Would you allow evolutionists to teach Sunday School?

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
[QB] "Moving up the stratigraphic column, fossils reveal a main line of evolution progressing continuously from Eohippus [hyracotherium] to Equus "

Yes, a good quote. What is the problem with this. I think you just admitted defeat.

"The line from Eohippus to Hypohippus exemplifies a fairly continuous phyletic evolution."
G.G. Simpson, Horses, 1951, pg 215. "

Yes, a good quote. What is the problem with this. I think you just admitted defeat.

WOW! You fell right into that one UTEOTW! Thank you very much! I am adding your post to my document as that is such a perfect response for you.

I start out SHOWING the discredited statements of Evolutionism - statements that EVEN SIMPSON denies and you (in the true style of ignoring the details of the post) jump on the faithful devotee bandwagon!

I could not have asked for a more perfect illustration! Thanks!

In Christ,

Bob

 

[UTEOTW]

Where is the citation for the archy conference claims that you continue to use even though they have been shown to be false?

"BEcause the evolutionists quoted above SHOW that the sequence was bogus and IN THEIR WORDS "NEVER occurred in NATURE"!!"

How many times do we have to go through this? What "never occurred" was the simple A to B to C progression that was accepted when the known fossils were few. When the complete picture was filed in, a much more complex picture emerged.

"Please show how all the "Bob lied" rhetoric is justified when you have to make embarrassing confessions like the one above?"

Just what embarrassing confession have I made?

You are the one who keeps telling untruths about the archy conference with all your claims that the evils atheists admitted that it was just a "true bird."

You are the one who keeps posting out of context quotes and calling them legitimate.

You are the one who made claims about the geologic column not being found in one place.

"The monochiral structures of all living cells today - not withstandig - eh UTEOTW??"

That's right. You are the one making fully formed cells that have been subject to 4 billion years of evolution the expectation. That is not what a reasonable person would expect.

"Is it NOW your quagmire to argue that an RNA molecule is a living cell UTEOTW? Has it come to that?"

I have argued it for a long time. You have never shown a problem with what I had to say. DO you remember this?

Ricardo, A., Carrigan, M. A., Olcott, A. N., Benner, S. A.. 2004 “Borate Minerals Stabilize Ribose” Science January 9; 303: 196

This shows how simple compounds can be used to form ribose (all right handed as they should be) and the four nucleobases. Add a little phosphate and now the ribose and bases wil make neucleotides., all with the right chiral form. Now, as it turns out, in the presence of clay (specifically montmorillonite) these nucleotides will begin to polymerize and make RNA. This same clay that will catalyze the formation of RNA will also lead to a spontaneous process in which small vesicles are formed with the fatty acid making a wall and trapping water and the RNA molecules inside.

Now, as has been shown you in the past, RNA is able to carry out the same functions as both DNA and proteins even if not as well as either. But once you have simple cells based on RNA, then DNA is free to evolve as a better information carrying molecule. Proteins are also free to evolve to perform cellular function better. Since the RNA is already a pure chiral compound, there is no problem making the proteins in a pure chiral form.

Does any of this sound familiar? Maybe you don't read posts before you reply.

"Having failed to show a well reasoned path for monochiral amino acids to form as needed for the proteins of even one single living cell --"

Nope, look above. That is at least the sixth time I would guess that I have outlined this for you.

"The outlandish examples UTEOTW has ALREADY given INCLUDE amino acid compounds IN OUTER SPACE that have a somewhat "more favorable" distribution that then totally loused up 50/50 that they get in the lab - but the fact remains only the 100/0 distribution (you know - monochiral distribution) works."

Just one of several examples I gave you that lead not to the racemized mixture you claim. Some methods increase the chances of one isomer a bit and some a lot. See the RNA example above.

"You are just to funny my friend."

It is not funny that you have been making this claim for months despite the falseness of the claim being pointed out to you and repeated requests for you to justify your continued use with some sort of citation. This is YE junk at its worst. Repeating known falsehoods.

 

[UTEOTW]

"WOW! You fell right into that one UTEOTW! Thank you very much! I am adding your post to my document as that is such a perfect response for you."

What did I admit to there? I am not sure I am the one that fell into anything.

