Posted on 12/01/2008 2:33:55 PM PST by Fichori
First published:
Creation 19(4):22–23
September 1997
by Carl Wieland
The chilling revelations of a recent television documentary1 expose the disturbing consequences of evolutionary ways of thinking. Beginning in the 1920s, many thousands of people in the United States were sterilised against their will and without their consent, to prevent ‘undesirable breeding’. Over 8,000 of these procedures took place at a major centre to which such ‘undesirables’ were sent, in Lynchburg, Virginia.
(Excerpt) Read more at answersingenesis.org ...
You know, I really enjoy the bloated sense of intellectual superiority here. You assume that because I believe what is described in the first chapters of Genesis is what God did, I must be too stupid to figure out what a parable is. Tank yoo fer halping mee see dat I am stoopid.
I reject a total literal interpretation of everything in the Bible.
Great, so does pretty much everyone else with a brain. The problem is that there are some people who say "I don't take everything in the Bible literally" and they mean "I know the Good Samaritan and the Ten Virgins were literary constructs" and other people say "I don't take everything in the Bible literally" and they mean that it's a book of fairy stories, or a book of fact and fairy stories mixed together that they (unlike rubes such as myself and say, Thomas Aquinas) are gifted enough to sort out.
Those individuals are making the same mistake you are. They are interpreting Genesis as though it was intended to be a literal description of creation when in fact it merely states, in effect, that God created the world and everything in it. The rest is more or less literary addition.
If you were going to tell a bunch of readers that God created the world, you would spend around 1,400 words doing so, and put it in a fifty chapter book that includes at least 39 chapters of history?
And if Genesis is so obviously allegory and not history, what was Jesus doing telling people to guide their relationship choices by its account?
The average neolithic pastoralist in Palestine would not understand a detailed description of evolution and how God actually created the world and speciation. Furthermore, that topic is not what the Bible is about anyway.
So instead of writing a detailed account of evolution for the average neolithic pastoralist or just saying, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth and everything in it," the writer of Genesis decided to spend around 1,400 words (over 2,500 if you include the chapters on the Fall of Man and Cain and Abel) on a fairy story?
Does that make any sense at all? And, if you're a Christian, you have to ask why Jesus, God in the flesh, was walking around and He didn't say, "There wasn't a six day creation, that's just poetry, but I did create everything in a few billion years," instead of perpetuating it.
Evolution may be due to mutations and genetic changes, but terming the results as due to mere chance is expressing a personal opinion about religion which has no basis in science. God created the world, including the laws of evolution by which speciation occurs.
How do you know God created the world?
Are you a Chrisitan? If so, how do you reconcile your faith, which posits that death entered the word when man sinned (1 Corinthians 15:21), with the doctrine of natural selection, which can't work if there's no death? If Genensis is allegory, the New Testament is a fairy story, too.
Nothing in particular, I just think it's illustrative.
BTW, you're not an atheist or agnostic, but you should be aware that those who are tend to be far more likely to embrace psuedoscience than people who believe in a mainstream religion, and their likelihood to believe in it increases with level of education. (For religionists, belief in pseudoscience declines as education increases.)
[[God has no place in science class, either for or against. God and HIS actions and HIS plan are not subject to scientific analysis.]]
Lol what an ignorant statement- IF that is the case- the forensic science has NO place in science either- you’re battign a 1000 allmen- Keep up the ‘good work’ lol
[[First I heard “God has no place in science class”. Now it’s “God has no place in science class, for or against”...]]
MOST Anti-Christian agendist and scientists feel that way- they just don’t have the guts to coem right out and say it and isntead prefer to play footsies under the table all the while sneerign behind ID’s back. Hitler at least had the guts to admit he hated people- His followers however don’t.
[[[[God has no place in science class, either for or against. God and HIS actions and HIS plan are not subject to scientific analysis.]]]]
As Well- I guess we’d better inform every police ofrce across the country that they’d better stop looking for fingerprints and clues that show beyond a reasonable doubt that intelligent designers were behind crimes and just accept that all crims must have ‘happend naturally’ and without hte help of any intelligence.
