Posted on 08/01/2013 10:40:10 AM PDT by fishtank
Once again folks are distracted into Bishop Usher’s 6,000 year old world and literal interpretation, versus that the time span in Genesis is an allegory to represent time before there was a 24 hour day created by God.
This distracts us from centering Jesus’ the message of salvation for each of us and the guide on how for each of us to live as He taught. we need to center on what unites us as Christians, not internal discussions such as this. To me, God created the universe, world, animals, and mankind. Throw out this center piece over whether or not it was 7 x 24 hour days or millions/billions of years, is doing nothing but giving our enemies arguments against us and keep us distracted from spreading Jesus’ message to the people of the world.
Job 40:15-24
New International Version (NIV)
15 “Look at Behemoth,
which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox.
16 What strength it has in its loins,
what power in the muscles of its belly!
17 Its tail sways like a cedar”
The entire Gospel hinges on the existence of the historical Adam, since Christ is the self-proclaimed Second Adam, who by His obedience frees us from the disobedience of one.
As for Evolution, it falls to pieces under close examination. It’s only impressive for those who don’t really understand it themselves.
Evolution seems to hold together to me. In particular it meshes well with chaos theory, where evolution is one of many non-linear processes, leading to ‘punctuated equilibrium’.
Darwin did hundreds of experiments, and it was his work to explain why various species were in some places, and not in others absent human intervention that convinced most people of his day.
Archbishop Ussher predicted that the world was created on October 23, 4004 BC at 9 AM--and we must assume that it was Pacific Daylight Time.
On October 23, 1972, my geology class at Occidental College met at 9 AM, so the geology majors threw a surprise party in the classroom to celebrate Earth's birthday. It made the local TV news.
Darwin was ignorant about the complexities of even the smallest of living cells or even the means of heredity, save perhaps, in the latter case, for a certain friar. It’s easy to imagine a wolf “evolving” into a dog, even though all you really have is a loss of genetic information through selective breeding. The premise of evolution is that new things can be created through random mutation, but when you look at something like, perhaps, the mechanism a cell uses to produce ATP, you’re looking at a complex system of proteins which, if you look at the 3D models, literally resemble a working machine pump all bundled together tightly and, if even one is out of the place, would be rendered utterly useless. Yet the evolutionist glosses over all these fine details to point us toward broad assumptions.
I missed a phrase in that first sentence. It should have read ‘Darwin and the people of his era were ignorant of... save perhaps for a certain friar.”
Evolution does not deny an historical Adam and Eve. In fact, a single man who was the forefather of the entire race is likely.
Humans have one less chromosome than the other great apes. One human chromosome is nearly identical to two chimpanzee chromosomes attached to each other at the ends, through a failed telomere (telomere is the repetitive set of genetic sequences that terminate a chromosome). Because reproduction with dissimilar numbers of chromosomes is much less likely, such a person is even likely given modern understanding of genes. That filtering of genetic diversity through a small number of forbears is one reason why there is less genetic diversity among the entire human race than there is between two chimps in the same troop.
Humans have records in our chromosomes of genetic diseases caused by retroviruses. So do chimpanzees. In fact, there are 16 instances where chimpanzees and humans have identical genetic sequences caused by retroviruses, at corresponding places in the chromosome.
That means that either
(1) we evolved from the common ancestor of both chimp and human after that common ancestor was infected with genetic diseases or
(2) 16 times G-d decided to insert genetic damage from retroviri at identical places in human and chimp DNA to fool us.
If G-d is a liar, then you see no problem.
A lot of the functions would not work as that function without all the parts, but would work as something else.
Example, without a lens the eye doesn’t work as an eye, but it does work as a light dark detector.
Without a flexible lens the eye doesn’t work as an eye, but it does work as a fixed focus imager.
There are fossils of stingless bees. The bee stings evolved from bee genitalia.
“That means that either
(1) we evolved from the common ancestor of both chimp and human after that common ancestor was infected with genetic diseases or
(2) 16 times G-d decided to insert genetic damage from retroviri at identical places in human and chimp DNA to fool us.”