You quote Simpson as saying that the horse sequence does not exist. I say that you claim is false and he is saying something quite different. SO you turn around and quote him as saying the sequence does exist. Well, all I really have to do here is point out that your two quotes are in conflict. When we look at the first quote more closely, we see that you dishonestly hacked the context away to make it say something other than what the author intended.

So the second quote is the accurate one and it disproves your previous claims and it exposes the dishonesty of your previous quote.

I think you are the one who walked into something.

Now, where is my archy citation?

 

[BobRyan]

The first section of my post was the section showing with the "old" discredited view of the horse series was - and how smooth stepwise transition was thought to be "a science fact" when in fact it was nothing but "science fiction".

I show in my post how that view was later discredited - but you seem to have latched on to the discredited view and claimed it as your own.

It was a great example - and I appreciate having it for my file.

Thanks again.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Bob said --
"BEcause the evolutionists quoted above SHOW that the sequence was bogus and IN THEIR WORDS "NEVER occurred in NATURE"!!"

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
How many times do we have to go through this? What "never occurred" was the simple A to B to C progression that was accepted when the known fossils were few. When the complete picture was filed in, a much more complex picture emerged.

How many times do I have to point out that my post - SHOWS the flaws in that - it SHOWS that the "feet come with the animal" as do the teeth. When you claim that the FEET of A are not the ancestor to the FEET of B - then you are admitting that A is not the ancestor of B - and when you admit that this did not even OCCUR IN NATURE - then not only are the FEET wrong - but the ANIMALS are WRONG!

That means the entire ANCESTOR "story" was simply "fabricated" by zealous devotees to evolutionism RATHER than based on SCIENCE FACT.

That means that the BEST example of evolutionism (the horse series) is in fact the BEST example of the junk-science of evolutionism presenting science FICTION as thought it ware science FACT.

Since evolutionism's doctrines are so devoid of fact and logic - I will help you with this.


What WOULD have been the honest thing for a deceived and devoted follower of evolutionism to have been saying about the science FICTION we know as the "horse series" today?

Well we could have hoped they would say "We have found these animal remains - we think that if we line them up like this - it shows how atheists view evolution and the way that we got horses.

Now of course we have nothing TELLING us that they line up like this or that A is the ancestor of B - but we would LIKE to think that as devoted eveolutionists and we HOPE that one day we will find ACTUAL EVIDENCE in the fossil record that IN FACT they DO line up like this IN the actual fossil record"
[/quote]

That would have been the honest way to present speculation and guessword as the faith-based-initiative that it truly is.

BUT INSTEAD - they said this.

[/b] </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
Moving up the stratigraphic column, fossils reveal a main line of evolution progressing continuously from Eohippus [hyracotherium] to Equus

The line from Eohippus to Hypohippus exemplifies a fairly continuous phyletic evolution."
G.G. Simpson, Horses, 1951, pg 215.

"Horses are among the best-documented examples of evolutionary development."—World Book Encyclopedia (1982 ed.), p. 333.

"The development of the horse is allegedly one of the most concrete examples of evolution. The changes in size, type of teeth, shape of head, number of toes, etc., are frequently illustrated in books and museums as an undeniable evidence of the evolution of living things."—Harold G. Coffin, Creation: Accident or Design? (1969), p. 193.

". . [On February 14, 1981] in California he was on a network television program. The host asked him to comment on the creationist claim that there were no examples of transitional forms to be found in the fossil record. Dr. Eldredge turned to the horse series display at the American Museum and stated that it was the best available example of a transitional sequence."—L.D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma (1988), p. 82.

</font>[/QUOTE]"Please show how all the "Bob lied" rhetoric is justified when you have to make embarrassing confessions like the one above?"

You know - where you youself ADMIT that the ANCESTORS PRESENTED as fact in the horse series ARE NOT in fact the ancestoral sequence FOUND in the fossil record.

Without this ability to clearly see the implication of the failed belief system of evolutionism - how can you be expected to see its impact on the Gospel message?

You know.... fact.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

As the previous post shows - the devotees to the atheist doctrines of evolutionism have fully come out and exposed their weakness in the case of the horse series - making the bold claims I just posted above.

Now notice how they absolutely deny that such claims are not even allowed apart from junk-science.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
"This is true of all the thirty-two orders of mammals . . The earliest and most primitive known members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed."—*G.G. Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944), p. 105.

"Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. ... Ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information."
D. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology", Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 50, pg 24, 1979.

</font>[/QUOTE]In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Combining the last two posts - we find the expected result - scientists ashamed of the bold claims, blunders, gaffs, flaws, junk-science, over-statements and factless void that we know historically as "the horse series".

Result: Atheist Evolutionists disparage the horse series fraud

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
The enormous increase in fossil evidence since Simpson's time has allowed paleontologists .... to falsify this view. In other words, bushiness now pervades the entire phylogeny of horses.
S. J. Gould, Full House 1997, pg 67-69.

The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today’s much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown.
B. Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, Nov 5, 1980, sec. 4 pg 15.

"Throughout the history of horses, the species are well-marked and static over millions of years."
S. Gould, Full House, p. 69.

"High school textbooks propose that, ..., the rabbit sized Eohippus commenced his move up through the evolutionary ranks, one incremental step after another. ... The high school progression is an artifact; .... The facts are discrete. There is no hint of gradual change, no hint either of selective advantages accumulating."
D. Berlinski, review of Full House, O&D 18(1), pg 30.

"I admit that an awful lot of that [imaginary stories] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum of Natural History] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable ..."
Niles Eldredge, as quoted in Luther D Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th ed. 1988, pg 78.

"The uniform continuous transformation of Hyracotherium into Equus, so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature."— *G.G. Simpson, Life of the Past (1953), p. 119.

</font>[/QUOTE]In Christ,

Bob

 

[UTEOTW]

"The first section of my post was the section showing with the "old" discredited view of the horse series was - and how smooth stepwise transition was thought to be "a science fact" when in fact it was nothing but "science fiction".

I show in my post how that view was later discredited - but you seem to have latched on to the discredited view and claimed it as your own."

YOu have two SImpson quotes from the 1950's. I don't imagine that the two opinions are different. In effect, you quoted two things that do not agree, at least when you quote them. When placed in context, they agree and not with the way you think.

"How many times do I have to point out that my post - SHOWS the flaws in that - it SHOWS that the "feet come with the animal" as do the teeth. When you claim that the FEET of A are not the ancestor to the FEET of B - then you are admitting that A is not the ancestor of B - and when you admit that this did not even OCCUR IN NATURE - then not only are the FEET wrong - but the ANIMALS are WRONG! "

You'll have to explain to me what you mean there. Just what are you asserting. And to save time, what is your citation?

"You know - where you youself ADMIT that the ANCESTORS PRESENTED as fact in the horse series ARE NOT in fact the ancestoral sequence FOUND in the fossil record."

All I say is that the earliest sequence was incomplete, thugh accurate for what was known. It presented an incomplete picture. That picture was later filled in quite richly. Even by the 1950's the rich history was know. See your quote above from Simpson on this very subject.

All those nice quotes in your newer post still say the horse sequence is good. Your last two are about (1) punctuated equilibrium and (2) how the incomplete horse sequence had to be filled in as new specimens were found. No problems there. At least for my opinion.

 

[BobRyan]

Nice going. Long live the homeschool!

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Having published the way that scientists have distanced themselves from the debunked and discredited horse series - - "what about that Archaeopteryx" that UTEOTW is so anxious to study??

What Does UTEOTW love to claim about it?

Examples of Evolutionists making junk-science grandiose claims for smooth transistions.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
The creature thus memorialized was Archaeopteryx lithographica, and, though indisputably birdlike, it could with equal truth be called reptilian.... The Archaeopteryx fossil is, in fact, the most superb example of a specimen perfectly intermediate between two higher groups of living organisms--what has come to be called a "missing link," a Rosetta stone of evolution.
(Alan Feduccia, The Origin and Evolution of Birds, Yale University Press)

This was posted on the Baptist board by UTEOTW –
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2740/3.html#000044

From http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm

Contrary to Creationist claims, the transitions among vertebrate species are almost all documented to a greater or lesser extent. Archeopteryx is an exquisite link between reptiles and birds; the therapsids provide an abundance of evidence for the transition from reptiles to mammals.

Hmm – we have the clear “claim” that B is a perfect link BETWEEN A and C. The claim that Archy is an exquisite link BETWEEN reptiles and birds.