We’d also better informa all archeologists to stop looking for signs of itnelligence buried under groudn as well, because apparently, everythign that is made comes about naturally, and that it;s pointless looking for any signs of intelligence Behind whatever designs they might uncover- Just tell them to accept that they arose naturally.
Yup- No sense looking for FACTUAL evidences in science that Biolgical impossibilites might just yeild up signs of intellgent design- Best just to clamp our hands over our eyes and declare everythign must have arisen naturally despite being biolgically impossible. Ignorance is king I guess.
Catholics have their own developed theory of intelligent design which predates the ID movement by some 800 years. That's what you would learn in a proper Catholic school.
Of course. In fact, in Catholic natural theology, even atoms and forces are designed with an end in view. As a fully developed theory, Catholic "intelligent design" is about 8 centuries old. Starting with Leo XIII, Popes have requested a modern renewal of Thomistic philosophy and hence Catholic "intelligent design". So, Catholics have their own intellectual heritage with respect to Design and Creation, which they seek to preserve and teach in their schools.
Yes it is.
Pull the taxpayer funding and the theory will wither on the dead decayed vine.
What "public funding" do you mean, and what do you base that assesment on?
Who pays for public education, the base foundation upon which the theory got its 'grace'? All that artwork created as evidence to demonstrate a supposed descent from the 'great' ape down to the lower forms labeled humanoids. Few religions of this planet are more cultured than the theory and by law its existence is mandated via taxpayers pockets.
My point would not be any less valid if Behe were a total drooling moron and his stuff stood up less than 100 seconds. Any evidence that falsifies evolution will be termed arguing from ignorance and worshipping the God of the gaps. Evolution, you see, has become too big to fail...
Genomic data could have falsified evolution and common descent. Instead it confirmed it in spades.
The fossil record could at any time yield up evidence of winged or hoofed mammals were contemporaneous with dinosaurs, throwing off the chronological narrative of life's development on Earth.
Numerous experiments on natural selection in the lab could have shown the futility of natural selection as a means of changing a population, instead the experiments show how robust the mechanism is.
In other words, you have no idea what you are talking about and are arguing from ignorance while promoting a “God of the gaps” philosophy. ;)
Exactly right. I.D. is NOT taught in Catholic school.
Catholic schools teach evolution, and they teach that the universe was created and is ruled by God. These are not contradictory notions.
The theory has won out due to the strength of its ability to explain and predict the data.
Do you think the theory of universal gravitation of mass is similarly dependent upon public funding? That if they stopped teaching it in public schools and researching it at public universities that it would “wither on the vine”?
I didn’t go to Catholic school but somewhere I was taught the same thing. Evolution is God’s plan and he is all powerful and can make it happen according to his plan. All this stupid arguing is just that .........stupidity!
No I don;t think you are stupid at all and I'm sorry if I gave that impression. But I think you are failing to accept that multiple interpretations can be ascribed to a passage in a Biblical Text.
“and other people say “I don't take everything in the Bible literally” and they mean that it's a book of fairy stories, or a book of fact and fairy stories mixed together that they (unlike rubes such as myself and say, Thomas Aquinas) are gifted enough to sort out.”
Thomas Aquinas never heard of DNA, mutations or the geological record. But if he had, I think he would be in my corner. As a matter of fact, the Catholic Church accepts the possibility of evolution and has no problem with it as a potential threat to Biblical authenticity or Orthodoxy. And I hardly believe the Bible is a collection of “Fairy Tales”. That is a false construct of my position - and that of very many other Christians who accept evolution and have no problem reconciling them with Biblical revelation.
“If you were going to tell a bunch of readers that God created the world, you would spend around 1,400 words doing so, and put it in a fifty chapter book that includes at least 39 chapters of history? “
You would explain it in a way that had some degree of relevance to them and their sense of existence. Who am I to determine what God's definition of a “day” is???