Or, the third option, you’re looking at the same designer making similar things in similar ways, with lots of evolutionist exaggeration pushed in too. As for evolution not denying the historical Adam. Per the scripture, there was no death before the fall (Rom 5:12). Therefore, unless Adam’s ancestors were all immortal chimps, he cannot possibly exist within the evolutionist framework.
Very Good.
Or one could say that God created the apes, but wasn’t satisfied with the result. He then tweaked it a bit and came up with a winner in Adam.
“Example, without a lens the eye doesn’t work as an eye, but it does work as a light dark detector.”
A poor example, because even the “light-dark” detector is incredibly complex and cannot form through mere random chance.
“When light first strikes the retina a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. (A picosecond [10-12 sec] is about the time it takes light to travel the breadth of a single human hair.) The change in the shape of the retinal molecule forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein’s metamorphosis alters its behavior. Now called metarhodopsin II, the protein sticks to another protein, called transducin. Before bumping into metarhodopsin II, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with metarhodopsin II, the GDP falls off, and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but different from, GDP.)
GTP-transducin-metarhodopsin II now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to metarhodopsin II and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the chemical ability to ‘cut’ a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, just as a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub.” (M.J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1996), p. 46.)
And this is just one aspect of it, as issues such as location, or whether or not the creature can even understand the input, come into play next.
And evolutionists want us to believe, since they cannot find a single common ancestor for the eye, that this fantastic mechanism could be formed independently more than 30 different times in different species.
This conclusion would deny the foreknowledge of God and the perfection of His work.
Oh wow, you win.
Depends on what you mean by death. If by death you mean the end of the living body then you have a theological point.
That would mean that dogs die because of Adam’s sin? Plants die because of Adam’s sin.
Was the fruit of knowledge of good and evil alive even when and while Adam and Eve ate it? Death didn’t exist, so it was still alive, though picked, bitten, chewed, but not yet swallowed? Only after he swallowed did it die, and not because it was macerated, but rather because of Adam’s sin.
So the animals and plants that made the fossils died because of Adam’s sin?
Or does death mean the theological death of a soul, not the physical and local triumph of entropy over self organizing life. Is there a soul without self awareness? If not, then without self-awareness, there may be no soul, and therefore no death of the soul.
So dogs, cats, worms may die without being theologically linked to Adam’s sin.
So was Moses. I didn't expect that Moses took so long on the mountain because he was studying biology.
The eye is made of soft tissues that do not normally fossilize.
you mentioned that structures without one part were completely non functional. I showed that you were wrong, without one part, the eye is functional, just not functional as an eye. That means your argument of irreducible complexity is countered.
Except that it doesn’t.
G-d may have had foreknowledge and been dissatisfied anyways.
Or G-d may have been satisfied with the ape as an ape, but used its raw material and the process of evolution to develop humans with self awareness and knowledge of sin.
Human point of view: random mutations, purposeful survival.
Divine point of view: Foreseen mutations, foreseen survival.
For humans, all processes, even the simple ones have an element of randomness, per quantum theory. For the Divine, with foreknowledge, perhaps less so.
Is G-d bound by the limitations of knowledge associated with quantum theory? He hasn’t told me specifically.
“Was the fruit of knowledge of good and evil alive even when and while Adam and Eve ate it? Death didn’t exist, so it was still alive, though picked, bitten, chewed, but not yet swallowed? Only after he swallowed did it die, and not because it was macerated, but rather because of Adam’s sin.”
You make a strong point, but it imagines that primates, and all the alleged ancestors of man, had no feelings, desires, dreams, and had the same value as a fruit being plucked from a tree and eaten. The principle of evolution is that after many millions of years of random mutation and natural selection (the survival of the fittest), that man eventually arose. Not as a finished work of perfection, but as a self-made champion who rose out of much blood shedding. This then super-human who evolved, then lived for a thousand years, though he should have lived forever, and died, and each human being thereafter died sooner and sooner, as the whole world, from the biblical sense, degraded from its height. And instead of God wanting to free-us from a flesh that, from your perspective, must die, He promises to return us again to our bodies, though made perfect, in the resurrection that will occur at the end of time.
It is much more logical to conclude that death was not just spiritual in the case of Adam, but physical for all the Earth, and that is why death and suffering grows worse and worse on this world. Not because it was initially made that way, but because it was cursed that way.
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