But wait! There is more to UTEOTW’s post

Moreover, there are exquisite fossil links between the crossopterygian fishes and the amphibians (the icthyostegids). Of course, many other ancestor-descendent series also exist in the fossil record. I have mentioned (Chapter 4) the bactritid-ammonoid transition, the derivation of several mammalian orders from condylarthlike mammals, the evolution of horses, and of course the hominids. Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented at all. But in view of the rapid pace evolution can take, and the extreme incompleteness of fossil deposits, we are fortunate to have as many transitions as we do. The creationist argument that if evolution were true we should have an abundance of intermediate fossils is built by denying the richness of paleontological collections, by denying the transitional series that exist, and by distorting, or misunderstanding, the genetic theory of evolution.

</font>[/QUOTE]So what do the high and lofty atheists that UTEOTW holds in such regard --- have to say about it?

So is Archy really a species-B that is intermediate BETWEEN true A and True C. Between True Bird and True Reptile --?

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
At the 1984 International Archaeopteryx Conference held in Eichstatt, the consensus was that Archaeopteryx was a "bird," but not necessarily the ancestor of modern birds (Dodson 1985, Howgate 1985a).

________________________________________

If evolutionists are willing to reduce their own argument to claiming that “TRUE C should be considered as a transitions between A and C “ -- then NO WONDER evolutionism’s devotees claim to have "transitions". The wonder is that they don’t claim to have even more.

So what is the truth about Archaeopteryx? Perhaps the late Colin Patterson, while serving as senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, summed it up best when he stated that Archaeopteryx has simply become a patsy for wishful thinking. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not a part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test (as quoted in Sunderland, 1988, p. 102).

In an article published several years ago in Paleobiology, Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, and Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History, wrote concerning Archaeopteryx:

Smooth intermediates between Baupläne [the German word meaning basic morphological designs or different types of creatures—BH/BT] are almost impossible to construct, even in thought experiments. There is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like Archaeopteryx do not count)” [Gould and Eldredge, 1977, 3:147, parenthetical comment in orig.].

"How [feathers] arose initially, presumably from reptiles scales, defies analysis... It seems, from the complex construction of feathers, that their evolution from reptilian scales would have required an immense period of time and involved a series of intermediate structures. So far, the fossil record does not bear out that supposition. (Barbara J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, Dover, 1985, pp. 349-350.)"
</font>[/QUOTE][/quote]

Well there you have the long sought after REPEAT of the SAME quotes already published by me on this topic of Archaeopteryx.

After seeing the arguments scientist use AGAINST the notion of smooth transitional forms and the tendancy to "make them" up, that was exposed in the horse series above -- it is amazing that they turn right around and "try it again" with birds.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[Craigbythesea]

BobRyan wrote:

So I assume you are not talking about Answers in Genesis.

No. Science is science and religion is religion. Attempts to mix the two together make both of them appear to be nonsense.

Have you had a chance to read actuall scientists speaking out in favor of scripture's view of origins?

I do not believe that a true scientist, speaking or writing as a scientist, would allow himself to confuse the issue by introducing something as irrelevant to science as the Bible.

Have you researched the credentials of those people?

Local to my own church I have a Chemist (PHD) and Physicist (PHD) that seem to have found a lot of fellow scientists in favor of the scientific support for God's Word on creation - including AIG.

Yes, I have “researched” the credentials of those people and found them to have none. A Ph.D. in chemistry does not qualify anyone to argue biology, and the same is true of a Ph.D. in Physics. The husband of a friend of mine was required to complete a Ph.D. in biochemistry, a Ph.D. physics, and a Ph.D. biology to get a desired research position with his company, and he still was not qualified to argue for or against evolutionary biology. Only evolutionary biologists have the credentials to argue for or against the theories of evolutionary biology. Can you imagine a botanist specializing in the flora of northwest Afghanistan walking into a hospital operating room and doing a heart-lung transplant???

So do you have a view on things "like" the published statements by atheist evolutionists on the problems with the initial sequence that Simpson published for the horse?

I have known many evolutionists, but none of them, as far as I know, were atheists. One them, who was recognized all over the world for his expertise in a very specialized branch of evolutionary biology, was a Christian, but at the time I was not a Christian and religion seldom came up. When it did, it was not spoken against. The conflict between evolutionary biology and the Christian faith is a myth invented by Christians who understood neither science nor the Christian faith.