“And if Genesis is so obviously allegory and not history, what was Jesus doing telling people to guide their relationship choices by its account?”
I didn't say all of Genesis was allegorical. I just said that the description of creation in Genesis was “simplified” for the benefit of the audience involved and it was not intended to be a detailed scientific explanation of creation and evolution.
It would take far more than 1,400 words to explain to a group of neolithic shepherds what evolution meant. They didn't even have words in their vocabulary for most of the terminology involved.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth and everything in it,” the writer of Genesis decided to spend around 1,400 words (over 2,500 if you include the chapters on the Fall of Man and Cain and Abel) on a fairy story?”
I never said Cain and Abel were fairy stories. It seems to me to be a reasonable account of an actual event. (Did you actually COUNT them?? REMEMBER - it was written in Hebrew and the number of words involved in conveying an idea varies from language to language especially considering the fact that English and Hebrew are in two entirely different linguistic families. But I applaud you for your zeal and am willing to concede the 1400 words.)
“Does that make any sense at all? And, if you're a Christian, you have to ask why Jesus, God in the flesh, was walking around and He didn't say, “There wasn't a six day creation, that's just poetry, but I did create everything in a few billion years,” instead of perpetuating it.”
TWO REASONS:
1) The average Israelite of the time had no more understanding of science than the people God was speaking to when the Bible was written.
2) He had more important things to do at the time, like teach people about what is really important and moral in life, His sacrifice, salvation and the Second Coming. I think those little items are far more significant than how God made snakes.
“How do you know God created the world? “
VERY GOOD QUESTION.
Well, actually because I believe in the Bible and the Bible tells me He did. Also. I think it is sort of a programmed thought in Human Beings. The overwhelming number of people in the past who were not Christians or Jews believed SOMEBODY created the world. It might not have been the real God, but they believed SOMEBODY did it. Something cannot come from nothing, and all the complex scientific rules and facts that govern existence, evolution and cosmology cannot have just “happened” all by themselves. In my mind, that defies logic.
“Are you a Christan? “
I believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God Who died to save me from my sins. I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as His Father and I believe in the Holy Spirit - the whole Nicene Creed and the Bible as the Foundation Rock on which it is based. I note there is nothing in the Nicene Creed about evolution pro or con.
“If so, how do you reconcile your faith, which posits that death entered the word when man sinned (1 Corinthians 15:21),”
I believe the Bible there refers to the Death of Adam and Eve, not to the deaths of the rest of the creatures of Creation.
“with the doctrine of natural selection, which can't work if there's no death?”
I believe that man's BODY evolved, not his immortal soul. When God put the immortal soul of man into Adam's body, he in effect “created” the first “real” Human Being. The rest - the australopithicines, etc, were just “prototypes” if you will. in the development of the ultimate product. When Genesis refers to the Dust of the earth as what Adam was created from, I believe it is referring to his body arising from a lower animal.
“If Genesis is allegory, the New Testament is a fairy story, too.”
I never said all of Genesis was allegory. But the accounts in the New Testament, aside from parables which were made to convey a moral message - not relate an actual event - appear to be almost or entirely factual.
I don't mean to insult you or demean your intelligence or faith in any way. You sound like a sincere, intelligent, devoted Christian. But when you attack my beliefs because they don't seem to jell with your interpretation of the Bible, I feel that is unfair.
I think Science Classes in school should teach evolution because that is what the consensus of most scientists reflects. But I do NOT believe that teachers should in way extrapolate from the scientific theories of evolution to mean that the Bible is false or that God did not create the world. When they do that, they are straying from science into Theology and Philosophy.
NONE of us can REALLY know the mind of God. We can read the scriptures, observe the real world around us and reconcile the two to make sure our beliefs reflect reality.
There is no way a finite mind can comprehend an Infinite Intelligence in the long run.
So basically, we're talking about eliminating public education.
Indeed they are. "Evolution" says that the development of life on earth is non-teleological. Catholic natural theology says it is. The two are incompatible.
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