calculated, which I welcome you to post on:

"Six Thousand Years with Ken Ham"

 

Charles Darwin was never a topic of conversation in my home. He was neither admired nor reviled.

 

I believe that it happened that way, do you?

 

We have no evidence that a species ever has changed from one kind to another...

 

The theory is just that, and its a crime how people have used that to discredit genesis, and also to discredit the belief that Moses wrote genesis, andthat the OT especially was also inspired by God!

 

Sure we do. You just won't invest the time to check it out for yourself. You are willingly ignorant of it and want others to be ignorant too.

 

In science, a theory is as close to a fact as one can get. Science doesn't close the door on learning something new, so what would be a "fact" in just about any other discipline is called a theory.

Actually, you do a bang-up job of discrediting Genesis yourself. Because of your interpretation of Jesus, you want everyone else to ignore what they discover in the real world (the real world as opposed to your interpretation of Genesis, not Genesis itself).

If I had to believe the way you would want me to, I would have to ignore, I would have to either ignore the enormous fossilized coral reefs in West Texas and New Mexico, or conclude that Genesis (and the rest of the Bible) is false.

If I had to believe the way you would want me to, I would have to ignore the massive amount of evidence of a very old universe that can be found in astronomy, or conclude that the Bible is false.

If I had to believe the way you would want me to, I would have to ignore DNA evidence that leads to cures for cancer and vaccines that save enormous numbers of lives every year.

If I had to believe the way you would want me to, I would have to ignore that the least complex animals were generally fossilized in earlier layers of sediment while more complex animals were generally fossilized in later layers of sediment, or conclude that Genesis (and the rest of the Bible) is false.

If I had to believe the way you would want me to, I would have to ignore what the text of the scripture actually says (and what it doesn't say), and assume that the Bible is indecipherable and everything is just a guess.

No, thank you. I would be betraying Jesus to follow your lead in this area. He has led me to this place.

Now you're just inventing new false accusations.

Why do you doubt that Moses supervised the gathering of preexisting writings and commissioning new writings that became the Pentateuch?

Why do you doubt the Old Testament was inspired by God?

It seems to me that the real issue here is that you are extremely weak in faith and you can't handle other people believing differently than you.

 

What way?

 

I have checked into claims made before, and at best, was either dubious, or just change with same species!

 

I just prefer to go by what Moses, paul, and especially Jesus stated happened in Genesis account, and not darwin and his ilk!

 

Universal world wide flood, all by Noah and his family killed off!

 

Be specific. I fully accept that Genesis is reliable and God-inspired. The difference between us is a matter of interpretation.

You obviously want me to believe something beyond accepting the text as authoritative. So your question is loaded with all sorts of assumption. You need to be specific about what you are asking:

When in history (or pre-history) do you place the events of this story? Within the last 10,000 years? Older than that?

Do you want me to believe that the fossils we have located and sedimentary layers were created by a world-wide deluge? Do you want me to believe that dinosaurs were on the ark, or were they long extinct before Noah and Adam?

How many years were there between the literal/historical Adam you demand that I believe in and the Noah of Genesis?

 

I often read that fossilized coral reefs that are far inland do not undermine mainstream YEC, but that's obviously not true. I don't reject YEC just on one or two false claims.

Just because some of the claims you have heard don't pan out doesn't mean that every claim advanced for a particular position is wrong.

That being said, have you read Adam and the Genome (not just a hostile review)? If not, you are not dealing with the evidence that I have posited.

I actually not trying to convert you from YEC, but instead to point out that your attacks and arguments against theistic evolutionists are profoundly uninformed.

 

Me too. That's why I believe Jesus and Paul. I have also discovered that there is plenty of evidence for the theistic evolution position.

 

Dinosaurs were with mankind before the great Flood, see the Dragon stories from across the globe!
Nearly every culture had some type of Flood story, while the story in genesis is the accurate and inspired version of what really happened...
Real Fall, real garden, real world wide flood!

 

NONE for it found in scripturers though, and all of the so called evidence can and has been disproved!

 

I will say again, if the scripture and science clash, which position do you side with?

 

I asked some specific questions:

When in history (or pre-history) do you place the events of this story? Within the last 10,000 years? Older than that?

You avoided this question.

Do you want me to believe that the fossils we have located and sedimentary layers were created by a world-wide deluge?

You also avoided this question.

Do you want me to believe that dinosaurs were on the ark, or were they long extinct before Noah and Adam?

You answered:

So dinosaurs existed between Adam and Noah. Check. You failed to tell me directly if they were on the ark, although you hinted ("before the great flood") that they were not.

IF dinosaurs lived between Adam and Noah AND we are to take this story as literal and historical, why did Noah disobey God when He instructed Noah to load two of every unclean animal and seven of every clean animal on the ark?

Sure. That doesn't mean that the flood was literal and historical though. It simply points to a common heritage of ancient ideas.

I agree it is inspired, but it does not seem "literal" and "historical" enough for you to have enough faith in your viewpoint to answer the questions I asked about it. If you don't have enough faith in the story to publicly state your interpretation of the passage, in front of other people who believe the scriptures, you certainly have no business badgering me to hold an interpretation that you cannot even explain.

Repeating your assertions endlessly is not an argument.

There is a lot of scriptural evidence in the passages themselves that the creation narratives are not intended to be taken as a literal, historical account. If you are going to complain that evidence for theistic evolution is not in the scriptures, then you should also complain that the Bible doesn't talk about electricity or micro-computers.

"All" -- That's an inclusive word. Please disprove (on a scientific basis and not simply giving me a link) that the human genome does not support evolution.

As I have pointed out a number of times, when scripture and science appear to clash, we should consider three possibilities:

(1) Our scientific interpretation is wrong or lacking
(2) Our scriptural interpretation is wrong or lacking
(3) Both our scientific and scriptural interpretation is wrong or lacking

What we have to do is go back to both scripture and science and honestly re-examine the claims of both.

If there is a contradiction, many people have a faith that is always teetering on the edge of unbelief, so they have to resolve it immediately or their faith will fall like a house of cards. For those persons, set aside science and go with scripture.

However, some of us are quite confident in our faith and can wait for resolution. In the time of contradiction, we can trust God and be honest that scripture is true and yet science seems to make some strong points that cannot be easily set aside.

Now that I have answered your questions, will you answer mine instead of avoiding them?

When in history (or pre-history) do you place the events of this story? Within the last 10,000 years? Older than that?

Do you want me to believe that the fossils we have located in the sedimentary layers were created by a world-wide deluge?

 

Dinosaurs were on the ark. The flood was global according to Peter. Fossils are the dumping ground for the animals killed by the flood. The flood was about 4300 years ago. Aren't you a uniformitarianist? From Adam to Abraham about two thousand years, from Abraham to Jesus about two thousand years, from Jesus to you about two thousand years. From Adam to you about six thousand years.