It is one thing to "know" the fairtale details of the atheist evolutionist theories that oppose God's Word - it is another to "believe" them.

There is no such thing as “atheist evolutionist theories” and if you had any knowledge at all of evolutionary biology, you would know that. It is also painfully obvious that you have not studied literature, because if you had, you would know what fairytales are. And if you had studied even a small sampling of the literature on the Book of Genesis, you would know that Genesis does not concern itself with science of any kind, pro, con, or whatever.

Are you saying that you see now connection between God's view of Origins in Genesis 1 and in John 1 -- and the Gospel of John?

No. I am not talking about that subject because it is irrelevant.

I agree with the need to be "informed". But being informed about a lie is not the same thing as believing it.

A “lie” is a DELIBERATE false misrepresentation of the truth. None of the theories of evolution are DELIBERATE false misrepresentations of the truth. But one thing that is certain is that you have past judgment on evolutionary biology without first becoming an evolutionary biologist and working in the both the laboratory and the field, and therefore you have ZERO basis upon which to base any of the hateful, hurtful, and malicious claims in your posts. Therefore you are not bringing a reproach upon evolutionary biology, but you are bringing a reproach upon the Christian faith, and I find such conduct to be absolutely disgraceful. The Church today has enough problems without such an abysmal reproach being brought upon it.

And the evolutionaryu biologist is being witnessed to - so that they might one day accept the Gospel.

Evolutionary biologists are being shown first hand what ignorant and foolish bigots Evangelical Christians can be. Just 100 years ago, the very large majority of evolutionary biologists were Christians. But that is not the case today, and it is not the case today because “Evangelical Christians” have made a mockery of the gospel and made our savior an icon of ignorance and gross stupidity.

BUT IF the evolutionary biolgist is TEACHING the evangelical Christian about the Gospel that results from bonding atheist evolutionism to the John 1 Gospel statement on the creator and origins and the Gospel statements about the accuracy of the DETAILS in scripture's account of origins - you have a "problem for the Christians".

This is absolutely ignorant nonsense of the most abysmal kind. Evolutionary theory is not a religion and poses absolutely NO threat to the Christian faith, but the assault upon evolutionary theory by “Evangelical Christians” is doing immeasurable and irreparable harm to the Christian faith by portraying the Christian faith as the antithesis of Christian values.

The Evangelical Church has lost its focus. Evolution in nature is not the problem—sin in the church is the problem! Only if the Church will repent of its own sins can it even begin to make the Evangelical Christian Faith appear to the evolutionary biologist to be anything better than a reproach upon our Savior.

Should an evolutionist be allowed to teach Sunday school in churches today? Absolutely yes. Should an anti-evolutionist bigot be allowed to teach Sunday school in churches today? Absolutely not! It is the job of a Sunday school teacher—through his or her own personal life, conduct, and witness—to teach others the spiritual values found in the Bible that together constitute the Christian faith, and to nurture these values. The theories of evolutionary biology are 100% irrelevant to this job, and personal bigotry has no place in the Sunday school classroom.

 

[gb93433]

Originally posted by Craigbythesea:

Just 100 years ago, the very large majority of evolutionary biologists were Christians. But that is not the case today, and it is not the case today because “Evangelical Christians” have made a mockery of the gospel and made our savior an icon of ignorance and gross stupidity.

You are right. It was the Christians who ran Keil and Delitzsch out of town because they taught creation and the Christians believed evolution. It was later that the Christians in the same country also supported Hitler too.


The Evangelical Church has lost its focus. Evolution in nature is not the problem—sin in the church is the problem!

The Church is not very evangelical nor is it very well studied. But I would have to disagree with your statement about evolution. Evolution has tripped up many and caused them to stumble around and too many to leave the faith. It mostly because the church has not answers for their faith. It is too much of a God said it, I believe it, that settles it attitude. Too much ignorance gives one nothing to share. I have never seen a believer who knows the Bible well not share their faith.

 

[Todd]

Moving back to the original question, I wouldn't allow someone who I knew to affirm macro-evolution to teach a SS class at my church. The reason is quite simple: Plain exegesis will not allow someone to affirm evolution while also affirming the historical truthfulness of Gen. 1-3. Most liberals and moderates have seen that such is the case, so instead of giving up their macro-evolutionary positions, they have insisted on arguing that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are allegorical, figurative, apocolyptic, etc. There are many problems with such a view, but one of them is glaring.

As part of my doctoral work, I have just recently read "He Is There and He Is Not Silent" by Francis Schaeffer, and he points to this glaring problem with such explanations of Gen. 1-11. His starting point in the book is basically that there is a personal, infinite God who created all that is ("He is There"). He then goes on to talk about man's moral dilemma. He says there are two possibilities: Either man now exists as he always has (and thus he is not responsible for the horribly wicked things that happen in our world today because God created him that way), or there was a time when man chose to rebel against God and become abnormal (obviously, this is the Fall of man).

Here's how all this relates to the evolution issue. If someone tries to argue around a creation that transpired in six literal 24-hour days by saying that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are figurative as opposed to historically accurate, then how can we as Christians possibly argue that there was a literal fall of man into sin? If the creation account of Gen. 1-2 can't be taken literally, then how can the Fall of man in Gen. 3? It seems that if macro-evolutionists are going to be consistent, then they would have to say that the biblical account of man's Fall is also to be understood figuratively, and if so, then it wasn't an actual historical event that ushered sin and death into the human race.

Therefore, by allowing a SS teacher to teach that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are figurative, it seems that a Pastor would be allowing the formation of more problems rather than providing solutions for existing ones. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Macro-evolution can not stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2. Therefore, all attempts at making macro-evolution jive with Scripture (theistic evolution, gap theories, day-age theories, etc.) are nothing more than attempts to place God as a bookend upon a theory that was forged in the fires of post-Renaissance atheism and humanism.

Someone please correct my misunderstanding if I am wrong.

 

[Michael52]

Originally posted by Craigbythesea:
... Science is science and religion is religion. Attempts to mix the two together make both of them appear to be nonsense.

EXACTLY!

The qualifications for a Sunday school teacher should be that they are a Christian who upholds the doctrines of the local Church and know the Bible well enough that they can teach what the Bible itself says. Mixing in a lot of half-baked pseudo-science and calling it “Biblical” is an extreme disservice to God, the Bible and objective science.

 

[Craigbythesea]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Macro-evolution can not stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2.

The subject of macroevolution belongs to the realm of science; Gen. 1-2 belongs to the realm of religion. Therefore macroevolution does not need to stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2; all it needs to do is to stand up to good science, and it does admirably.

As I have already posted elsewhere on this message board, I am a creationist. I believe that God supernaturally created Adam without any links, missing or otherwise, but since the Bible gives us no details as to how He went about creating Adam, I have no religious convictions as to how He went about it. However, the Bible does give us a few details about how sin entered into the world in which we are now living, and it gives us very many details about the solution to the resultant sin problem.

I find very many “Evangelical Christians” are living in the most dreadful of sins and are at the same time wildly attacking the theory of evolution as though attacking science is more important than facing their own personal sinfulness and looking to God and His Holy Scriptures to find the solution to their own personal sin problem. They relish in the absurdly false and silly notion that they are righteous in God’s sight and yet living in sin and pointing a finger of hate and judgment at others.

As an evolutionary biologist, I learned first hand that the theories of macroevolution face unresolved difficulties, and there are today tens of thousands of biologists working to resolve those difficulties.

As the senior pastor of a church I learned first hand that the theories of soteriology face no fewer unresolved difficulties, and there are today tens of thousands of theologians working to resolve those difficulties. But it seems to me that the scientists are working a whole lot harder, and a whole lot more honestly, to resolve the difficulties of their theories than the theologians are working to eliminate sin from the Christian community.

No theory of evolution poses even the very slightest threat to a healthy Christian community, but when the Christian community is sick, the members of it are bound to look for answers from outside the community, and the answers that they find may prove to be devastating to that community.

An Evangelical Christian church is not going to be any healthier than its Sunday school teachers, and excellent health for a Sunday school teacher begins with an awareness of the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and God’s solution found in the atonement of Christ made personally efficacious by grace through faith. Whether the Sunday school teacher is a plumber, an electrician, a biologist, or a homemaker is irrelevant. What is relevant is their love for their Savior and their love for others as manifested by their personal holiness and their sacrificial giving of themselves.

 

[Craigbythesea]

Therefore, all attempts at making macro-evolution jive with Scripture (theistic evolution, gap theories, day-age theories, etc.) are nothing more than attempts to place God as a bookend upon a theory that was forged in the fires of post-Renaissance atheism and humanism.

Most of the theories of macroevolution are in conflict with some of the most common interpretations of Genesis 1-11 put forth by Evangelical Christians. But that is not the case of all theories of macroevolution. For example, the following theory:

The earth is three to four billion years old. About three billion years ago, when the earth was still in a prebiotic state, a primordial ooze which included pantoyl lactone, beta-alanine, and cysteamine was baking in the sun, and the heat from the sun (about 105 degrees Fahrenheit) caused the formation of pantetheine which is related to coenzyme A, which in turn made possible the formation of simple amino acids which in turn gave rise to the formation of biomolecules and eventually the very simplest forms of life.

From these very simple forms of life evolved, through natural selection, more complex forms of life which, over a period of millions of years, gave rise to the complex forms of life of which we have today billions upon billions of fossils. These complex forms of life included the dinosaurs which became extinct do to a huge meteor striking what is now the Yucatan Peninsula and throwing up into the atmosphere a very thick cloud of dust and other debris. Other forms of life which were less sensitive to the adverse effects of the cloud survived and evolved. One or more of these lines of evolution produced human-like creatures which subsequently became extinct for reasons at present unknown to us.

*******

If such a theory is a true, then according to some very conservative interpretations of Genesis 1 – 11 another catastrophe occurred which caused the earth to be, in the words on Genesis 1, “without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

“God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” as the new catastrophic cloud causing the darkness gave way to the rays of the sun.

Gen. 1:4. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
5. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

And Genesis 1 continues to describe the dawning of a new earth.

(All scriptures are from the NASB, 1995)

 

[Craigbythesea]

Originally posted by Michael52:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Craigbythesea:
... Science is science and religion is religion. Attempts to mix the two together make both of them appear to be nonsense.

EXACTLY!

The qualifications for a Sunday school teacher should be that they are a Christian who upholds the doctrines of the local Church and know the Bible well enough that they can teach what the Bible itself says. Mixing in a lot of half-baked pseudo-science and calling it “Biblical” is an extreme disservice to God, the Bible and objective science. </font>[/QUOTE]Amen! Thank you for your contribution to this thread!

 

[Todd]

quote:
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I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Macro-evolution can not stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2.

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The subject of macroevolution belongs to the realm of science; Gen. 1-2 belongs to the realm of religion. Therefore macroevolution does not need to stand up to the faithful exegesis and exposition of Gen. 1-2; all it needs to do is to stand up to good science, and it does admirably.


Well, it's nice to see that at least there is one macroevolutionary proponent here who is willing to concede that macroevolutionary theories of creation can't be grounded in the faithful exegesis of God's Word. Thanks for being honest Craig. Consider this then:

1. The Word of God can't possibly be inerrant if the author of the book of Genesis simply chose to borrow a creation account, a flood account, etc. from other cultures. Either the words of Gen. 1-11 are the very Word of God and free from all error, or they are simply the compilation of stories borrowed from other cultures. You can't have it both ways. I'll choose to believe what the Word of God says about itself - "All Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16).

2. Who gives us the right to say that the Bible is a book of religion and has nothing at all to say about matters of science? If that is true, then how can we accept what the Bible says about the historicity of ancient civilizations? How can we accept what the Bible says about the existence of supernatural occurences such as miracles? For that matter, how can we accept wha the Bible has to say about soteriological matters if we can't accept what it has to say about matters of science?

Thanks for helping to make my point Craig.

 

[UTEOTW]

You missed the point.

Genesis does not stray into the scientific details. It is enough for us to know that God is the Creator. The details are left out. All Craig has admitted is that you cannot make the account of Creation in Genesis specifically say God used on old earth method. But it is not ruled out either. This was not an admission that Genesis is incompatible with an old earth. Genesis even sayd that the land and the waters brought forth life. Sounds like He could have used long processes to me.

I believe that Craig's views are also much more complicated than you imagine.

Finally, we can trust God's own general revelation in the Creation itself to fill in the details of how He created. And it was through billions of years.

 

[Craigbythesea]

Thanks for helping to make my point Craig.

And precisely what is the point that you have made? All that I see in your post is rambling nonsense.